Evidence of meeting #76 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tankers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
I don't know right now.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Are you familiar with a new process CN rail has developed to modify undiluted bitumen?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
Yes. We have seen preliminary proposals for that, as have our NRCan partners in the science part of the NRCan analysis.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
There are no conclusions thus far. It is still very preliminary in terms of getting a full sense of what this product is and how it would behave in various situations in salt water.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I know that the Coast Guard, through the reopened Kitsilano Coast Guard Station in Vancouver, is set up to train indigenous groups up and down the coast to participate in everything from marine rescues, to monitoring, to spill response. Would Transport Canada consider including that process in its own process for inspection?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
The oceans protection plan has a lot of components of working with indigenous groups to develop and help work through the various marine safety enhancements. There are also opportunities for actual participation in various elements. We're working through that with communities. There are education components as well. There are many such components already under way.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I want to follow up a little bit on the issue of enforcement my colleague was just chatting about. I find it a little bit hard to picture how you develop a regulatory scheme when you are in this on a voluntary basis. This really hasn't been happening.
Do you have an idea of what the actual cost would be to implement an inspection and enforcement regime once the moratorium kicks in?
Team Leader and Senior Counsel, Maritime Law, Department of Transport
The way we'd foresee the enforcement regime working is that there are already marine safety inspectors in northern B.C. They have offices, for example, in Prince Rupert and I believe in some other communities.
They board ships for a number of reasons to verify compliance with a number of laws, principally the Canada Shipping Act and its regulations. We would see them enforcing the moratorium regime in the same way. As part of their duties in looking at ships generally, they would also verify compliance with the moratorium and take steps as necessary.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
The same people who are on the ground now would still be there in the future, so there's not necessarily an increased cost for the new inspection and enforcement measures.
Team Leader and Senior Counsel, Maritime Law, Department of Transport
No. I believe that Transport Canada's marine safety division sees doing this as a regular part of their existing duties.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
On a related issue, dealing now with compliance measures, there's a handful of different mechanisms included in the bill, things like creating offences, liability of the directors and officers, and new seizure powers. How do we know that this is actually the right mechanism?
I find it really difficult to understand how we arrive at a compliance mechanism when you're not dealing with a sweeping problem where you can assess whether it's been effective in the past, on a go-forward basis. Can you offer a comment?
Team Leader and Senior Counsel, Maritime Law, Department of Transport
The way the bill is constructed, it tries to be, I suppose you could say, precautionary. For example, we have a reporting requirement so that vessels will report before they come. The hope is that we will prevent tankers that are not compliant with the moratorium from coming to our ports.
With respect to the other sections of the bill you mentioned, this is consistent with how we generally enforce marine safety legislation. The idea behind the enforcement regime really was to create something that our inspectors would be familiar with and would be able to enforce, as they do other legislation.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I would like to change subjects to the 12,500 figure. I know the aim here is to ensure that supertankers aren't coming in, but you're not going to deny communities that don't have access by road to the fuel that they need. How did you land at the 12,500 number? Is it an assessment of the fuel consumed by these communities today?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
We looked at the types of traffic and the volumes of various products that are shipped into northern B.C. both for community resupply and industry resupply, and on that basis set the threshold. As my colleague mentioned, there's a very detailed study published on our website that gives quite a lot of analysis of the types of traffic and the types of ships that currently traverse and what they carry.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Are you confident that this 12,500 figure, at different times of year when fuel consumption might be different, is going to make sure that these communities aren't denied access to the fuel they need to get by?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
Yes, we are.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
On the actual definition of “crude” in the schedule, I know we've more or less adopted the international convention to determine what persistent fuels were going to be subject to the moratorium. Had Transport Canada considered other products that may have ended up on the list and decided not to include them?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
No. All products that are persistent in that range, petroleum products, are included in the definition.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Are there other substances that Transport Canada was or is looking at adding, in anticipation of maybe something new that we could be worried about in the future, or are you comfortable with the—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Transformation, Department of Transport
None at this time. The point is that if such products emerge, we will assess them and do the scientific analysis with our colleagues to determine the best course forward.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Do I have time for a final question?
On the issue of exemptions, the Minister described that there's not going to be some unscrupulous attempt to have a great number of ships come in under this exemption power. Can you describe what safeguards would be in place to ensure that the application of the exemptions is limited, or at least that the exemptions are applied consistently?
Team Leader and Senior Counsel, Maritime Law, Department of Transport
As you'll know from reading the text of the bill, it talks about an identified oil tanker and it provides a test for when exemptions can be granted, which is predominantly to address problems with community or industry resupply. There is the broader test of the public interest, which we included in there just because, first, it mirrors what appears in other legislation, but second, it's impossible to predict situations where we might need to use the exemptions. We wanted to provide enough flexibility to deal with an unanticipated situation.
As I say, however, traditionally these exemption provisions are interpreted quite narrowly. Certainly the legal advice that we usually provide to ministers and officials is to stick very closely to the test.
