Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. It is a very crucial issue. I have often heard that even in the cleanup on the shoreline of Burrard Inlet after these oil spills, today we can pick up a rock on the beach and find oil underneath that rock. Even though all efforts were taken to appropriately clean up that coastline, there have been difficulties and it is never quite complete. There is always more to be done.
It shows the limitation of efforts to clean up. It shows the limitation of establishing liability for these accidents, because no matter how far we go to try to undo the effects of these oil spills, those cause permanent and ongoing damage to our environment and to our coastline.
We may be upping the liability amounts, but that still does not make it any better in terms of dealing with the consequences of these accidents. Therefore, preventing them is very crucial. At the same time, we have to make sure that, in covering the cost of cleanup, ensuring the protection of communities and animals is seen as part of the cost of doing that kind of business and is calculated into the costs of those industries.