Witnesses, I want to thank you for your hard work on this bill. It has been many years in the making. I want to thank you especially for the amendments that relate to adventure tourism. Whitewater rafting in Canada was pioneered in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, just about an hour and a half up the river from Ottawa.
The problem was that when the maximums of insurance in the previous legislation were implemented, those maximums were the large shipping lines. The prime minister of the day had Canada Steamship Lines, and that would have benefited those types of companies greatly. But for adventure tourism, those maximum limits became their minimums. Some of these rafts have six people, some 12, some 20, depending the size of the raft. When you go rafting, the smaller the raft, the more exciting it becomes and the more active.
They had to have $350,000 per head on each person. But the problem wasn't even a matter of high premiums, necessarily. No insurance company was going to provide them with coverage. The industry faced extinction at that point. Out in rural areas, like Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, many summer jobs are provided through this industry. We started out with one, Wilderness Tours, and now there are many along both sides of the river.
Many people on the Hill and in industry spent their summers working with the rafting companies. It provides an income to university students so they can further their education, and it teaches them good ethics and how to be a good worker. So I thank you for that.
What I'd like you to do for us now is redefine what adventure tourism is.