I think some safeguards should be included. That's the position of the section. The danger with cherry-picking the U.S. legislation, the Maritime Lien Act, is that there's a lot of it, and a lot of the provisions that work in the U.S. will not work up here in Canada. The numbers are different. That's why I made the offer to the committee to provide some words, because I believe there are words out there that we can massage for you, if I can put it that way, to put this into a Canadian context.
I think there are two safeguards that you need to have there as a minimum.
One is a notice provision, so that people are put on notice that charterers cannot bind owners. If there's a link between the supplier and the owner, then fine--I mean, fine the property. For a lot of companies, the ship is the only asset they have. It's a huge asset and it moves around the globe, so as an owner, you're not going to want liens attaching to your asset for no reason. So I think there should be a notice provision as a minimum.
The other one is that there should be a tail to it; you can't have a lien out there forever. There should be an extinguishment type of situation. If the bill's not going to be paid, then take proceedings. A lien is just something that is one step before starting an interim action in a courtroom. Take the action, start it, and argue it. If you have a point, you'll succeed; if you don't have a point, you won't succeed. But you can't have a lien out there forever, so there should be a tail to that. As for whether that tail should be three years, such as the general limitation period, or whether it should be shorter, the American legislation talks about 60 days, so there is a difference in timing.
I think what we, as a section, should do for you is take the weight of the American legislation and see if there are words we can put together for you as a committee that will suit a Canadian context and provide the safeguards for what is a good idea.