Transport Committee on Feb. 27th, 2014

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I want to follow up on Mr. Braid's questioning of Mr. Wright, specifically on oil handling facilities and the question of immunity from liability.

First of all, Mr. Wright, I understand that what you are saying is that immunity from liability is important if you want to have people interact on a quick basis without having to be concerned about that issue. Fundamentally, that is very important, but did I hear you say that it doesn't actually apply to becoming involved in an oil handling facility spill?

[Scott Wright]

That's correct. When we attend an oil handling facility spill without a ship involved, we will contact Transport Canada, and they will put in place a temporary measure to ensure that we are covered under responder immunity. This needs to be taken care of within the legislation, so that our efforts are completely focused on the response.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

What specifically were you suggesting needs to be done to the legislation as it now exists to enlarge it and include what you see as necessary?

[Scott Wright]

I've submitted some of my notes, which will be translated and later distributed, but in clause 68 of Bill C-3 the term “agent” is being reinserted into subsection 181(2) and the term “oil handling facility” is being added to the definition of “response operation”. That is the specific matter in the legislation requiring to be changed or amended.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

In terms of risk—

[Scott Wright]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'd also defer to Mr. O'Connor, if he has any input on that comment as well.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Okay. We'll probably hear from him in due course, but in terms of numbers or percentage, how would you allocate risk as between an oil handling facility at which no ship is involved and one at which one is? Are you able to make that kind of assessment?

[Scott Wright]

No, it would be hard to quantify that.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I understand there are about 400 oil handling facilities. Am I correct that there is a fairly significant number of them?

[Scott Wright]

That's correct.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Sumaila indicated that one of his concerns with respect to response capacity was that it was limited, insufficient, and not exercised, yet I heard you say that you do indeed have exercises with the United States.

Is there anyone else involved, and how do you respond to that statement?

[Scott Wright]

We're required by the Canada Shipping Act to conduct regular exercises. Those involve equipment deployments and tabletop exercises. We also participate in cross-border exercises with Washington state and Alaska. Those exercises are run by Canadian Coast Guard and U.S. Coast Guard.

We are certified to 10,000 tonnes as a response organization. If you look at the equipment we have in our inventories and apply the same planning standard, we in effect have 26,000 tonnes of response equipment. We far exceed our legislated response requirements.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

With respect to the certification, you have to be federally certified as a first responder. I assume the oil handling facilities would probably have to be certified as well in respect to their response.

How do you deal with such things as expansions in oil handling facilities, changes to equipment, changes to circumstances, all of those kinds of things? How do you deal with them? Given that there are so many of them and that they may all be different in some respect, is there some objective basis that everyone is required to meet?

[Scott Wright]

Our job as a response organization is not to oppose or support any particular projects but to be aware of proposed projects and to look at what the impacts would be on our preparedness. We have worked closely with Enbridge on northern gateway to see what their potential risks would be and how we would put in place a preparedness of people and equipment.

We also are working with Kinder Morgan in the south to ensure that we're looking at what their proposal is and how we would need to grow to respond to those changes in business on the coast.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

All right. Are you satisfied that the efforts you are making are robust enough and that the legislation is sufficient to equip you to do that job?

[Scott Wright]

Certainly we are headed in the right direction. We are a full-time staff of around 30. We are adding 16 new people this year, and we'll continue to grow. We are looking at a number of initiatives that will enhance our capabilities, including additional bases and faster response times.

Yes, we are growing ahead of any legislation that may come out, with our continuous model approach.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Stewart.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Chair, it's a pleasure to be here today.

Thanks to the witnesses for coming today.

I am the member for Burnaby—Douglas. We have the good fortune of having a number of facilities in my riding, including the Westridge marine terminal, which I think is very relevant here today. Mr. Wright has already alluded to Kinder Morgan.

I've had the good fortune of visiting your facilities, Mr. Wright. Thank you for the tour.

I'm interested in more concrete examples of relevance to this amendment to the Canada Shipping Act as it pertains to oil handling facilities.

Perhaps, Mr. Wright, I could start with you.

In 2007, 250,000 litres of oil were spilled from the Kinder Morgan facilities into Burrard Inlet. From what I've read, 125,000 litres went into Burrard Inlet and your organization was involved in the cleanup. Am I right?

[Scott Wright]

That's correct.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

I'm wondering, just to provide examples to the committee, whether you could tell us what percentage of the crude oil was collected. Of what was spilled, how much did you manage to collect?

[Scott Wright]

We were working for a client in that particular incident, and that information is theirs. If they choose to release it, then they can, but I'm sorry, we cannot release that information.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

You don't have any idea how much you actually cleaned up.

[Scott Wright]

Yes, we do.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

But you're not going to tell us. Okay.

Can you tell us how much it cost to clean up this unknown amount of substance?