Transport Committee on Feb. 5th, 2018

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you. That's a big win for coastal communities. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We have time for one more question from Ms. Block and one more question from Ms. Jordan.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm wondering about what comes next in terms of the regulations. Is the department already contemplating the regulations, and if they are, do you know how long it will take before those regulations would take effect?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

I can answer in a general way. I can't give you a specific date. It depends on when this piece of legislation gets through, but certainly with respect to regulations—and there's a process there, as you know, the gazetting process, the consultation process—where there is that kind of process, we would like to do it as quickly as possible. This is a piece of legislation that has been a long time coming, and we want to get on with it as quickly as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Do you have another question?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Again, to correct myself—because it is a complicated piece of legislation—we're only talking legislation. We're not talking about actually going through the gazetting process with regulations. This will be addressed through legislation. As soon as it gets royal assent, we're off to the races in terms of implementing it.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mrs. Jordan.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Minister.

I have one final question with regard to vessels of concern and how you determine your priorities. What's the strategy? How is the department going to look at this? What needs to be removed? What's the priority? How does the department determine those priorities? How can communities like mine get on the list to make sure their vessels are looked at?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Again, this will go to creating the inventory list of wrecks that exist and then assessing which ones need to be addressed most urgently. Some wrecks are not necessarily obtrusive, or they're not necessarily leaking, or they may not represent a navigation hazard. They would be lower on the priority list. Others would be higher on the priority list for tourism reasons, environmental reasons, and navigation reasons. We can then say we have our list—and it will be long—and this will be the order in which we need to address them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Minister Garneau, thank you so much for giving us that full hour. I understood you were supposed to leave early, so we appreciate the fact you were here for all of these questions from the committee.

I understand you're going to leave, but your officials will remain.

I'm going to suspend so that we can get back to work. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm calling back to order the meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Welcome to all of the officials we have at the table. Please introduce yourselves, starting with Mr. Bertin, and indicate your role in the department.

[Marc-Yves Bertin, Director General, Marine Policy, Department of Transport]

Good day. Bonjour.

My name is Marc-Yves Bertin, and I am the director general of marine policy at the Department of Transport.

[Ellen Burack, Director General, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport]

Good afternoon. I'm Ellen Burack. I'm the director general of environmental policy at Transport Canada.

[Gregory Lick]

Good afternoon. I'm Greg Lick. I'm the director general of operations for the Canadian Coast Guard.

[Marc Sanderson, Acting Director General, National Strategies, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

My name is Marc Sanderson. I'm the acting director general of national strategies with the Canadian Coast Guard.

[Brian Wootton]

Good afternoon. My name is Brian Wootton. I'm the regional director of incident management for western Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you all very much.

We have about 45 minutes during which we'll go through the questions and answers.

We will begin with Mrs. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I was just having a conversation with my staff, and I didn't realize we were going right into questions.

Besides the insurance requirement, are there any other measures in this bill that you could speak to that would mitigate a vessel becoming wrecked, abandoned, or hazardous?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Who would like to answer that?

[Ellen Burack]

I'll give it a shot.

With respect to the insurance, the insurance doesn't per se prevent the event. What it does is prevent challenges after the event when it comes to who pays for cleaning up and what have you. There's much in the legislation that does that, starting with the efforts the government will be able to make to pursue responsible vessel management—not only the prohibition on abandonment, but also the ability to provide notices that a vessel owner needs to act to address a challenging situation and the ability to follow up if the vessel owner does not take the action that's requested in order to address a potential hazard. Those are all the things that contribute to preventing incidents.

This legislation really is kind of like bookends around an incident. It lays out a number of requirements and actions that the government can take to prevent an incident from happening, and also to make it easier to deal with the incident after the fact in terms of identifying the lead role of the Coast Guard, for example, in assessing hazards related to an incident, who pays, etc. From that perspective, there's quite a lot in the bill with respect to prevention.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

It's my understanding that the Nairobi convention addresses vessels of a certain size. I think it's 300,000 tonnes. Is that correct?

Did you consider lowering the gross tonnage requirement to carry insurance for foreign-flagged vessels?

[Marc-Yves Bertin]

I don't have the stats immediately in front of me, but if my memory serves me, about 98% of foreign-flagged vessels calling on Canadian ports actually are at the 300-gross-tonne mark or above. From that perspective, the vast majority of foreign-flagged ships would therefore fall into the class of vessel that's being captured.

That said, the issue of the threshold was something that was discussed within the context of the IMO, but also domestically with stakeholders. In the context of the IMO, there are a number of aspects to the way the discussion unfolded, such as whether we should go towards looking at this through the length of a vessel versus the tonnage. In the end, the issue of 300 tonnes was the subject of a conversation around whether or not it should be higher and not lower, as is the case in other conventions. From that perspective, the 300-tonne threshold was something that was negotiated, and it was also something that was consulted upon domestically.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Jordan is next.