Madam Speaker, I concur with what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport said. He has given a good review. There are some points I want to add.
This morning what cuts this side of the House to the core is when the hon. member mentions that it was the Senate that brought in amendments to this bill.
I would be remiss not to mention my colleague who brought up the point of order earlier. I am not going to discuss the ruling of the Chair but I do want to reinforce a statement for everybody in the hopes that never again in the history of this Parliament at least a Bill goes to the Senate and the Senate makes the amendments before it comes back to the elected officials.
This practice is totally archaic, totally not in touch with today's reality. That really bothers me. I am not afraid to go into the standing committee on transportation and discuss with the hon. member the welfare of the industry across Canada. This side of the House is insulted to the highest degree when my hon. colleague raises many issues with regard to this bill.
Section 53 of the Constitution Act states the rules concerning the breach of the privileges of this House. I want to read this into the record because it directly concerns me. Standing Order 80(1) states:
All aids and supplies granted to the sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons, and all bills for granting such aids and supplies ought to begin with the House, as it is the undoubted right of the House to direct, limit, and appoint in all such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications of such grants, which are not alterable by the Senate.
Whether we like to admit it our not, we are dealing with millions of dollars. This is nothing small. We are talking about liabilities up to $270 million. For that reason I feel very sad that we have to come back to the committee and discuss amendments that came from the Senate. That was totally unnecessary. To members on this side of the House it is considered a total insult to being elected officials.
I have a few more comments with regard to this before I get to the bill itself. The Senate was restricted from originating money bills in 1867. It is a fine point of law whether this is a money bill or not. It is not a money bill in some terms but because it deals with the potential of government expenditures that is a question we have to address.
Introduction of bills in the Senate gives the Senate more legitimacy as unofficial, unelected people. It gives it more legitimacy or as much legitimacy in this bill as members on this side of the House and members of the standing committee on transportation. I beg the hon. member, please do not do this again in the life of this Parliament. Please do not ignore the people on this side of the House who are elected. It is not that we are going to oppose this bill. We are not going to oppose the bill.
I have every reason to believe what the hon. gentleman has said, that it has received the support and consultation of the stakeholders. That is the good part. I will be asking that question when we are in committee, if all the stakeholders have been consulted. There will probably be some more.
I beg the hon. member please, on behalf of this House, on behalf of Canada, do not put this bill to the Senate before it comes here.
The hon. gentleman has done a good job, as well he should because he has been with this bill for a long time. There are some things that I would like to add that perhaps the hon. gentleman has not added.
Bill S-4 is designed to increase the compensation available to public and private Canadian claimants, for maritime claims in general, and particularly for claims related to ship source oil pollution. As a result of these amendments in S-4, the maximum compensation available against the international oil pollution compensation fund would more than double. It has doubled to the point of $270 million.
I might say that Bill S-4 enables Canada to accede to several international conventions on marine liability. Thus it harmonizes, and I emphasize the word harmonizes, the Canadian maritime liability legislation with that of the other major maritime nations and previous legislation really did not do that. In that respect there is support of the Reform Party because it brings the bill up to date.
I want to mention some key features. This bill provides for a substantial increase in shipowners' liability limits. In this era there are ships that are double and triple the size of former vessels using our harbours, international waterways and Canadian waterways. Maybe the liability limits are not even high enough, but at least it recognizes that.
The bill creates a procedure for rapid amendments, and that is a good point. I do not know how rapid they can be, but when we think back to the terrible oil disaster off the British Columbia coast with the Exxon ship, it was a long drawn out procedure. Hopefully this bill will speed that up because Canadians in particular, and people around the world I am sure, are more environmentally conscious of these things than they have ever been before.
Another thing I would like to mention is that the bill adds a provision for liability limits for those small ships that still ply our harbour. The limits of the liability adjust to the size. It is like the limits for a Honda car adjusting to a Cadillac. Maybe my hon. colleague over there has a Cadillac, I do not know. He does not. But if he did have, he would have to pay more in liability limits.
It also makes special provisions for liability of shipowners to their passengers. My hon. colleague mentioned that in this case most of these people already carry a fair amount of liability insurance. I am wondering though if it would not be a good idea to jot down as a memo that we need to take a look at that.
A million dollars liability insurance. Is that $1 million per person? I am not quite sure what is meant by that. There needs to be assurance that these boats are carrying enough liability insurance because passengers are more important than cargo. We need to take a look at that.
The bill extends the application of maritime liability rules to all ships at sea and inland. That is important. It is not just the oceangoing voyages. And it extends, as my hon. friend has mentioned, the exclusive economic zone. Even in the recent events of the last few days maybe we need to take a look at that as well. As our industry grows and as Canada becomes more of a lead player in this particular field, we should take another look at that particular area.
Modern day communications have made it possible that we now have a day to day means by which we can be in communication, much more so than ever before. With the use of modern communications techniques, radar and so on, the global limitations of liability therefore become a very important economic instrument in the operation of any ship. We agree that the clauses as they relate to that become very, very important.
Raising the maximum compensation, what I worked out is $120 million to $270 million, some may think is pretty hefty, but if we look at the scope of the act, some may even argue it is not high enough. It is certainly not too high. As I mentioned earlier, when we have these huge boats now doubling and tripling the capacity, this is not out of order and maybe it is not high enough.
I say to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport there is a need to further solidify Canada's place in the international maritime community. We are very big players now. I suggest to the hon. member that we may get to be an even bigger player.
As Canada grows there is no question that our part of the maritime industry is going to increase. Because of this, through the implementation of both sets of conventions and the protocols, and quite frankly I think there has been very limited negative feedback concerning the contents of this bill and its predecessor Bill C-58, the reaction that I and my party would have is that we will support the bill.
There is one principle in particular that I would like to inform the hon. minister about. It has a theme which this party adopts and that is user pay. I believe that is within this bill and we can support it on that merit.
Bill S-4 appears to be a sound bill. It strives for a balance between the shipowners and the claimants which appears to be fair. But we still have to allow time for the standing committee to send out the message that if anyone else, a stakeholder, has an interest, they will be advised that they can appear before the committee.
The bill exposes the shipowners' insurance companies to major financial liability. It also provides for a transfer of payments out of Canada's ship source oil pollution fund to the international oil pollution compensation fund. It is questionable that a bill with such ramifications should indeed come from the Senate.
I would like to share this with the hon. parliamentary secretary as it relates to this bill. This bill indirectly relates to Bill C-9 because they use the harbours, the insurance claims and so on. I refer him to page 14 of the act. At the bottom of page 14 it talks about the right that is exercised, that there are reasonable grounds to believe there are records in dwelling houses related to the reporting of contributing to oil spills and all of that. I am not disputing that but it is something that is really difficult for me to imagine at this time.
I hope none of Canada's oceangoing vessels are involved in this but Canada's ports are now a major entry point for the worst type of pollutant this society has. We can clean up an oil spill. It is very costly but eventually we can clean it up. We cannot totally erase the damage. It is there. But on a recent national television program it was shown in graphic detail that coming through our ports are large amounts of hard drugs. They come into Canada and find their way into the U.S. market.
I would hope that in committee we could take a look at this catastrophe. It is hard to clean up a young person's life which has been ruined by drugs. If we in Canada are truly going to say no to drugs, if we are going to have our schools say no to drugs and if parents are going to say no to drugs, then it is incumbent upon all the players involved, including the shipowners with this bill and the port authorities with Bill C-9, to get serious about this.
The hon. member may say that is not relevant, but I believe it is. If we can search a house to obtain records to prove that someone has used a boat to bring in oil which has polluted this country, then the same thing should exist here, in co-operation with other branches of the government, and we should have the same power to say no to drugs at Canadian ports. As a Canadian citizen I was hurt when I watched that program.
Reform will be supporting this bill. However, I would like to reiterate that it should not have originated in the Senate. Please introduce legislation in this House.