Mr. Speaker, I do not know if there is some kind of channeling going on within Manitoba politicians, but there seems to be some inquiry from the member for Saint Boniface. She was able to do much comment during my speech, but so little when we are on the record. She is new and it takes time to get comfortable here.
The problem with the piece around the penalties is twofold. First, the quadrupling of fines for individuals, but the status quo for companies is of interest. I mentioned in my speech how this could simply be the cost of doing business for some of the more profitable, and ExxonMobile certainly is one of those companies making some $477 billion in 2008. It is doing okay. To present a $1 million fine to a company of that size and stature, it might not even notice. It would be a lot cheaper than cleaning up its act in some cases.
The problem with the way the government has gone about this is it has set a limit on the minimum and maximum, without any actual logic or rationale behind that. If it had come forward and said that other countries were doing this and this was what their limits and their maximum minimums were, then we could have some sort of discussion on this. However, I feel as if the penalties were picked arbitrarily off a shelf. All of this is of no value if the government does not intend to enforce any of it.
Auditors' reports and history showed that the current government and the previous one had zero interest until the ducks that died in the tar sand ponds showed up on the evening news. Suddenly the government is like cops. This happens time and time again. It will negotiate the fine down as it did with the Valdez. The company got it to a tenth of its original summation, but that was the Americans. I am sure the Canadian government would never imagine doing such a thing, but it has time and time again.