Transport Committee on March 4th, 2014

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I just want to make sure I understand correctly. We already know that, practically speaking, many reports are censored; portions are removed for security reasons. Wouldn't that happen in this case as well? If a report being made public contained information about national defence or security that should be kept confidential, wouldn't that information be removed or blacked out automatically?

In fact, the new section 19 reads as follows: “The Authority shall, on a confidential basis, provide an interim report....” So the element of confidentiality is already built in. We asked the Department of National Defence about the issue of information deemed to be confidential or to involve public safety. The government already has the power to keep some of the information confidential.

In this case, wouldn't it simply be a matter of saying where the preliminary investigation stands? I would remind the committee that when Colonel—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is there a response or comment?

[Jim Armour]

The only thing that I think there is some reticence about is if there's information in there that also might compromise an ally or something of that nature, or if there's information in it that would be proprietary in nature. In order to understand what had actually occurred, we may have to discuss proprietary information, and that also might require some editing, or not publishing those sections of the report.

We haven't really had to do this yet, but when we're looking forward at the possibility of that occurring, we have considered all of these things, so as we prepare a report and pass it to the minister, one of the things that we always bear in mind is those issues. At this point we haven't had to amend a report, as we publish them publicly on the website through our administrative process, but we certainly wouldn't want to be statutorily obligated to make a report that we've made to the minister word for word available in a published format.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much. I think we're very clear on that.

I'm going to call the vote.

(Amendment negatived)

We now move on to amendment NDP-2.

Mr. Mai.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

No, I won't be moving NDP-2. We'll be moving amendment NDP-3

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Then we'll move on to amendment NDP-3.

Mr. Mai.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

This amendment is based on the same principle regarding public reporting. I'll read it quickly:

“19. The Authority shall publish an interim report on the progress and findings of an investigation.”

Again, this speaks to how important the issue is right now. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada makes all reports public. It's a matter of Canadians' confidence in the processes and steps undertaken by the government. Similarly, that is why we want reports to be made public.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is there any further discussion on amendment NDP-3?

[Alex Weatherston]

Mr. Chair, we make the comment also here that this proposed amendment is not consistent with the CTAISB Act legislation. They're under no obligation to publish their interim reports like this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

I'm going to call the vote.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We're now going to vote on clause 19.

(Clause 19 agreed to)

(Clauses 20 to 22 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 23)

We have amendment NDP-4.

Mr. Mai.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I will read amendment NDP-4. I assume the officials have received the amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Just to clarify, amendments cannot be distributed to the public until they've been tabled here, and I should have known that.

Go ahead and read it. At least we'll be aware of it.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

The amendment reads as follows:

That Bill C-3, in Clause 23, be amended by replacing line 2 on page 33 with the following:

“ensure that the”

Actually, we're removing

“take all reasonable measures”.

The purpose is to ensure that things actually move forward with the investigation, to make sure that the Department of National Defence and the Board of Transportation Safety do more than just take all reasonable measures to coordinate the investigation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Are there any comments?

[Jim Armour]

As worded in the proposed amendment—the existing proposed amendment, not the suggested change—those are exactly the words that are in CTAISB. That has been imported directly from CTAISB into what our amendment is. So this would also amend CTAISB.

[A voice]

That allows flexibility.

[Jim Armour]

It's being pointed out that the wording as it exists does allow flexibility. If it's hard this way, then we have no choice but to dedicate the resources to such investigations even if they don't want to participate or we don't want to participate, for whatever reason; whereas, the wording that exists does allow flexibility and give and take between the Transportation Safety Board and the AIA investigation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Is there any further discussion on amendment NDP-4?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I'd like a small clarification please.

Could you give us an example of a situation in which it would cause a problem? I am really trying to understand what you said about it giving you more flexibility. Could you please explain that?

[Jim Armour]

I can give you a practical example.

One of the things we do is investigate glider accidents. In Quebec, glider accidents are actually.... They do what's called a power pilot scholarship. They make contracts with civilian power companies that teach the kids how to actually fly, so when an accident of that nature happens, we have a vested interest in finding out a lot about it, whereas for the Transportation Safety Board, it's not a very high-profile investigation for them to dedicate resources to.

Sometimes they have been contacted. We've told them that we're going to do an investigation, and they say they're not interested. This would sort of demand that they show up. It would really impose on them a need to investigate something that we were investigating. In reverse, it has never happened. We have never not gone to an investigation they've asked us to go to, but certainly, although they've always been notified when we're doing an investigation that would have a Transportation Safety Board connotation, occasionally the Transportation Safety Board says that it's beyond their mandate, or that they're not going to send any investigator for that.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Very well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. That's a good explanation of it.

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 23 agreed to)

(Clauses 24 to 41 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 42)

We have amendment NDP-5.

Mr. Mai.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

The NDP submitted a series of requests after we heard from the Canadian Maritime Law Association.

One of the problems we want to fix has to do with the liability limit of ship owners. We think it's beneficial to pursue this to take advantage of what the international HNS convention says. It ensures that cleanup costs are not left solely to Canadian taxpayers.

If memory serves and if I understood what the Canadian Maritime Law Association told us, the liability of ship owners is limited to $165 million. And in situations where the damage exceeds the ship owner's liability, additional compensation may be paid out under the convention up to a maximum of $400 million. Because of the convention and its international fund, then, taxpayers do not have to assume all the cleanup costs.

But when the bill exceeds $400 million, the party responsible for the cleanup, in other words, the government, has to assume the remainder of the bill, as was the case in Lac-Mégantic. And the problem is that when the government pays, it is really Canadian taxpayers footing the bill.

In the case of an oil spill, cleanup costs can be in the billions. And for chemical spills, as is the case here, the cleanup costs are not yet known, but they can rise quickly, as the experts have told us.

Given the dramatic increase in the transportation of hazardous materials, why limit the liability of private companies to $400 million? If agreed to, our amendments would allow us to go after what already exists, in other words, we would have access to a fund that oil companies paid into until 1976—or rather 1973, as my colleague just pointed out to me. What we are asking for is access to that private fund, which was set aside and never used. One witness talked about some $280 million.

In short, what we are trying to do through our amendments is ensure that Canadian taxpayers are not on the hook for all the cleanup costs following a disaster or accident involving hazardous materials, known as HNSs, hazardous and noxious substances.

That is the purpose of the changes we are proposing, changes that are based on what the Canadian Maritime Law Association told the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is there any further discussion?

Mr. Watson.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

I'll only point out for the record, Mr. Chair, that we're opposed to this.

I asked our officials to look into the most expensive cleanup done under an HNS protocol, and it's a $60-million cleanup. We're talking about putting in place a regime that would offer—not paid by the taxpayers—up to $400 million currently, so we think the regime is sufficient.

Also, there was the question of justice. I'm pretty sure I appreciate that the NDP would like the oil companies to pay for everything, including for chemical companies, but this would open up access to a fund paid for by the oil companies without changing the regime of who pays into the fund, and how much chemical companies would pay into the fund. Simply opening up the fund without changing the structure of who would pay into it is not sufficient either, so we're opposed to it.