Debates of Nov. 19th, 2013

Safeguarding Canada's Seas and Skies Act

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the current limit of 10,000 tonnes is not enough. One of the proposals we would like to introduce would significantly increase the limit associated with a spill cleanup. Obviously, this change would be based on consultations with experts appearing before the committee. They can tell us what the appropriate limit should be.

We need to keep in mind that the limit is currently 10,000 tonnes. That means that all companies need to be able to handle spills of that size. If they cannot handle the cleanup, the Canadian Coast Guard has the authority to intervene or to give other response organizations the mandate to clean up the spill. If a company cannot cover the cost of cleanup efforts, the Canadian Coast Guard may request funds from the ship-source oil pollution fund. This implies that the government should be responsible for any costs exceeding what the fund can pay.

There is a problem, however. In March 2013, the fund had a balance of $400 million. To illustrate how insufficient that amount is, I would like to use the Exxon Valdez accident as an example. After the disaster, cleanup costs and compensation for damages totalled $3.5 billion. Clearly, there is a problem. The amount available is inadequate. Even the oil pollution fund could not cover the costs resulting from a major spill.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was born near the Gaspé Peninsula, and the St. Lawrence River flows through that area. We have had what we call the marine park since approximately the 2000s. Park employees study the entire marine environment and are trying to provide education and acquire tools.

Since many oil tankers pass through that area, can the member tell us whether special measures are being taken to ensure marine safety in that area and in other areas where there is a marine park?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, from what I have read, no practical measures are being taken to protect that region.

I would like to come back to what I was saying earlier about the expertise of Quebec City rescue centre employees. They were able to respond to distress calls; however, such calls could also pertain to accidents involving a potential oil spill. That francophone expertise is being lost. The government is telling us that bilingual expertise will be available elsewhere, but such is not the case as of yet. In my opinion, that is cause for concern.

The public has legitimate concerns. The communities are very close and the damage could be significant. The St. Lawrence River's wildlife is rather exceptional.

What is more, the Gaspé Peninsula's economy is mainly based on tourism. Imagine the impact an oil spill would have on tourism in the area. Tourists would stay away for months because many attractions, including beaches, would not be accessible. That could have a major impact not only on the area's wildlife but also on the local economy of a tourism-based region.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask my colleague another question.

In her speech, she mentioned companies' insurance coverage. She gave the example of Lac-Mégantic, which pertains to rail transportation, but the same principle could be applied to marine transportation.

Do companies have the insurance they need to clean up messes such as oil spills, which can cause considerable and devastating damage? How important is it for these companies to have a fair bit of insurance to deal with damage related to the quantity and the hazardous nature of the products being shipped?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is indeed a critical point.

When this is studied in committee, I hope that the experts will provide concrete examples of incidents around the world and say how much cleanups have cost in practice. Earlier, I gave the example of an incident where the cleanup cost $3.5 billion. I think this is quite a substantial amount.

Through the testimony of these experts, the committee will be able to determine what the insurance coverage should be, based on past incidents and other potential costs associated with larger ships, to ensure that companies do not fail to pay.

Obviously, there should not be any situations where responses are inadequate, companies are no longer able to bear the costs, there is no compliance with the polluter-pay principle and, ultimately, the federal government and Canadian taxpayers have to foot the bill, all because a Conservative government refused to support legislation to adequately protect our waterways and ensure marine security.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, at this point, I should inform you that I will share my time with the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, who will take over for me.

First, I would like to provide some context for Bill C-3. My colleagues have already discussed it a bit this morning, but I think that, as the member for Sherbrooke, it is important for me to speak to this bill and inform the House about the concerns of my constituents. I do not represent a coastal riding, but my riding is close enough to the east coast of Canada and the U.S. that these issues are important to my constituents. In fact, anything that has to do with the environment affects the people of Sherbrooke. I am pleased to speak to Bill C-3 here on their behalf.

As hon. members know, this bill was introduced during the last session, that is, during the first session of the 41st Parliament. At that time it was Bill C-57. Since we already had the opportunity to study it during the last session of Parliament, this bill is somewhat familiar to us. My colleagues already know that we will support this bill at second reading.

I would also like to remind the House that we tried to broaden the scope of the bill, and I will say more about that later because I have not yet explained exactly what the bill is about. Our attempts to broaden the scope of the bill were fruitless. Now that Bill C-3 is before us, we are trying again; we are speaking up. We hope that our attempts to improve it will be successful so that we can support it all the way through the process. Between now and then, we would like to send the bill to committee for a thorough review to ensure that it meets our constituents' expectations.

This bill amends five acts and has four main parts. I will focus on the last parts.

Part 1 would indemnify certain air carriers for loss, damage or liability caused by war risks. I am not really sure where this legislative change comes from, but if there is a crisis or a war, the government would compensate air carriers for damage caused by illegal attacks, such as armed conflict, rebellion or hijacking. I will not go into any detail about that part.

Part 2 is about air transportation and amends the Aeronautics Act to provide certain persons with powers to investigate aviation accidents or incidents involving civilians and aircraft or aeronautical installations operated by or on behalf of the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Forces or a visiting force. This is interesting, actually. We would like to talk about an issue in this part of the bill. I think that this issue will come up in committee when we take a closer look at the bill.

Right now, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is responsible for investigating aeronautical accidents involving the armed forces. According to this bill, the armed forces would take over that function. A military investigator would be responsible for that and would have to report to the Minister of National Defence. We would like to know if those reports will be made public.

Currently, reports produced by the TSB are made public. In recent months, unfortunately I must say, we have come to learn a great deal more about the TSB. It really is not clear from the bill whether the reports produced by the Department of National Defence investigator will be made public. Obviously, these questions will be raised later in committee. I simply wanted to point out that we have some reservations about part 2 of the bill.

Part 3 does not call for any major amendment. It pertains to the appointment of port authority directors. The appointments would take effect on the day on which notice of appointment is received by the port authority. I will not elaborate further on this part of the bill.

This brings me to the two main parts of the bill that are of great concern to us and that we find especially important, specifically the amendment to the Marine Liability Act. The bill provides for the coming into force of the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea, 2010, pursuant to an international convention concluded in 2010.

This part covers the costs and expenses incurred by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans when a spill occurs. The company responsible for the spill must have adequate insurance in place to cover the financial cost of the cleanup. It is important to understand that tanker traffic continues to increase. Traffic has increased in recent years and is on track to quadruple by 2016. So then, given the rapid increase in tanker traffic, this is an especially important consideration today.

As tanker traffic increases so too do the attendant risks. The same holds true for highway traffic. The more automobiles and people travelling on our highways, the greater the risk of accidents happening. It is no different when it comes to oceans and waterways. Fortunately, accidents are not a daily occurrence, but when they do happen, the consequences can be quite devastating. We have a number of examples to draw on from around the world, whether it is ships that have spilled some of their cargo, or accidents occurring on offshore oil rigs. One recent example was the spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. I am sure everyone remembers the extensive damage done to coastlines. The damage does not last only a few weeks. We are still seeing the effects of the spill today. It has had a major impact on ocean ecosystems.

So then, it is important for companies that take the risk of transporting these products to be able to respond when an accident occurs. That is the least they can do. When a company is responsible for shipping oil products, it must be held liable when an accident linked to its activities occurs. The public or governments should not be held liable. By government we mean the public because the government operates on taxpayers’ money. In short, the government should not have to bear the full cost when an accident occurs. The companies should be the ones assuming the risks. Moreover, government authorities should put in place regulations to ensure that everything is in order, that inspections are carried out and that shipping companies abide by a minimum set of rules. Every single accident cannot, however, be prevented. That is impossible. So, when one does happen, companies must be able to take responsibility for the damage that they have caused.

This brings me to part 5 of the bill which amends inspection provisions in order to ensure that companies have plans in place in the event of an accident and that they submit them to the government so that authorities, whether local, provincial or federal, can respond immediately to an accident. These authorities would therefore already have the plans in hand and would be aware of the nature of the products being transported. It would therefore be much easier to respond quickly and effectively in such cases.

The bill is a step in the right direction. We support the small positive steps that are being taken. Therefore, we will be happy to support the bill at second reading. In committee, we will look at what can be done to continue moving in this direction.

As opposition members, our job is to suggest measures. That is what we will continue to do when the bill is examined in committee. We will try to improve upon its provisions, so that it is the best possible piece of legislation by the time it is adopted.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I am struck by one thing. This government bill focuses on safety, a right to which the public is entitled. However, not every Conservative member is rising to speak to the bill. I would like to get my colleague’s opinion on the fact that the government is not defending its own bill or speaking to it. What does my colleague think of that?

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I thank my colleague for her relevant question, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, I am just as amazed as he is. The Conservatives claim to want to make the bill a priority, and yet not a single one of them is willing to rise to defend it. The least government members can do is represent their constituents in the House and state their position by showing that they support the bill. So far, it is hard to tell whether Conservative members even support it. They do not even dare speak to it. Perhaps the Prime Minister's Office, which controls all, does not wish government MPs to speak for fear of what they might say. I can neither understand nor explain their silence. That said, I look forward to hearing them speak to the bill. I do hope they will state their position, which would be quite interesting and most appropriate given its importance. They claim the bill is important, yet their actions say otherwise.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for sharing his time with me. He is a very eloquent speaker in the House and an extraordinary chair.

As with the issue raised by my colleague, I remain extremely puzzled. The Conservative government prorogued Parliament because it told the public that it was going to reconfigure and have a whole new agenda. However, bill after bill is being tabled that is exactly the same legislation that was brought forward before the government prorogued.

One would have thought that if the Conservatives wanted to reconfigure and rethink their legislative agenda, this would have given them ample opportunity to consult and confer with the public, potentially impacted Canadians on the three coasts, and the official opposition. We have offered to recommend additional amendments and measures that could be taken to ensure greater marine and aviation safety.

I wonder if the member could speak to our complete puzzlement that none of the Conservative members seem to think that safety in aviation and the response to oil spills are matters worth debating.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

My colleague asks a very good question, Mr. Speaker. I very much look forward to her upcoming speech. She is very knowledgeable about these issues.

To answer her question, I too am puzzled as to why the Conservatives prorogued the House only to bring forward the very same legislation, as if nothing had happened. One has to wonder why they prorogued in the first place, other than to get media exposure and distract people from the Senate scandal. I wonder what the real reason was for the prorogation. The first thing the Conservatives did when the House reconvened was to reintroduce all of their bills at the same stage they were at in the previous session. It was as if nothing had happened. I wonder what the real reason was for all this, other than to throw up a smokescreen and change the channel. In my view, that is the simplest and most obvious reason to have prorogued the House.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-3. It is yet another omnibus bill and an omnibus bill that, frankly, our party would have been happy to support had it included many of the additional measures needed to improve aviation safety and the shipping of oil along our three coastlines.

Bill C-3 amends a number of statutes, including the Aeronautics Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Marine Liability Act, and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. These are very important measures. They are definitely worth a lot of discussion and consultation well in advance so that we can ensure that the bill is comprehensive.

Mr. Speaker, I am having a little bit of trouble concentrating, because there is a lot of conversation on the other side. I am wondering if they could take it outside.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Including myself in that regard, if we can, let us keep the chatter down. If members want to have an extensive conversation, perhaps they should move out into the foyer.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to this bill. As my colleagues have pointed out, we are supporting sending the bill to committee. Our preference would have been that the bill go to committee before second reading. That would have provided, in the custom of the House, ample opportunity for amendments. There is a particular concern that the government is not open to amendments coming from the opposition.

In the interest of Canadian safety and in the interest of the public and the security of our three coasts, we certainly encourage the government to take seriously recommendations from witnesses, recommendations made by the opposition, and the amendments that we might put forward.

For the record, I would like to share with the House a number of the measures that the New Democrats have called for to ensure the safeguarding of Canada's seas and coastlines. They include: reversing the cuts to the Coast Guard; the closure of Coast Guard stations; the scaling back of services; cancelling the cuts to the marine communications traffic service centres in Vancouver and St. John's; cancelling the closure of B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil spills responses; cancelling the cuts to Canada's offshore oil, gas and industry research centre; reversing the cuts to key environmental emergency programs, including oil spill response for Newfoundland and Labrador and British Columbia; reinforcing the capacity of petroleum boards to handle oil spills as recommended by the environment commissioner who reports to Parliament; and requiring the Canadian Coast Guard to work collaboratively with its U.S. counterparts.

Additional recommendations were made by the official opposition in response to what the communities were calling for with growing concerns about the potential for oil spills. Of course we have offshore oil activity on our eastern coast, and there have been proposals for offshore in British Columbia, thus far not moving forward. The biggest risk being posed is tanker traffic, if the government in its wisdom decides to support any of the recommendations by the National Energy Board for the shipping of raw bitumen and other products to the coast and shipping by tanker.

I would like to bring to the attention of the House the experience I had in the past when I was the chief of enforcement for Environment Canada. I became the chief in the wake of a very serious aeronautics accident in northern Alberta, which tragically killed a number of people, including the then leader of the Alberta New Democrats, Grant Notley.

To its credit, the then government, the Mulroney government, brought together a team in treasury board and justice personnel to take a look at Crown liability and to make clear, to all of the federal regulatory authorities, their responsibilities and liabilities where they failed to adequately inspect and enforce federal laws.

It is a deep concern to me that the government in its wisdom has not seen fit to table an enforcement and compliance policy and strategy, coupled with this legislation. If it is in fact sincere about improving our capacity to reduce the risks of spills and the capability to respond, I would certainly encourage the government to step up to the plate and do so.

Of equal concern is the fact that I understand it has appointed a three-person panel to look into marine safety. The wise thing would have been to wait until the recommendations came from that panel before tabling a bill. One would presume that it will come forward with useful recommendations.

I would like to raise a couple of specific provisions. Part 2 of Bill C-3 adds a new section 6(1), which gives complete discretion to the Minister of National Defence or an officer so appointed to exempt any persons or facilities from liability under the statute. There is no provision for any consultation whatsoever. It is complete discretion. That is a little worrisome given the issue at hand.

I have some greater awareness of the necessity for expanded aerial surveillance. This certainly arises when we are talking about dealing with marine spills and the inspection of tankers coming into our three coasts. I had the honour, when we had the program for members of Parliament, to spend a week with our armed forces, to spend it with the SARs, the search and rescue teams, on the east coast of Canada. That included flying with the surveillance airplanes, which communicate with the ships going into our ports.

It became very evident to me and my colleagues that we were in need of giving greater attention to improving surveillance ability and to very dated aircraft, both airplanes and helicopters.

In part 4, dealing with the Marine Liability Act, proposed section 74.28 prohibits the entry into a port without a certificate issued under the act. There are various provisions. The certificate is issued by Canada if the ships are owned by Canada, but probably in the vast majority of cases these oil tankers will be owned by some other foreign national. It raises the question of at what point in time officers will be able to stop those ships if they are already in port and if we will be stuck with tanker ships that are not seaworthy. There are a lot of big issues that merit discussion in committee, including the capacity, staffing, and training of officers to intercede in all of these ships.

I see the need for the tabling, simultaneously, with an enforcement compliance strategy. Are we, as the government likes to say, “shovel-ready” to enforce these new provisions if they come into effect? What is the capacity on the coast? There have been a lot of cuts to enforcement and scientific agencies.

As I mentioned, we would appreciate getting the report from the three-person Tanker Safety Expert Panel. It would be very helpful to the review by the committee. We cannot ask the government the obvious question, because it is not standing up and being held accountable for the bill, but I am curious to know what marine law experts it consulted with. It is very important that we know our law is well-founded and that the provisions of the convention that are brought forward actually reflect what is stated in law. In proposed subsection 74.4(3), the power to make regulations, there is absolutely no requirement to consult experts in the field, to consult on the potential impact to communities, or to consult military experts.

The proposed provisions to amend the Canada Shipping Act are very interesting to me. I come from a province where there is a several-hundred-fold percentage increase in the rail shipping of raw bitumen. There are two major terminals now being built in Alberta that will allow for 24-hour loading and movement of rail-loaded cars with bitumen. I would have thought at the same time the government would have come forward with legislation to ensure that when we set up these terminals, we would ensure we would have greater provisions to prevent incidents and respond to spills. A decade ago, there was the largest freshwater spill of bunker C oil in Lake Wabamun. The response was a complete disaster by both the federal and Alberta governments. I would like to see similar action by the government in all ways that we are shipping petroleum products to improve safety.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I saw some movement on the Conservative benches for legislation that they said was so critical to their economic agenda, yet they refuse to speak to it or address any of the concerns we raise. I do not think that speaks to their confidence in the topic at hand, which is how we protect Canadians when we are sometimes shipping hazardous products by rail or on our oceans.

I come from the west coast. My friend is from Alberta. The proposal is to ship bitumen, in particular, from Alberta through British Columbia, which is a great distance, 1,100 kilometres in the case of Enbridge and twinning the Kinder Morgan pipeline. That brings with it questions. Those questions deserve to be answered by the government, which promotes one side of the conversation enthusiastically, although the Minister of Natural Resources said in British Columbia the other day that the government did not promote any oil pipeline projects and it was neutral, except that it spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running around the world promoting the exact same pipeline projects.

The question of balance is important. How do we protect the other economic interests on B.C.'s coast, which can be fishing or tourism and the public at large? My friend, who worked in Alberta for many years trying to enforce basic public protections, has also seen, like me, many of the environmental considerations, laws and foundations that we hold in the country stripped away by the Conservative government.

I am wondering how the people in Alberta view the stripping down of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the gutting of the Fisheries Act and the weakening of things like Canada's Coast Guard. The Auditor General of Canada has said that we do not have the capacity to clean up marine spills from supertankers. The B.C. government said the same thing. Now B.C. and Alberta are in this discussion about how to promote the export of raw bitumen through British Columbia from Alberta.

What does it do to the industry and the larger and broader public interest when governments introduce legislation that guts environmental protection or when they make efforts to perhaps enhance liability and protection of the public but refuse to justify or make any arguments as to why it is important or address the weaknesses and offer strength? What does this do to the general public confidence and the social licence that companies are so often seeking from the public to promote their projects?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague has a deep love of his constituency, which would potentially bear the brunt of the major risk of proposed tanker trafficking of raw bitumen.

The member raises a lot of cogent points. One of the most important ones is the abject failure of the government to respond to even its own officers' recommendations. The commissioner for sustainable development has made recommendation after recommendation for either improving the legislation or improving the monitoring and enforcement of that legislation.

The question is this: why is the government not responding to those independent recommendations coming from the leading experts in the country?

Deeply troubling is the emasculation of federal environmental legislation, which I am very privileged to have had a part in preparing.

Scientists and technical people and even the industry are deeply troubled with the direction in which the government is going. Throne speech after throne speech and budget after budget have been clear. The government's intention is to fast-track resource extraction. What it has promised is balanced development.

However, in committee yesterday, we heard from the MPMO, which is a body created relatively recently specifically to override all environmental protections and fast-track. It was very clear in its presentation that it no longer really saw its role as this double one of both ensuring efficient reviews and ensuring they were effective, in other words, ensuring the environment was protected.

Evidence of that is found in the Center for Global Development report issued yesterday, which stated that Canada had dropped from 12th to 27th place out of 28 wealthy nations in the world, for our environmental record. That tells us right there.

How can the Canadian public have confidence in the government? It is one thing to enact legislation that would put into effect an international convention; it is another thing to actually put into place the mechanisms that would ensure Canadian safety on the three coastlines.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I must advise hon. members that the time allocated for 20-minute speeches has expired. The debate will continue with 10-minute speeches and five minutes for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, what strikes me in this debate is the deafening silence of the Conservatives despite their claim that this bill is important for the protection of the environment, for the Canadian economy and for the protection of Canadians. It seems my Conservative friends have nothing to say about their own legislation.

Let us face it, this bill is not good enough. We, the official opposition, the NDP, feel that it does not go far enough even though, in some respects, it is a step in the right direction. It is incredible. If, all of a sudden, the Conservatives are unable to speak, perhaps they can suddenly start listening. That would be a first.

My colleagues from British Columbia and Alberta made that point very clear. It is about having the tools to better protect our environment but also, and more specifically, to better protect our coasts from the threat of toxic or dangerous spills for our ecosystems. Such spills would threaten the extraordinary Canadian biodiversity and the habitats close to areas where our fellow citizens live.

Every step in the right direction helps avoid catastrophes that are not natural disasters. These catastrophes are often the result of negligence, abandonment and a lack of seriousness in the rules. They are directly responsible for tragedies that have occurred all too often in the past.

Canada is surrounded by water. We are even reminded of that by our motto. Therefore, we cannot help but be concerned by the protection of our coasts, particularly with respect to oil spills. Indeed, there is a lot more shipping of oil and gas products, or of very heavy products that can have a devastating effect on the environment.

We wonder why the Conservative government is suddenly so keen on protecting the environment. I have a feeling that some members opposite may have recently felt the need to soften their image and to balance their message to Canadians and Quebeckers since becoming a majority government.

They always pit the environment against the economy. We, on this side, believe that the two must go together. It is only normal that sustainable and responsible economic development would go hand in hand with the protection of ecosystems and of the environment.

I am reminded of a quote attributed to David Suzuki that says “without an ecology there is no economy”. Without a healthy environment, we cannot do business or trade. This is why we need to find a good balance. I am delighted to see the Conservative government starting to show an awareness of these issues. The timing seems somewhat opportunistic, however, with less than two years until the next election. Nevertheless, if it can really make a difference, so much the better.

Making a real difference requires resources. On the official opposition side, we have some concerns in this regard. Do we have the resources we need to implement the rules in Bill C-3, including protecting the coastline after a toxic or hazardous spill?

If we look at food inspection or railway safety inspectors, the Conservatives' record is hardly reassuring. Nowadays, for inspectors who oversee and monitor railways, the ratio is one inspector to 4,000 railcars. That is beyond absurd.

The Conservatives say they have not eliminated any inspector jobs. However, there has been a huge increase in rail transport of hazardous materials in Canada over the last five years. Many more tanker trucks and railcars now go through our cities and towns, but no one has allocated resources to determine whether they do so in the safest way possible. We have every right to wonder: are we in the same situation again?

The government told us it would eliminate 19,600 jobs in the public service without affecting anyone. It said that there would be no impact, that it would save money on administration and red tape. One may wonder just what these people used to do at the office. They used to do things that no one is left to do now.

We can also look at toxic spills from the other side of the issue. We can give ourselves the tools to conduct inspections and audits, but has a strategy been put in place to prevent spills? Is research being done to improve the equipment? Are we having a dialogue with our international counterparts on international standards and the steps that must be taken to ensure that cargo ships are safer and that inspections take place elsewhere as well? The cargo ships that sail near our shores are not always Canadian. What can we do to work together internationally so that double-hulled cargo ships become the minimum standard and so that we can reach an agreement on the thickness of the materials used to build them? Instead of cleaning oil off the backs of birds on the shore, we could ensure that the standards are the same for everyone, even if it costs a bit more. There would be a level playing field, as the saying goes. We would actually have an accident prevention strategy instead of just cleaning up after a spill.

Part 5 of Bill C-3 “amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to introduce new requirements for operators of oil handling facilities”. This has to do with the permanent equipment on our shores that enables us to import or export those types of products. The bill sets out the requirement to inform the minister of any operations and to submit plans to the minister.

Part 5 introduces a new requirement whereby the operators of oil handling facilities must submit a response plan to the minister. It extends civil and criminal immunity to response organizations engaged in response operations. It also introduces new enforcement measures and monetary penalties, in addition to granting new investigative powers to Transport Canada investigators.

I wonder if there will be enough Transport Canada investigators to get the job done. My colleague from Edmonton pointed this issue out earlier. That is a valid question. It looks good on paper, but if, tomorrow morning, the Transport Canada investigators are swamped because they must do everything and do not have the necessary personnel and resources, will there be a real impact? Will there be a real change in the right direction? We hope so. That is a small improvement and change.

The NDP will support this because it is a step in the right direction. However, we would have expected the Conservative government to take this more seriously. We were expecting a more comprehensive strategy.

We are disappointed that the Minister of Transport did not reply to a letter from the NDP, dated April 5, 2013, in which we asked that the bill be sent to committee so that it could be examined more thoroughly and so that meaningful work could be done. Unfortunately, the Conservative government ignored that request.

The NDP is committed to ensuring that an oil spill never occurs on our coasts. That should be our goal. The Conservative track record makes it increasingly difficult to believe that the concerns of Quebeckers and Canadians are being taken seriously.

Bill C-3 is a thinly veiled attempt to compensate for past inaction and Conservative cuts to marine safety.

The measures in Bill C-3 that are designed to improve safety are relatively weak compared to the risks posed by closing the oil spill response centre in British Columbia, closing the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station and cutting environmental emergency response programs.

It is so contradictory and muddled that I think the Conservatives should stop trying to tell people things. Either they seem to hurt themselves or they sit silently and do not talk, as is the case today. They have no idea how agonizing it is for those of us who are trying to understand. We want to know where the Conservatives are going with this and what exactly the message is. Unfortunately, they do one thing and say another, or say one thing and do another. It is like saying that it was not me; it was the previous government. It is not my fault; it is the Liberals' fault.

We, the official opposition, want the Conservative government to be straightforward, consistent and clear. Unfortunately, yet again, that is not what we are seeing today.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the discussion from the other side. The members fail to point out that this government has taken incredible steps in environmental protection. We have worked with our partners in Ducks Unlimited and Nature Conservancy. We have put in place Nahanni National Park in the north. We have preserved territory unlike any other government in Canada. We will continue to do so because we know that working in partnership with our environment is so important to the health of Canadians and industry across this country.

This is more of a comment than a question. I would encourage my colleague,who was not here in 2010, to go back and review the legislation we put in place. It requires ships anywhere in Canadian waters to have double hulls, because we know we want to prevent spills in our territories rather than clean them up.

We also brought in the Arctic waters act. I was on the transport committee in 2008 when we put that piece of legislation through.

I am happy that my colleagues across the way will be supporting this bill at second reading. However, I would encourage my colleague to go back and review these other pieces of legislation. They have been put in place by this government, and we want to continue to work to keep our environment safe.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her comment. I am sure it will make excellent YouTube videos for her constituents.

I, however, find it unfortunate that she is wearing rose-coloured glasses. She just confirmed what I said a few seconds ago—that sometimes the Conservatives should stop trying to tell people things because they are completely out of touch with reality. What the Conservatives are saying is not based on facts but on what they want Quebeckers and Canadians to believe.

The Conservative government has a disastrous record when it comes to the environment. The Conservatives are using this bill to try to make up some lost ground. However, the government basically eliminated the serious environmental assessment processes that this country had in order to expedite certain projects, with disastrous results. The government is not doing anything. It is standing idly by during the biggest environmental crisis the country has ever faced: global warming. The government has a terrible international record when it comes to the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, yet it thinks that everything is fine.

I am sorry, but the government is completely irresponsible when it comes to the environment, and people will be there to judge that.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the government is waging a misinformation campaign. Government members are patting themselves on the back and saying that they are the ones who required oil tankers to have double hulls in 2010, when an international agreement has clearly required tankers to have double hulls since 1993.

The fact is that Canadians are concerned when they hear a natural resources minister taking credit for implementing a standard that actually dates back 20 years. Canadians know that double hulls have been required for 20 years. However, it was not until 2010 that the Minister of Natural Resources woke up and realized that Canada had to comply with a regulation that had been in place for 20 years.

Why is the government being so silent? Has the misinformation campaign affected even government members?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

The government is losing momentum; it is tired, worn out and running out of steam. It is attempting to rejuvenate itself, but no one is falling for its political stunt. Let us not forget that this same government shut down British Columbia's oil spill response centre, shut down the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station and slashed environmental response programs.

If the government truly took this issue seriously, it would not have made those decisions and it would be sending a much more coherent message than the one it is unfortunately attempting to send today.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was excited to come to the House today, knowing that the Conservative government wanted to reconsider things and explain the relevance of the measures in Bill C-3. Surprisingly, no Conservatives are rising to justify the bill. That is ridiculous. Not only are they gagging the opposition with motions to limit debate, but they are also not even participating in the debates. They introduced the bill and they do not want to hear the opposition debate it. They introduce the bill and could not care less about any amendments the opposition might suggest. This is an attack on Canadian democracy. “All you madmen, where have you gone?” Quoting Daniel Boucher seemed appropriate this morning.

I would like to quote another songwriter:

Sitting on the edge of the Cap Diamant, dipping my feet in the St. Lawrence.
I chatted a while with the great Jos Monferrand

We spoke of rain and good weather, then Jos Monferrand asked, “Are you ready?” “Ready for what?” I replied. He said, “Are you ready for a huge spill in the St. Lawrence River?”

The Minister of Natural Resources says we are ready. The Premier of British Columbia does not think we are ready for this kind of spill. There is massive pressure from the oil lobbies to export Alberta oil. One aspect of this strategy is to transport the oil to oil terminals in the St. Lawrence via pipelines. The oil would then be sent to foreign markets.

Right now, before the two pipeline projects have even been implemented, 82 ships with 150,000 tonnes of oil travel the St. Lawrence every four days. They supply the Ultramar refinery, among others. The idea is to reverse the flow and use the St. Lawrence estuary to ship refined oil, and probably crude oil, to foreign markets. The energy east pipeline would make it possible to transport a million barrels of oil a day to oil terminals in Quebec and New Brunswick.

Now I am going to talk about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, my gulf, my St. Lawrence, my Big Blue. It is a majestic, unique and fragile ecosystem, an incredible environment conducive to the reproduction of dozens of marine species, several of which are endangered. Some of those species at risk include the cod, the blue whale and the leatherback turtle. The gulf ecosystem plays a fundamental role in the health of the river's ecosystems and estuary. As many as 350 rivers flow into the St. Lawrence. Apart from its biological richness, the St. Lawrence is also characterized by its great geological richness. As a result of the sedimentation process, there are also oil sources in the St. Lawrence. There are hydrocarbon deposits. The Old Harry oil exploration project, for example, apparently represents two billion barrels of oil. However, developing that oil, like exporting Alberta's oil via the St. Lawrence, entails incredible risks. Whether large or small, there will inevitably be spills.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence is an inland sea one-sixth the size of the Gulf of Mexico. Of course, all the oil spill computer simulations show that oil spilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as a result of a platform failure or a supertanker on the river whose tanks have burst, would have an incredible impact on the five maritime provinces. One feature of the St. Lawrence River is that it is the largest water pump in the world.

The St. Lawrence River has what are called changing tidal streams. In large tides, the 12 km/h east-west current reverses to west-east at 10 km/h. As a result, everything that is spilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence flows upriver to the secondary rivers and tributaries of St. Lawrence. The tide rises three or four metres. Oil spilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence would thus not only wind up in the gulf itself, and therefore in the maritime provinces, but would also flow up the St. Lawrence into the Saguenay, Matane, Manicouagan and Outardes rivers. All those rivers would also be affected by a major spill.

Are we prepared to deal with that kind of spill? We know that oil tankers in the past managed to transport one million barrels of oil. Supertankers now carry as much as two million barrels.

There is obviously a permanent risk involved in transporting this substance. Will there be other spills off our coasts? Of course there will. There have been 10,000 spills around the world since 1970. There have been some very large ones. Here in Canada, we obviously remember the Exxon Valdez, but 2.9 million litres of oil were spilled in the Singapore Strait, in Malaysia, in 2010. Also in 2010, another tanker spilled one million litres of oil on its way to Texas.

Currently, under the provisions of this bill, a tanker would be required to have an oil recovery capacity of 10,000 litres. We are not in the same league. Here we are talking about 1.7 million and 2.9 million litres of oil. How can we deal with that kind of spill under the proposed measures? The fund that would have to support all that oil recovery work represents $400 million. The oil-recovery and site-decontamination effort following the Exxon Valdez spill alone cost $3.5 billion.

We obviously cannot imagine the costs that would be incurred if that kind of spill happened in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. What we do know is that they would necessarily be borne by Canadian taxpayers, whom our friends opposite love and systematically defend. That is what we are going to do as well. We are going to do it better than they because we are going to demand that the ceiling, this minimum of 10,000 litres of oil, be increased. It is unrealistic to claim that we will be able to protect our coastlines with that guarantee when supertankers containing two million barrels could run aground there.

Moreover, as everyone knows, the St. Lawrence estuary is where there is the greatest risk of collision in the world. The ships that sail the St. Lawrence are required to use pilots to avoid the many shoals, crosscurrents and reversing currents. Hundreds of obstacles in the St. Lawrence mean that transportation by oil tanker is dangerous, especially with the cuts that have been made to maritime surveillance. I am thinking of the Quebec City centre that the government wanted to close and that is in the process of closing. That centre received no fewer than 1,500 calls.

I would like to cite Mr. Émilien Pelletier, director of the Canada Research Chair in Marine Ecotoxicology, who says that, for the moment, our oil recovery methods, particularly in wintertime—because it should not be forgotten that the Gulf of St. Lawrence freezes—are 30 years old, and we have not invested enough in research to develop more effective methods. We still use barriers, a system that is not effective and often fails.

I will answer questions now.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Quebec.

This is interesting, because people have very strong feelings about this issue. It is interesting to me because I am from the west coast. In north-western British Columbia, we have many questions about this government's plan—if such a thing exists—to approve natural resource projects, particularly those associated with oil. Canadians are asking a lot of questions because they want our rivers and the environment to be protected. Currently, the government's problem is that it does not have the people's trust, and Canadians are wondering whether it is truly committed to the public interest. The government gives its full support to the oil companies and does not listen to the opposition, the experts or the witnesses.

My question is, will there be a day when this Conservative government will listen to the opposition in order to improve such bills as Bill C-3, and improve conditions for Canadians with respect to the transportation of oil and other hazardous substances?

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one would have hoped that, given the enormous pressure on the oil export issue, the Conservative government would take all necessary steps to ensure that this was done, not just according to the standards, but rather according to requirements that go beyond international standards.

However, we see precisely the opposite. We see that the government is watering down all the legislation that ensures greater control of oil production and the laws governing oil transportation. They say they will be monitoring all this. I read Bill C-3. We will be monitoring the movements of oil tankers from high in the sky. I am sorry, but if there is a spill, it is nice that we can watch it from the air, but we must have the resources required to address this problem immediately, and clearly those resources are not there.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising because I am very worried about the marine park located at the mouth of the Saguenay. Whales are attracted to this area because of the special ecosystem and environment.

I am worried, and I would like to know if the member shares my concern for these ecosystems and the resulting problems if a tanker accident were to occur.