Mr. Speaker, we believe very much in the principle of polluter pay. In fact, one of the issues that is not properly addressed in this bill is that we should be raising the limit for cleaning up spills. There is something called the Ship-sourced Oil Pollution Fund, which does provide a source of funds through levies when there is a major spill; however, it is interesting to note that no levy has been imposed since 1976, and although that fund now has $400 million in it, which might sound like a lot, if there were actually a major spill, it would go in a flash.
Just to put it in context, the total cleanup for the Exxon Valdez was $3.5 billion. Of course, as I mentioned, we are now dealing with supertankers that are much bigger than the Exxon Valdez, so the Ship-sourced Oil Pollution Fund would really be just a drop in the bucket if there were to be a major spill. We believe the issues of polluter pay and of increasing the limit for cleaning up spills are very important priorities, but they are not addressed in the bill.