Evidence of meeting #88 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 owner.
A video is available from Parliament.
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
The legislation definitely makes provision for not finding “a” or “the” person responsible. There are a range of players— directors in companies, etc.—who are able to be pursued as we're dealing with these problem vessels.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
In your estimation, does the insurance industry have the capacity to provide the kind of coverage that you're looking for—for pleasure boats on the one hand, and larger vessels as well?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
The insurance requirements are only for larger vessels of 300 gross tonnes and above. I'll ask my colleague to comment on insurance availability.
Director General, Marine Policy, Department of Transport
This was one of the dimensions of the conversation at the IMO and one of the reasons we landed on 300 gross tonnage as a threshold. Generally speaking, larger commercial vessels are typically part of what are called protection indemnity associations, or P and I clubs. These are basically associations of owners that pool together their third party risk and therefore help each other out.
Right now, P and I clubs account for about 90% of global tonnage. When we consider the number of states that are party to this convention, which is 41, their ships account for about 75% of global tonnage at this stage. The market exists, it's being taken up, and with just 41 countries, it's already up to 75% or thereabouts.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
We have to recognize that a lot of effort and thought went into this issue in the past. Ms. Block detailed what the previous government had done. Ms. Malcolmson certainly took a good tilt at coming up with legislation, and Ms. Jordan similarly made it a focus of concern for the entire House of Commons. What we've seen here in the material now coming forward from the ministry suggests this was a pretty complex matter. Can any of you give us the breadth and depth of the things you had to think about in coming up with this legislation?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
We're going back many years, with the most active consideration being in the last couple of years. We had to look at roles and responsibilities across the country. This is not a federal-only challenge; this is a challenge for provinces, territories, and municipalities. We had to look at the boat owners and shipowners and at what was possible. We had to look across many pieces of legislation that dealt with it a little bit here and a little bit there, identify all the pieces, figure out where the gaps were, look outside of Canada at where folks have done well at filling those gaps, and compare those different approaches to identify what might work best in a Canadian context. It was many years of peeling the onion and finding more and more layers of complexity.
We also needed to sort through—and have done that extremely effectively, if I may say so—the roles and responsibilities between Transport Canada as the policy-maker and regulator and the Canadian Coast Guard as the eyes-and-ears, boots-on-the-ground, operational expert.
Liberal
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
Madam Chair, do you mind if I go back on one small point related to Ms. Malcolmson's earlier question?
I wanted to mention that the legislation gives us the capacity for making regulations. It gives us the power to impose conditions on the sale of vessels. That is an area where, although it's not in the legislation, one could look to do something with respect to federal vessels.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you.
Before I get into my more detailed questions, I've been thinking about a response you gave to Ms. Jordan earlier, and I wanted to....
For anybody who might be interested or watching back home, it seems today that Canadians living in coastal communities should be shocked at how little there is on the books to actually do something about this problem. Can you confirm that there are no tools to deal with the situation of someone just abandoning a dilapidated vessel on our coastal communities today?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
Are you asking specifically if it's illegal at this point in time to abandon a boat?
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I want to know what's out there today. What's our starting point? The response I heard earlier was more or less that there's nothing really preventing a person from doing this today.
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
It's correct to say that there is no prohibition to abandonment in Canada today.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
It just blows my mind to hear those words spoken, but thank you nevertheless for the answer.
I was looking over part 2 of the legislation. One of the items that was flagged is the problem with leaving a dilapidated vessel in the same area for more than 60 days without consent. Is that the consent of whoever is responsible for the area? Could you elaborate on whose consent we might be dealing with in a given circumstance?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
It would be the consent of whoever is responsible for that location. It might be the owner or the operator of the marina, whatever it is—
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
—the municipality—
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
—or potentially the federal government if it's in a small craft harbour.
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
Potentially it could be, exactly. It's whoever is responsible for that location.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I'm curious about the 60-day timeline. What's the magic to 60 days? I want to make sure we're not just creating an incentive to encourage someone to move the vessel around every two months to avoid scrutiny of the legislation. Why is a 60-day period appropriate?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
There are legitimate situations in which someone might need to leave a vessel somewhere. It was felt that 30 days, for example, was too short in the case of those emergency situations; therefore, we went with the 60 days.
Do you want to add to that?
Director General, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The only other piece to add is that when we think about a dilapidated vessel, it's one that generally is not meant to navigate, so moving it around every 60 days would be fairly challenging in any case.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Then we're essentially recognizing that it might take some time to deal with the special type of issue that the dilapidated vessel might be facing and that the person who's an expert in repairing that type of thing might not be readily available. That's the circumstance I'm imagining.
Is that a fair picture of what this is meant to address?
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
Yes, and it's important to note that you can't just move it 100 feet farther down the water. There's the three-nautical-mile requirement as well.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Sure.
Just on that issue, is there anything actually preventing a person from doing that, if they can find somebody to tow them every once in a while? Is this still open for abuse if a person were to say, “Look, my time is almost up; can I just move it down the coast a little more?”
Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
They would have to be willing to pay to move the vessel outside the three nautical miles every 60 days. That seems to be a significant investment. The feeling was that someone who was not willing to act on their vessel responsibly is not likely to be making that type of investment.
