Mr. Speaker, we have some reservations about this bill. We have many questions to ask and a number of suggestions to make. We have done this in the past, and we are somewhat concerned about the silence of not only the Conservatives but also the Liberals and, what is more surprising, the Green Party. We are supporting this bill at second reading, but we believe it should be expanded. It must be broadened to take liability limits into account. We are worried that the current liability limits are not high enough.
We know that the New Democratic Party is the only party in the House that can protect marine safety for all Canadians. The NDP has already called for the protection of rescue centres in Canada a few times, but as a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I would especially like to point out that the Quebec City rescue centre is the only bilingual centre in the entire country. The government cannot claim that it is protecting marine safety on one hand, while closing rescue centres on the other. We could have a whole other debate on this, but I have several things to discuss in my 10 minutes and I would like to continue talking about other topics.
My riding is located between two major waterways, namely the St. Lawrence River and the Ottawa River. I can tell all members of the House that my constituents are currently very concerned about the possibility of a pipeline oil spill in the St. Lawrence River or even in the Ottawa River. They are aware that the national ship-source oil pollution fund, which was established in the 1970s, has not been adequately funded for a long time and has not been used since 1976. That was a long time ago. I would like to point out that, at that time, there was a Liberal minority government in power—until 1976—and that it governed in partnership with the NDP. We can therefore see that the Liberals were willing to protect the interests of Canadians, but as soon as their NDP partner was gone, they unfortunately left Canadians out in the cold.
We often hear the government side claim that oil transportation is 99.9% safe, but if that is indeed the case, why not increase liability limits? If it is so safe, then there is no risk in having penalties for companies, so why not increase liability?
Some other countries, like Norway, have no liability limits on spills. This policy reduces the risk of spills. I will briefly explain why. When a company is told that it will have to cover the total cost of a spill, the company will do everything it can to avoid a spill; it will try to make sure it never happens.
Instead, the government would rather pass the cleanup bill onto the taxpayers, which I find very unfortunate. Globally, we have seen major spills that have cost billions of dollars. It would not only be an environmental nightmare, it would also be an economic nightmare for citizens along the St. Lawrence to have to pay the costs of the cleanup.
Let me just point out that in 2012, the five largest oil companies made $118 billion in profit alone. That $118 billion would be enough to pay the cost of cleanup if there were a major spill. Unfortunately, the government is listening to its big oil lobbyists instead. In past legislation it has attempted to remove every obstacle that the oil and transport sector wanted removed.
Leadership means not only helping our friends, but standing for principles that concern all Canadians, not just a certain sector of Canadians. I am sure Canadians would be absolutely disgusted, and I do not believe I am using too strong a word, to know that oil companies are writing amendments to Canadian environmental legislation. Any of our constituents would be disturbed by the fact that oil lobbyists actually send to ministers the amendments they would like to see. It is absolutely unacceptable that our independence has been challenged in this way by the lobbying sector.
Leadership means taking a principled stand to protect the right of not only this generation, not only the next generation, but for the right to a clean environment for the next seven or eight generations down the line. As leaders of our country, we should be considering the needs of eight generations down the line.
One of the fundamental support systems of this planet is water. If we do not do it properly now, if we sully our waters so the next generations will be un able to use them, then our support system for life on this planet will be threatened.
The NDP is committed to ensuring that oil spills never happen on our coast. The Conservatives have lost the trust of Canadians in this respect. They have not really shown to Canadians that they are capable of managing this file, and we would like to ensure that an oil spill never happens. However, if an oil spill did happen, we would want the government to ensure that the company that polluted would foot the bill, not the taxpayer. This is simple common sense. We are very worried.
The Minister of Natural Resources said that he required oil tankers to have double hulls. Canadians are right to be concerned, because that standard was created by an international agreement in 1993. Wow. That standard has been in place for 20 years under an international agreement. Yet, according to the Minister of Natural Resources, the Conservatives are the ones who required tankers to have double hulls. I am sorry, but people know that this standard has been in place for 20 years.
As I said, what is most troubling is the utter silence from the Conservatives and the Liberals. I am also quite surprised that the Green Party has not risen to weigh in on this issue. That surprises me a little.
We have not heard anything from the Conservatives. We had a number of questions for them. I hope at least one person from the other parties will be able to answer my questions.
As we know, the bill is too limited in its scope. Why did the government reject our proposal to broaden the scope of the bill? Why is it unwilling to make any real, significant changes to protect our coastlines? If Bill C-3 is really supposed to promote safety, why did the government not take this opportunity to reverse its poor decisions to cut safety measures?
We wanted to ask a number of questions. The silence on the part of the three other parties is really unfortunate. The NDP are the only ones standing up to speak to this bill. It is the government's duty to defend its bill. Clearly, many members across the floor do not want to do so.