Mr. Speaker, this is a point that we need to be clear on. Bill C-22 would raise the liability limits for the operator to $1 billion. We know we needed to do that. We were operating under a nuclear bill that was several years old and needed to be updated. We know when we compare the billion-dollar operator liability to other countries that this will put Canada among the highest limits in the world.
The United Kingdom, France, Spain and other European countries are moving to an operator limit of $1 billion. They are not there yet but they are thinking of going that way. Other non-European nations, including South Korea, South Africa and Argentina, have lower liability limits.
We ask, “Why not move it higher?” We know that in the aftermath of Fukushima the Japanese government had to step in and bail out the operator. In the highly unlikely event of an incident that exceeded the billion dollar limit, the Minister of Natural Resources in Canada would be required to table a report before Parliament containing estimates of the costs of the damages from the nuclear incident. That report would provide government the opportunity to make recommendations on the desirability of additional compensation beyond the liability limit based on relevant consideration at that time.