Evidence of meeting #11 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spill.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
This provides an opportunity to enhance the response by bringing in international teams and expertise.
10:35 a.m.
Acting Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Yes. This is the objective.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
With respect to the AMPs, I know that administrative monetary penalties exist in other pieces of legislation, federal legislation. To develop these proposed AMPs, did you look at specific models that currently exist?
10:35 a.m.
Acting Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Well, we have experience with AMPs for other parts of the Shipping Act. It has been in force since 2009 so we have developed some experience with the use of those tools. They are very effective. They work very well. We're getting better compliance with the use of AMPs, so we're going to apply the same philosophy, the same way of operating that's in part 8 of the act.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Why is the highest AMP $25,000? That seems low to me.
10:35 a.m.
Acting Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
That is a very good question. Why is it $25,000? Why is it not $30,000?
It all depends on the infraction budget, but remember that the other measures, such as prosecution or decertification of ROs, for example, are still available to us. We still can go there.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
10:35 a.m.
Acting Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Yes.
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Conservative
10:35 a.m.
Acting Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Yes, it's $25,000.
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Acting Director General, Marine Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I'm sorry. On the fines, yes, it's fairly high.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I'm going to have to cut you off there, Mr. Braid.
Mr. Sullivan, you have five minutes.
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NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
With regard to hazardous and noxious substances, we know they aren't radioactive substances and they aren't oil, but they do include some forms of oil, refined oil or thinner oil. Am I correct? Would they include diluted bitumen, for example?
10:35 a.m.
Manager, International Marine Policy and Liability, Department of Transport
Diluted bitumen is a persistent oil, so no.
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Manager, International Marine Policy and Liability, Department of Transport
The diluent itself, if you are referring to the condensate, would.
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NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
How would you separate that out? If a ship is going through an oil handling facility or a ship contains oil that has a diluent in it, which is it: is it a hazardous and noxious substance or is it an oil?
10:35 a.m.
Manager, International Marine Policy and Liability, Department of Transport
The determination of what applies when depends on what caused the damage. If the damage is caused by the oil, which is the crude oil, then we know what regime applies to it. We know who's liable for it. If the damage is being caused by the condensate, which could be very different from what the heavy oil does, then we know where to go to get the compensation.
10:35 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
In an explosion like the one in Lac-Mégantic, would that be the oil or the diluent?
10:35 a.m.
Manager, International Marine Policy and Liability, Department of Transport
That would be mainly the HNS, what we're putting in place here.
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NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
That would be the HNS, something of that scale.
Has Transport Canada done a risk assessment of the increasing—we assume there is going to be an increasing—amount of this stuff coming through our ports over the coming years with the building of at least one and maybe two fairly large pipelines to the west coast? What has Transport Canada done in terms of analyzing what new risks there might be? That wasn't done with regard to rail traffic. Now we're talking about pipelines. What's the risk that we're about to—
10:35 a.m.
Director General, Marine Policy, Department of Transport
In terms of the risk assessment that has led to what I call our world-class tanker safety system again, we engaged a company to do a pan-Canadian risk assessment of the product that would be carried in support of the panel's recommendations. That particular study has now been expanded to phase two, which includes a risk assessment on HNS and it's a part of the panel's work.
10:35 a.m.
Director General, Marine Policy, Department of Transport
The first one that's completed is. It's publicly available. The second one is not finished yet.