Madam Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise in debate on the marine liability act.
In my case, I come from a province which is virtually surrounded by water, the province of Nova Scotia. We often think that as a country that is itself almost surrounded by water and certainly has a lot of inland waterways as well as the oceans, we are past due on legislation with respect to marine transportation, marine liability and all marine issues, including environmental issues, shipbuilding policies, and even the question about fuel taxes for shipping.
It seems that the legislation we have is past due and is behind that of many other countries that are as involved with marine issues as Canada. In fact, the bill is just responding to our commitment under the Athens convention of 1974 to meet international standards on liability for marine accidents and also to the updated 1990 protocol. It is certainly long past due, especially for a country such as ours that is so involved with marine aspects.
In my own case it is really obvious that this is becoming more and more important because of the increasing economic activity on our waters, even the increase in the use of ferries from our different provinces and islands, not only in regard to the volume and numbers of ferries but also now that we are getting into high speed ferries and that sort of new technology, which creates problems in itself. It also creates a concern about liability for marine issues.
Tourism is becoming a big issue on the waters as well. Some of our smaller fishing villages along our coastlines have seen their fish stocks decline and the fishing industry decline along with that. They have now turned to tourism, which includes tour boats, whale watching ventures and things like that. All these ventures currently are not well protected for marine liability as far as our legislation goes.
People who use these types of boats for both the carriage of people and the carriage of goods and services are not well protected. The liability is very confusing. Shipowners and boat owners can include exemptions to their liability on tickets. Whether they are effectual or not and whether they are actual or not is open to question. There is no clarification. The bill clarifies that and we support that part of it.
A part of our economy that is exploding on both the east and west coasts is certainly cruise ships. Up until now there has been confusion on liability in the event that there is a serious accident involving death or injury. The bill will address that issue and that is long past due.
Even ecotourism in my own area is becoming more and more viable as the demand increases and tourists from all over the world come to eastern Canada to see different aspects of our ocean life: whales, porpoises, seals, bird life, and recently even a small island in the Bay of Fundy near my riding called Ile Haute that we are hoping the Minister of the Environment will designate as a wilderness preserve. He has indicated a strong interest in doing that. If he does, it will create a whole new tourism industry in my riding. It will involve boats carrying passengers to see this incredible island in the Bay of Fundy.
It is extremely important that the issue is dealt with. There are many aspects of the bill that we support but we do not understand why there has been a delay in getting the bill to this point. We go back to several aspects of other bills in the last parliament, such as Bill C-59, the carriage of passengers by water act, which was allowed to die on the order paper in April 1997. The same terms of reference in that bill are in the new bill. This is three years later and ironically we are perhaps at the same stage now where this bill may die on the order paper if an election is called, as is speculated in the next few weeks.
In the last parliament another bill, Bill C-73, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act, died on the order paper. It had the same terms and conditions as we have in this one. It died because of an early election in 1997. Here we are three and a half years later dealing with exactly the same words, exactly the same bill, and maybe facing another election so that it may die on the order paper again.
When we form the government next time we will bring it in and we will put it through. We will not allow any more delays, any more inappropriate stalls for this bill, because it is very important.
There are aspects of the bill we do not support but we do support most of them. We support the bill in principle. It is long overdue. As I said before, it basically lines us up with the international convention adopted in 1974 in Athens and the protocol. We need a Canada marine law and this helps us in that regard.
Some of the aspects we like is that it confirms that claims for wrongful death and injury in the maritime domain may be made against persons as well as ships under the bill, thus enabling relatives of deceased and injured persons to claim for loss of care, guidance and companionship.
It also modernizes the language of the legislation to make it clearer and allows people to proceed through courts a lot quicker in the case of litigation.
Another part we support is the fact that it incorporates word for word into the new marine liability act the Hague rules statute under the Carriage of Goods by Water Act, which again should have been included a long time.
It establishes the basis for amounts of liability. There are different acts that deal with this issue and the present legislation is very confusing. In some cases shipowners can limit their own liability by a simple statement of exemption, and this would eliminate that.
Another aspect is that the bill excludes the contracting out of liability by shipowners and operators, especially in marine passenger contracts. Recently I followed up on a ticket I bought which had an exemption on it. It turned out that the shipowner had contracted out the tour I was on. They tried to confuse the situation by stating that if there were in effect an accident they would be hidden and protected from liability. In any case, this prevents shipowners from escaping that liability by any exclusionary clause they want to dream up.
Bill S-17 incorporates liability aspects of the 1974 Athens convention and the protocol, as I said earlier. We do have questions about liability still remaining, especially with respect to the environment and some aspects of those issues.
We expect it to come to the transport committee and be thoroughly examined. We expect to have representation from Department of Transport officials and representatives from the industry to help us understand the pros and cons of the bill. At that time we will make our final decision, but at the moment we support the bill in principle. We think it is long past due. We hope that the government will make sure the bill is not dropped from the order paper again this time as it was in 1997 and that the bill goes through.