Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the motion to refer to committee before second reading Bill C-58, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act.
As the minister indicated, this bill is to bring the Canada Shipping Act up to date and increase the shipowners' limits of liability to public and private claimants for oil pollution damage in particular.
The bill will also bring Canadian legislation in line with a number of protocols and international conventions signed over the
past 20 years. The Bloc Quebecois obviously agrees in principle with the objective of the bill.
I can tell you up front that all these fine principles will be carefully considered in committee to see if they are just as fine in practice.
In his speech, the minister mentioned the Exxon Valdez disaster.
We would have liked him to mention the Irving Whale disaster as well. As you know, decades ago, this barge sank off the Magdalen Islands. This summer, the barge was lifted. It was the property of a large Canadian corporation well known not only for its commercial activities, but also for certain characteristics that became known to the public after the owner died.
It became obvious that the owner, the promoter, the founder of the Company had made it clear to his heirs that, in business, what mattered was interest, but not public interest. The fact that the company benefitted from the support of the people and the legislation of the various levels of government in the province and the country where it was established did not count as much as the bottom line, interest.
On the positive side, this reminds us that a business is a business and, as such, it is ruled by its interests. The expression "corporate citizen" should be banned from our vocabulary. There are citizens, individuals who are dignified with the status of citizens, but, as committed as a business may be to the community, it does not have that dignity.
That is why I think we should ban the expression "corporate citizen". Without any negative or bitter attitude toward business, it is from this perspective that we will be examining the legislation. We will ensure that this act goes beyond the current one and makes shipowners more responsible, particularly when accidents result in the leakage of hydrocarbons in the waters.
It is very important to implement a recognized principle in our society, namely that the polluter must pay. This is indeed a popular principle, but we have to be careful. These days, to justify certain bills and given the new ideology, governments often say that polluters must pay and so should users, which seems perfectly normal.
However, implementing this principle is often much more problematic, as we recently saw in the legislation imposing user fees for Canadian Coast Guard services. As you know, the Bloc opposed a number of measures. We fought hard and people said time and again that, before imposing new fees, the government ought to first clean up the coast guard.
We were told about truly shocking administrative practices. Still, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans dismissed all these arguments and did not follow up on any recommendation made by those who came to submit briefs. Seventy-five per cent of all those who submitted briefs and who made representations were opposed to the new fees. Eastern Canada, and particularly the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes region, is clearly penalized by this new fee structure.
This is how a commonly recognized principle in our society, namely that the user pays for the services provided to him, is applied. This principle was applied to justify measures which are harmful to a region of Canada, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes, but which benefit the Atlantic coast-but we will not get into this again.
The Bloc will carefully examine the bill in committee and keep in mind what happened with the Irving Whale .
To Canadians, it is totally unacceptable that a company could renege on its responsibilities, let the government, in other words the Canadian taxpayers, pay to refloat its barge and then have the government, pursuant to the current legislation, obliged to give the barge back to its owner. In a year or two, or maybe just in a few months depending on how long it will take to repair the barge, we might see the Irving Whale off the Magdalen Islands. It is outrageous, since it cost $30 million to Canadian taxpayers.
The government might be looking for ways to get compensated, but I do not think that current legislation gives it the power to do so. We will examine the bill in committee in the light of recent events. I think we will have some interesting amendments to bring forward, based on the briefs we will receive and the evidence the witnesses will give during the committee's hearings.