Evidence of meeting #13 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 liability.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
February 25th, 2014 / 9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll ask this one question and ask each of the three of you to chime in with a response, perhaps starting with Madame Legars. Could each of you explain how the Bill C-3 requirement to have oil handling facility operators demonstrate their oil spill preparedness and response capacity would affect your respective organization directly or indirectly?
Vice-President, Shipping Federation of Canada
From an international shipowner's perspective, I guess it would have an indirect effect in terms of response in case of a spill at the terminal. But for us it's something that is indirect, and we didn't comment on that in our letter because it's not our direct liability or responsibility.
Vice-President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Port Metro Vancouver
I'm not sure I understand the question. Could you maybe repeat the question?
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Sure.
Bill C-3 has a new requirement ensuring and requiring that oil handling facility operators demonstrate their oil spill preparedness and response capacity. How would that requirement affect your organization directly or indirectly?
Vice-President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Port Metro Vancouver
It would affect the terminals in the port. The terminals that are operating in the port would be impacted directly by it and they will have to have plans in place and demonstrate their ability to respond. The port authority itself doesn't operate any terminals so the impact on us directly is somewhat minimal.
Capt Stephen Brown
As Mr. Wilson mentioned earlier there is a requirement already with the response organizations to have drills. Eastern and western Canada are mandated to have a 1,000-tonne drill every year and a 10,000-tonne drill every three years. Really what you're doing is asking the oil handling facilities to demonstrate what the existing oil responders are already doing.
In terms of the impact on our members we participate in those drills and we would envisage that we would participate equally in the drills that the oil handling facilities would undertake to demonstrate their preparedness as well.
Conservative
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Captain Brown, one of the important aspects of Bill C-3 that you strongly support and mention in your testimony is the regulated adoption of the incident command system by the Canadian Coast Guard. Could you elaborate on that?
Capt Stephen Brown
For a number of years the Canadian Coast Guard, for reasons I'm not clear about and I don't think too many of us are clear about, has not been an integral member of the incident command system. It's been outside the incident command. It's been a bit of a satellite organization. We began discussions with the coast guard and government about three years ago about the fact that we felt it was important that it be reviewed as a policy. Indeed, it has been reviewed. The coast guard is now in the process of becoming an integrated part of the incident command system. Oil has recently been recovered from the Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski, the ship that sank in the Second World War on our north coast and has been seeping oil recently.The recovery was undertaken by the coast guard under the incident command system. That process is now under way. It required some funding for it to happen. The coast guard has embraced incident command now. We're not sure why that hadn't been the case previously.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to Mr. Sullivan for five minutes.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for making what is a pretty dense and difficult bill a little easier to understand.
Captain Brown, regarding the notion of cuts to the Canadian Coast Guard and to the public perception that there's not enough response, can you comment on the closure of the Kitsilano station and how that might affect response?
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Again, we're not on Bill C-3. While I understand this is a topic of some interest to members around the table, if we were having a study around response there would be considerably more latitude. We are addressing the bill and the requirements of the bill with respect to regime and whether the requirements of this bill are sufficient regarding a regime. They don't relate to the coast guard's operation or its facilities or anything else like that, Mr. Chair.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
I'm going to ask the question again.
The Kitsilano coast guard station closed last February. It is part of the world-class safety regime that is part of the discussion of this bill. The coast guard station, having closed, in the public perception perhaps makes the port of Vancouver less safe. It is part of, as you've referred in your testimony, “The danger of sustained budget cuts over many years to an organization with such an essential role to play in spill preparedness and response”.
In this bill I thought we were talking about trying to make ports safer. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Watson.
Conservative
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Well, then, we're not trying to make ports safer. We're trying to make them less safe.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
This is related to liability regimes and a whole lot of other things—
