Debates of May 29th, 2014

Energy Safety and Security Act

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, because it brings into context a more global approach to who is doing the right thing.

A $1 billion operator liability compares well with other countries. In the United Kingdom, operator liability is currently capped at approximately $260 million, barely a quarter of what we are proposing. In South Africa, operator liability is $240 million. In Spain, it is $227 million. France is even lower, at $140 million. We would suggest those are irresponsible levels. We have taken a very responsible approach.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to begin my speech, although I feel like responding to the member for Don Valley West by saying that we cannot compare different systems. He cited the example of European countries that have completely different levels of financial liability.

They are indeed systems that are implemented differently. As the parliamentary secretary said, compared to Canada, those countries have nuclear energy generation levels that are completely different in percentage terms. Consequently, these are not valid arguments because we are comparing apples to oranges. I will come back to that.

Bill C-22 is definitely headed in the right direction, but it does not solve all the problems. In particular, it provides for only $1 billion of financial liability for private nuclear power generation companies, whereas the costs incurred as a result of nuclear disasters far exceed that amount.

Why is this subject of particular interest to me? It is because I was living in western Europe at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. My colleague from Saint-Lambert was living there too, and she also experienced the famous radioactive cloud. The authorities explained to us that it did not cross borders because it obviously did not have a passport. In reality, however, the radiation affected not only Ukraine at the time, but also much, if not all, of western Europe.

When the civilian facilities were built to generate power, no one ever anticipated a disaster of that magnitude. There can be no comparison with military nuclear consequences, but those consequences were disastrous and unpredictable.

Furthermore, the populations in the immediate exclusion zone were not the only ones that suffered stress at that time. People died from radiation, but those who were within a slightly wider circle also developed diseases. In particular, there were birth defects, which were a real problem in Ukraine in the 1990s. Several thousand children, if not tens of thousands, were born with deformities or defects. That was an extremely traumatic experience in Europe.

We obviously will not ignore the nuclear disaster that occurred in Fukushima in 2011. We must therefore consider the level of technology when talking about these nuclear safety problems. In 1986, according to the experts, while it was predictable, although not understandable, that a natural disaster might occur in facilities that did not have adequate safety levels, there was no level of deterioration in Japan, the third-largest civilian nuclear power in the world, that could have suggested a disaster of that magnitude.

I heard the argument made by the member for Don Valley West, and I congratulate him for taking the trouble to speak to us, unlike his Conservative colleagues, who seem to have left this place.

That argument, which can be summed up by the words “strong and safe nuclear energy industry”, to quote the member, does not hold water, and this is why there is insurance. The reason behind insurance is that unforeseen or unlikely events happen. However, they happen because a series of human errors will have consequences that are totally unthinkable and that have a financial impact that goes far beyond what might have been imagined.

Of course, the amount of $1 billion will be discussed. Its arbitrariness is quite astonishing, because we know that in the case of Fukushima, the estimates are in the order of several hundred billion dollars. With regard to the Chernobyl disaster, I was reading on the site of France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission that it was impossible to put an exact figure on the scope of the disaster because it spanned a decade. For some disasters, it is even impossible to quantify their full financial impact. This is my answer to the Conservatives’ main argument.

I was interested to note another argument the Conservatives used in previous debates. That argument was that we should be able to compare ourselves with different countries in millions of dollars. The example they gave us was that of European countries, where the level of financial liability for France, for instance, is $140 million.

In reality, this is a perfectly fallacious argument, because the level of liability must increase in value according to how nuclear energy production is organized in a given country. The example of France, which I know personally, is that of a country where 75% of current electricity production comes from nuclear plants. Furthermore, in the 1990s, this percentage rose to 85% or 89%. At one point, the country's energy policy was based almost solely on its nuclear capability.

The way in which things are organized was that the state was the major shareholder, through the French Atomic Energy Commission, which was the owner of a private company that was called Framatome at that point and became Areva in the early 2000s. However, the level of government involvement is still in excess of 70%.

Imagine if a disaster happened involving Areva, the private company. The government, with a 70% stake in this private company, would take full responsibility for the consequences, not only with regard to cleanup, but also with regard to compensation for the victims.

We can see that the context is completely different because in this case we do not even have to wonder whether it is fair or unfair that the taxpayer should take part in insuring an industrial risk, since the industrial risk is not really a private industrial risk. In fact, a specific country decided at one point to be the owner of the primary source of electrical energy.

This discussion of the comparison between $140 million and $1 billion is completely distorted. I totally reject this argument. This argument is fallacious and intended solely to make comparisons and give Canadians the impression that they would be protected in the event of a nuclear accident, while in reality when the company involved is a private company that is completely independent from the government, the government says clearly that it is not involved in the production of energy and that it would therefore not have to suffer the consequences or compensate the victims if a problem arose.

I see that I am running out of time. I will stop here and take questions from my colleagues.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague on his speech. He recalled a very dramatic and tragic event that occurred in Europe and affected all the neighbouring countries. It was a famous cloud that unfortunately had devastating effects on the health of many people.

The consequences cannot be quantified, and they have a horrible effect on people's lives and health. My colleague spoke about pregnancies and birth defects, not to mention all the blood cancers caused by nuclear radiation.

My colleague also mentioned the $1 billion limit, an artificial limit. As he explained, costs have mushroomed, and an artificial limit of $1 billion is not going to—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order.

The hon. member for Saint-Jean.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand quite well the gist of my colleague’s question.

Having lived through this terrible experience, even though I was not near the actual site of the accident, I know how emotional this is for my colleague.

What we are dealing with, in my view, is the concept of privatization of benefits and nationalization of risks. When a government is prepared to assume or nationalize risks, then it also nationalizes benefits. We cannot have both, that is, on the one hand, nationalization of risks and, on the other hand, benefits for private corporations that do not pay to assume risks.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member opposite. He talked about how the absolute liability level of $1 billion is not enough. He talked about the industry in France, where the absolute liability limit is about $120 million. He thinks it should be raised there. Well, we are talking about Canada.

Clearly, what the member wants to do is close down the nuclear industry in Canada. It is a green industry. The NDP talked about how it supports green industries, so I would like to ask the member if he agrees with his leader, who said:

I want to be clear. The NDP is opposed to any new nuclear infrastructure in Canada.

The member for Winnipeg Centre said:

Somewhere out there Homer Simpson is running a nuclear power plant... We do not want to see the Darlington nuclear power plant doubled in size. We want to see it shut down.

These members are clearly against the nuclear industry, yet they claim to be in favour of green energy. I would just like to ask the member if what his party wants to do is shut down nuclear energy entirely and the tens of thousands of jobs that go with it.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not recall saying that I wanted to see an end to everything nuclear. I will reread my notes and the House of Commons Debates. I do not believe I said that.

Nor can we say that the nuclear industry is green because that is not the direction we want to take. A number of countries have decided to phase out their nuclear industry. Germany is one such country. Its goal is to shut down all of its nuclear power plants by 2021. In the meantime, its nuclear plants are still operational.

I do not believe that the NDP holds a Manichaean view that everything should either remain operational or be shut down. All we are doing is discussing a particular issue, namely the level of financial liability of a private industrial activity in Canada. I was merely saying that no comparison can be made with the economic and legislative reality of other jurisdictions where electricity generation is fully nationalized.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start with a preliminary comment. I find it incredible that our country's federal government has taken so long to address risk management, internalize costs and protect the public interest.

In his speech about nuclear energy, the hon. member for Don Valley West said that safety is a top priority. However, it is all relative, given that liability is limited to $1 billion. As he said, Canada's nuclear industry is mostly privatized. The Conservative vision, which the Liberals support, is clearly behind the times when it comes to the future of Canada's nuclear industry. The Conservatives' shoelaces are untied and they are about to trip over them without realizing that they are going to crash to the ground.

The government is seriously going to have to take the time to listen to what the NDP is saying, in order to understand the real issues in the debate we are engaged in right now. Obviously, I would point out another paradox that borders on the ridiculous and in fact is so ridiculous, it enters the realm of caricature. Today, the government imposed a time allocation motion on a bill that has been sitting on the shelf and was even torpedoed by the Prime Minister when he failed to abide by the fixed election date law in 2008. The bill sat on the shelf for years, and catching up got put on hold for decades before the government corrected one obvious flaw, only in part and relatively clumsily.

There is nothing to prevent me, like all of my New Democrat colleagues, from supporting the bill at second reading. We will at least have a base to work on, somewhat wobbly though it may be. In cabinetmaking, when a table is wobbly, you can always try to level it, particularly if you have some expertise and a degree of skill. You have to make sure it is solid and the dishes will not fall off.

In the second part of my speech, I am going to focus on the nuclear industry. The nuclear industry needs to assume its responsibility completely. I do not think that comment will generate debate. To start with, it is a matter of the public interest. I would hope that everyone will agree that the safety of the Canadian public as a whole is absolutely non-negotiable, in spite of a few somewhat nonsensical comments from government members.

We also need to learn from the various events that have taken place in the past in various parts of the world. Based on that, we have to draw the following conclusion: in the Canadian context, setting the limit at $1 billion will be insufficient to cover the cost without requiring that the government invest large amounts of taxpayers’ money to deal with certain potential accidents. Zero risk does not exist anywhere. If I take my car out tomorrow, I assume a share of the risk, for which I pay through my insurance. However, the risk must be completely assumed by the industry. That is a very basic question of how a market operates. We are talking about internalizing the costs associated with the risk to be assumed. It is a very simple principle. Plainly, understanding how a market functions in economics is an insurmountable obstacle for many government members.

There is also the issue of the competitiveness of the Canadian nuclear industry. It must be viable and exportable, and our Canadian businesses must be able to compete and offer their skills and expertise by having optimal conditions on our domestic market, no matter the area of activity, whether it involves the design, construction, operation or development of certain parts of the systems in the nuclear industry.

We are not the only ones talking about this. This is a concern shared by experts in different fields about both the nuclear and the oil and gas industries. I will first quote Joel Wood, senior research economist at the Fraser Institute, who had this to say about the absolute liability cap:

Increasing the cap only decreases the subsidy; it does not eliminate it.

The subsidy is obviously a concept that I hope my Conservative colleagues will be able to grasp. I hope that they will be able to follow my logic. However, I am not very confident that they will since the Conservatives manage to confuse collective savings with the Canada pension plan and a tax, for example, which shows that the government has a very limited understanding of very important social issues.

Mr. Wood goes on to say:

The Government of Canada should proceed with legislation that removes the liability cap entirely rather than legislation that maintains it, or increases it to be harmonious with other jurisdictions.

When speaking of other jurisdictions, as the member for Saint-Jean said, we are speaking about foreign examples that are comparable in terms of the development of the nuclear or oil and gas industry.

Let us take a look at oil and gas development. One of the first elements is rather strange. In fact the bill deals strictly with offshore development, and does not deal with the entire issue of oil and gas development and transportation. We are already wondering why the government took a slapdash approach.

Earlier, I attended a meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance, where I was filling in for my very esteemed colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques for the clause by clause study of the bill.

During the period for questions and comments on omnibus Bill C-31, which I would remind the House is a monstrous bill that is impossible to study in the context of our work in the House or on committee, I raised some very serious concerns that the riding of Beauport—Limoilou has about the transportation of dangerous goods by rail. Bill C-31 was compromising, possibly even severely compromising, the regulations in that area.

Unfortunately, in Bill C-22, we are going to, yet again, end up partially correcting past failings and massive negligence by the Liberals and Conservatives. There is a reason we see them working so hard on joining forces to try to stop us. We saw that earlier this week with the conditions put on the debates scheduled to take place between now and the end of June.

We cannot look at this type of activity separately or in isolation, using a piecemeal approach, without understanding all this might entail for our society, our citizens, the environment and even for industry. It is truly deplorable to see the government improvising so easily and providing hollow, ready-made answers that do nothing to address the legitimate concerns that Canadians might have.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know exactly what the NDP's position is on offshore gas development. I am sure the people of Newfoundland would like to know as well.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

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

I will not hide the fact that the NDP has a perfectly coherent position, regardless of the objections he has to questions about offshore oil development or rail or pipeline transportation.

What the NDP objects to is the government’s complacency and the lack of regulatory mechanisms and inspectors. I am not even talking about the processes involved in bringing a project to completion. Basically, the NDP objects to the overall weak regulatory framework and to the fact that industry is allowed free rein.

Self-regulation is tantamount to living in a fantasy world and refusing to face reality. We must not be naive. We must be demanding and demanding is what the NDP will always be.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member could provide comment in regard to the liability issue. He talked about the $1 billion not being enough, and I can appreciate why he said that.

The question I have is about our universities. There are universities in Canada that do research, and in certain situations they work in nuclear research activities. To what degree does my colleague believe that those universities should be obligated to get insurance policies?

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Winnipeg North for that question.

The reason why I reacted badly to the comment by my colleague from Don Valley West is that I once worked as a physicist. Absolute safety is pretty much incompatible with the overall Canadian framework of a $1-billion liability ceiling.

However, my colleague from Winnipeg North talked about something else. He compared a heavy industry, the nuclear industry and the electricity generating industry, with a much less powerful research reactor. Liability is also clearly different.

That is why I support this bill at second reading. It is important for us to distinguish properly between activity sectors that are quite different and from that point on, to establish liability scales adapted to each individual sector. For that reason, debate on this bill should certainly not be limited.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since we are talking about liability, I will point out that a railway accident recently occurred in Quebec. Oil was spilled, and it is amazing to see that no one is being held liable for it.

That is amazing. The moment someone arrives with a bill, no one is there to accept it, and it becomes an embarrassing problem. One of the major weaknesses of this bill is that you have to phone a lawyer before you call anyone to clean up, repair and provide compensation. Something is wrong. People are in trouble because someone did not do their job right, and they have to go looking for a lawyer.

I would like my colleague to tell us about that disconnect, about the fact that we in Canada always have to phone a lawyer before calling someone to clean up.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his particularly relevant comment.

He has shed light on the fact that when we correct deficiencies in the legal framework, in the legal approach or in the compensation framework, it is often already too late. That is really unfortunate. I entirely agree with my colleague on that point.

The problem is much greater and much more fundamental than the solutions that Bill C-22 will provide. That is why we must clearly go further and, more particularly, expand the measures that should be introduced.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of Bill C-22, the proposed energy safety and security act, which would provide a world-class regulatory regime for Canada's offshore and nuclear industries while strengthening protection for Canadians and the environment. Bill C-22 would ensure accountability from these industries and protection for taxpayers if an incident or spill results in cleanup costs and compensation.

The Governments of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador have worked together over several years to update Canada's offshore safety regime. Bill C-22 reflects this extensive collaboration by focusing on three main areas: prevention, response, and accountability.

Allow me to summarize a few of the key points in each of these areas.

First, with regard to prevention, the bill would raise financial capacity requirements for offshore operators to a minimum of $1 billion. It also would provide authority for offshore boards to impose fines for regulatory contraventions. In the nuclear sector, Bill C-22 would increase absolute liability for compensation for civil damages from $75 million to $1 billion.

In the area of response, Bill C-22 would implement a number of measures to improve spill prevention and response capability. The bill would provide industry with the option of establishing a pooled fund of at least $250 million, and it would permit the safe use of spill treating agents where there is a net environmental benefit.

As far as accountability is concerned, our government is delivering on its promise to enshrine the polluter pays principle in law. Further, we are also clarifying jurisdictional responsibilities for occupational health and safety in the offshore.

These are not stand-alone legislative improvements. Rather, they are part of a comprehensive and ongoing approach to achieve environmental protection in resource development throughout Canada. Our government has been clear. Projects would only be approved if they were safe for Canadians and safe for the environment.

That is why our government has introduced a series of new laws and regulations through our plan for responsible resource development to strengthen environmental protection. For example, we have worked to ensure that the National Energy Board has the necessary resources to increase pipeline monitoring and inspections, so that companies are held accountable. These measures include increasing the number of full audits of federally regulated pipelines, and we have put forward new, significant fines as a strong deterrent against breaking Canada's rigorous environmental regulations.

Our government's record on ensuring that Canada has a world-class safety regime is proven with each of these measures. Yet the opposition voted against each of these improvements.

Offshore, we have taken major steps to enhance the protection of Canada's marine environment. Our government has increased tanker inspections, required the use of double-hulled ships, and improved the navigation tools and ship surveillance used in our coastal waterways.

In addition, a tanker safety expert panel has reviewed Canada's current system and is proposing further measures to strengthen it. After many consultations with stakeholders and aboriginal peoples on the panel's report, last month the Minister of Transport announced our government's next steps in strengthening Canada's world-class tanker safety system.

Many of these new safety and environmental measures are currently being enshrined in law. For example, Bill C-3, the safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act, would strengthen oil spill response, set new requirements for energy facilities, establish new standards for pollution prevention, and introduce substantial monetary penalties to deal with offences. While our current marine safety regime has served Canada well, these new initiatives would help make Canada's shipping standards truly world class. We are working hard to develop support and enforce these standards.

On our east coast, the Government of Canada shares offshore management with two provinces, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Offshore oil and gas projects are accordingly regulated by the appropriate offshore board, either the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board or the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

Each offshore board ensures that operators exercise due diligence to prevent spills from occurring in Canada's offshore. With this in mind, we work closely with these two provinces to update and expand legislation to ensure that Canada's offshore rules are among the strongest in the world.

The accord act gives the offshore boards the legal authority to regulate oil and gas activities. The boards evaluate each drilling application for completeness and compliance with federal regulations. As a result, drilling cannot occur unless the responsible board is fully satisfied that drilling plans are safe for workers and for the environment.

Providing a liability and compensation regime to protect Canadians and create stability for this important industry falls under federal jurisdiction. The Government of Canada has a duty to all Canadians to assume its responsibilities in this area, and we are committed to doing so. Bill C-22 would increase the amount of financial capacity companies operating in the offshore must have to meet all liability obligations and it would increase the amount of the deposit companies must provide prior to receiving an authorization for drilling or production. In other words, before any offshore drilling or production activity could take place, companies would have to prove that they could cover the costs that could result in the unlikely event of an incident.

Canada has long depended on the shipping industry to move products from our coastal ports to world markets. On any given day, about 180 vessels operate in Canada's coastal waters. Energy is a big part of this trade. Each year, 80 million tonnes of oil is shipped safely off Canada's coast. On Canada's west coast, tankers have been moving oil safely since the 1930s.

With the phenomenal growth of the oil and gas industry in B.C. and Alberta, marine shipping on Canada's coast will increase substantially in the coming years. We are preparing for this future growth through our efforts today to bolster Canada's safety regime for the maritime environment. Our government is ensuring that the many opportunities for economic growth and prosperity that Canada's natural resources offer are available to all Canadians throughout the country, including aboriginal peoples. Our government's plan for responsible resource development will help achieve this by creating greater certainty and predictability for project investors while at the same time strengthening environmental protections, as Bill C-22 demonstrates.

In conclusion, these are just some of the ways in which our government is taking action to ensure that Canada continues to have world-class environmental protection in resource development. As all members can appreciate, Bill C-22 would provide a solid regulatory framework to safely govern the offshore and nuclear industries in Canada for decades to come. Bill C-22 would ensure that Canada's vast resource wealth can be developed responsibly by putting public safety and environmental protection first.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his discourse on this bill, but I think he has missed something. He talked about the offshore regime, but when we examine the bill, we find that almost a third of Canada is covered onshore by a liability regime. In the Northwest Territories, the maximum liability without proof of fault or negligence is $25 million onshore. Therefore, it seems that perhaps he needs to spend a little more time to understand this bill. We should be spending more time in Parliament talking about it, because obviously there are things in it that he has not seen yet.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, having listened to some of the debate earlier, I recognize the fact that this will be going to committee and there will be more discussion. We can take a look at the absolute liabilities we have. We have talked about the Atlantic offshore and the $30 million there for absolute liability and the $40 million in the Arctic, where the member comes from. It is clearly unacceptable that this is the rate it is. With Bill C-22, we would raise that so that it would cover the kinds of concerns people have.

There are a couple of points I would like to mention to the member.

With regard to Canada's responsibilities and the way it handles regulations, I remember that about six or seven years ago, when I was just getting started in politics, I had a chance to talk to some individuals. These people had been around the world, and they said that the best place for regulations and protection of the environment is Canada. The only place that came close was Australia, and that was because it was taking the regulations Canadians had.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the member's comments regarding the issue of liability. He stated that the government would be open to amendments. A member from across the way heckled, saying, “always open for amendments”, but that is not what we have witnessed from the government over the years.

We in the Liberal Party have indicated that the principle of the legislation is good, and we are encouraged by it, but we believe that it needs to be strengthened. There are certain amendments we believe would provide more strength and would improve the legislation.

I wonder if the member could provide further comment on the degree to which he believes the government is actually open to listening to what opposition members might have to say in regard to amendments.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we have gone through numerous consultations with various groups to come up with the proposals we have. Again, here we are at second reading taking this to committee so that things can be discussed and we can bring in different types of witnesses and hear what they have to say.

I believe that when we hear what the witnesses have to say, we will see how the consultations we have had are reflected in the way the legislation has been crafted. I believe members will find that after it goes through the committee stage, we will have a great bill coming back from there too.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the House tonight in the debate on Bill C-22, a bill the NDP believes should at least get to the committee so that we can hear from the experts and witnesses who know something about this issue of liability when it comes to nuclear projects as well as about what happens in the offshore.

I need to make some passing comment on what my friend just said recently about Canada's state of regulatory protection for the environment and for communities. Systematically, often through omnibus bills, these massive bills the government has been using, it has been pulling out and destroying pieces of that very same environmental protection law the government says is the best in the world.

The government keeps ripping out pieces of the environmental protection laws we have in place, such as the Fisheries Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and then continues to say that it must be the best in the world. Then it rips out some more and says that its is global-leading environmental protection. Then the government rips out some more and says that it must all be great. That is, of course, not the case. The government has been enabling the speedy approval of oil and gas projects over the last number of years with very little public oversight of any little stipulations.

We can all recall that it was the Prime Minister who got up after getting elected to government and said that within a short time, Canada would become a global energy superpower. That was in 2006. Eight years on, how are the Conservatives doing? Oh, my goodness; they are yelling at the U.S. president because they do not like his delay. They cannot get Enbridge northern gateway past the communities and gain the social licence they need. They have controversies on every single energy project they propose and demand that Canadians just accept them.

When Canadians raise any questions, this is the government's approach to this point when it comes to oil and gas projects. It calls Canadians who raise objections foreign-funded radicals. The Conservatives call them enemies of the state. This is the Conservative attempt to woo Canadians to oil and gas development in Canada. It has had the opposite effect.

It is no wonder that the oil lobby, CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, just a couple of weeks ago broke away from the Conservatives' public relations strategy, because it was toxic. It was hurting the industry so much that it said it could no longer be associated or in line with the Conservatives' strategy when it comes to speaking to the public. It is going to go its own way. It took them a number of years, but the oil lobby is pretty smart and has a lot of money.

Let us talk about the specifics of the bill. This is of incredible importance to me because I represent northwestern British Columbia, and we are in the target zone. We are ground zero for a bunch of the Conservatives' more misaligned schemes when it comes to energy development.

Liability and limited liability, as in this bill, are of great interest to us. There is a curious thing I hear, both from progressives and from very conservative constituents, when it comes to who pays the costs when there is an oil disaster. Both from the right and the left, there is a curiosity as to why there is a liability placed over top of oil companies at all.

When a limit is put on the liability to which a company is exposed, what the government is effectively saying is that the company can be sued, but only up to a certain point, and beyond that, there is cap and it cannot be held responsible or made to pay compensation beyond that cap.

One would wonder, of all the industries in the world, why the oil and gas industry would be the one to receive what is in effect a subsidy from the public. It is a subsidy because any cleanup costs beyond that cap are picked up by the Canadian public.

It makes no sense. It does not happen to other industries, except for nuclear, which is also included in this bill, but it happens for oil and gas. Why is that? It is because the oil and gas industry has really good lobbyists. One told me a funny little joke the other day. I guess it is a joke within the oil lobbyist circle. He said that when the oil lobby wants the Conservative government to know it wants something, it does not phone; it just rolls over in bed and whispers in the government's ear.

While I thought that image was a little disturbing, it seems to be true. When it comes to the Conservative government, whatever oil wants, oil gets.

With the liability question that is front of us, let us take nuclear for just a second. Let us step away and look at the process we are under. We see that this bill, which has massive implications for the Canadian people, is under time allocation. That means that the government has decided to restrict the debate.

All through the back and forth on this restriction of debate, the Conservatives have said that they want to show up to work, and yet the Conservatives have missed 11 speaking spots so far. That is 11 shifts they have not shown up for.

In most Canadian workplaces, if workers have a shift that they do not show up to, there would be some sort of consequence. I know that as an employer, I would be somewhat suspicious of employees who said they wanted to work hard and yet did not show up to work, and so be it.

On nuclear liability, for example, the Conservatives previously attempted to raise the liability cap to $650 million, and the New Democrats were the only ones in this House—and I remember, because I sat on the committee—who said that $650 million might be a little low. We suggested $1 billion just as a good place to start. The Conservatives and Liberals at the time said that was outrageous, that we would kill the nuclear industry in Canada, that we would make it unaffordable, that it was irresponsible.

Then Fukushima happened. Does it not often seem an unfortunate reality that significant and painful disasters have to occur before governments suddenly snap awake and realize? As of today, current costs of that one disaster in Japan have hit $58 billion.

The Conservatives will wave this bill around and say they are being tough and that $1 billion is just an extraordinary amount of money for a company to hold. However, when things go wrong at a nuclear plant, they go really wrong. People die and get exposed to radiation, and all sorts of serious consequences happen to people in the area.

The idea that the public would pick up the cost beyond $1 billion is one that we found questionable. We raised this before, and the Conservatives and the Liberals said it was a terrible idea. Then suddenly they adopted that terrible idea. They now call it a great idea. I guess that is how ideas transform from “terrible” when they come from the opposition to “great” when they come from the government.

Let us move over to offshore oil and gas liability, because that is also discussed here.

To put it in context, the cost of the massive and disastrous spill that happened in the gulf as a result of BP's actions is at somewhere near $28 billion in damages so far. I was just looking this up online, and some of these estimates may double or triple that amount, approaching $70 billion in compensation for damages because it was such a terrible thing. One of the regions the government wants to drill in is the high Arctic and the Beaufort, and one of the stipulations that sits on the books in Canada right now is that the company that is drilling must have the capacity to drill what is called a “relief well” in the same season.

It was only a relief well, as people will remember, that was ultimately able to stop that terrible disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The workers tried absolutely everything to stop the oil from coming up, but it was only by drilling a second well and then going below where it was being released that they were eventually able to get enough cement and solids in there to be able to cap it.

In the Arctic, the oil companies came to the current government and very quietly and secretly said, “Let us get rid of that stipulation”. Why did they want to get rid of the stipulation in the Arctic in particular? It was because having the capacity to drill a relief well in the same season is not possible. The government and industry know that, yet they want to drill in the Arctic.

This is a strange irony that because of the results of climate change and inaction from governments like this Conservative government, we have seen Arctic ice melt and recede at an incredible pace. More of the Arctic is becoming exposed, which has a compounding effect. As we all know, the more ice retreats, the worse the situation gets.

The Conservatives' reaction to such a disaster and its impact on such a sensitive region as the Arctic was to celebrate. They said, “Now we can go and drill. Is that not so exciting?”, thereby adding insult to injury by pulling more oil up out of the ground. We know we have left behind all the cheap, accessible, and relatively safe oil in the world. We have moved over. We are now dealing with very expensive and much more dangerous oil that is harder to get at.

It is unfortunate that it requires a disaster, a significant news event that people cover from around the world.

The idea that we maintain is that if the profits are being held and enjoyed by the private sector, then why, for goodness' sake, would the risks be taken on by the public? The Conservatives want to privatize the profits but socialize the risks.

We argue this on the issue of temporary foreign workers and we will argue it on this issue as well. The free market has a call and response. The oil game is sometimes a bit of a risk and a roulette wheel, and if the companies want to play this game, if they are going to risk our environment, our communities, and our economy, then they should bear the cost of that risk. The public should not be picking up the tab.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have an opportunity to put some questions to the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley because, unlike the hon. member for Red Deer, I suspect he may have read Bill C-22 and knows there is nothing in the bill that has anything to do with tankers or a safety regime for shipping oil in tankers. I mean no disrespect to the hon. member for Red Deer. I think he was handed a speech he had not written that spoke to a lot of measures that have nothing to do with Bill C-22.

The tanker methods and measures that were mentioned by the hon. member for Red Deer, such as double-hulled tankers, which are not in Bill C-22, have been required globally since 1978. I think there should be a statute of limitations on how often this administration can announce a global standard that has existed since 1978, but which, by the way, is not mentioned in Bill C-22.

Let us talk about Bill C-22, which is a regime for liability for drilling in the offshore. That is what it is about. It sets limits that, as the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has pointed out, will do absolutely nothing to deal with a major disaster such as may happen if they go ahead and drill a deepwater oil well called Old Harry in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where no one should be drilling for oil.

I want to ask my hon. colleague one specific question, because I find it fascinating. On page 35 of Bill C-22, we find this wonderful statement about violations of the act. It states, “The purpose of the penalty is to promote compliance with this Act and not to punish”.

What does he make of that?

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

Mr. Speaker, that statement buried within the bill tells us that certainly the Conservative government would never want to punish anybody in the oil sector. If people happen to donate to an environmental charity or be part of a social justice group, they would all be looking for punishment from the Conservatives, but if they are in oil, they are okay.

The association to risk is what is important here. If people could go to a casino and gamble knowing that no matter how much they gambled, they could only lose $100, it would probably influence the way they gambled. They would bet lots of money, knowing that there was no way for them to lose more than this maximum amount.

I do not suggest that drilling for oil is exactly like going to Vegas, but it has some similar qualities. The oil companies will say it is a one-in-a-thousand chance. They are into risk, but if a cap is placed on that risk, it encourages behaviour that we do not want, which is high-risk behaviour.

Finally, the member made the point that a lot of the Conservatives' speeches are about tanker traffic and pipelines and so on. What the Conservatives are doing is so obvious that it is a bit unseemly. They are trying to soften the ground for the announcement that is coming with respect to Enbridge and the northern gateway. That is what this is about. They want the public to believe that somehow double-hulled tankers are going to save the day. They have been in place for more than a generation, and suddenly the Conservatives are going to talk tough on oil. No one is going to believe them, because it is not true.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of oil spill examples for the member that he could maybe comment on.

One oil spill, of course, was Lac-Mégantic. The railroad that was licensed to operate by the government was licensed to operate on the basis of $25 million in liability. That is all it was required to carry to have a licence. It was clearly not enough. We know the result: the taxpayer is on the hook for the rest.

The other example is a gentleman in Fredericton, New Brunswick, who several years ago bought a home which, he discovered, had a leaky oil tank in the back yard that had been leaking through the town. The several million dollars in damages were entirely the responsibility of the homeowner. There was no liability cap. There was no government paying the bill. That is the reality of what goes on with oil spills in Canada: an individual is in big trouble, but companies are okay.

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

Mr. Speaker, the only caveat I would put to his question is that there are many Canadian companies, from IT to the automotive sector and others, that do not enjoy this subsidy. That is what it is, because the cost of carrying insurance is a cost of doing business. If companies lower the amount of insurance they have to carry, they lower the cost of doing business. If somebody else is picking that cost up and it is the public, that is a public subsidy. I can hear Mr. Hudak screaming in the rafters now, “No more corporate welfare”.

Conservatives are so often very comfortable with the idea of corporate subsidies, particularly for corporations that do not need it because they have such an enormous amount of wealth. Oil is $105 a barrel. They are pulling it out of the ground. They are making the money.

If they are taking those risks and enjoying that profit, then certainly they should assume that risk and not spread it out among the hard-working Canadians who had nothing to do with the accidents that those oil companies created.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I start, I must apologize to my interpreting friends. I have given them my notes, but I am going to go a little off the cuff here because I have a few things to say beforehand.

First, I would like to say that I am really fortunate today in just having had supper with some good friends from Chilliwack, Dennis and Penny Martens, who are right there watching me. Dennis and I went to UBC together in the early sixties. It is kind of neat to be able to talk to him and Penny.

I feel really privileged to have followed my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley. He was in my riding just last week, actually, talking to people about the proposed Enbridge pipeline and its consequences, and I will talk about this a bit later. I had a chance to visit the beautiful pristine area that he lives in to see exactly what the consequences of that proposed pipeline would be.

I have some notes here, and I will just ask the interpreters to bear with me.

I just want to say that it seems that the current government that I have been faced with for the last eight years since I have been here is not really friendly with respect to looking after our environment and looking after the people of Canada.

There are many fine individuals in that party, and I see them here. We have a good relationship. They treat me well, with respect, but collectively, the current government has done a lot to our country that will take us a long time to recover from once it is no longer in power.

The bill would update Canada's nuclear liability regime to specify the conditions and procedures for compensation of victims.

It would maintain the principles of absolute fault or no fault, limited and exclusive, except for situations of war or terrorist attacks.

It would extend the limitation period for submitting compensation claims for bodily injury from 10 years to 30 years to address latent illnesses. It would maintain the 10-year period for all other forms of damage.

The nuclear liability changes would apply to Canadian nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants, research reactors, fuel processing plants, and facilities for managing used nuclear fuel.

It would also update Canada's offshore liability regime for oil and gas exploration and operations to prevent incidents and ensure swift response in the event of a spill. I will talk a little bit about that later.

It would maintain unlimited operator liability for fault or negligence.

It would increase the absolute liability limit from $40 million in the Arctic and $30 million in the Atlantic to $1 billion for offshore oil.

It would reference the polluter pays principle explicitly in legislation to establish clearly and formally that polluters would be held accountable. That is a good thing.

However, let me say a few words on offshore oil spills in general.

The fact that the absolute liability limit would be increased to $1 billion should not—and I repeat, should not—be a green light to approve further tanker traffic off our B.C. coast. That is what my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley was alluding to: the fact that all of this discussion is somehow supposed to lay the groundwork for this wonderful project in northern British Columbia.

As members are aware, I am sure, after all these years the Alaskan coastline is still seeing effects of the Exxon Valdez spill.

At the invitation of my colleague, the MP for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, I had a chance to visit our northwestern coastline communities of Terrace, Kitimat, and Kitimaat Village. I and some of my NDP colleagues heard what the people had to say about the proposed Enbridge northern gateway pipeline.

As we have seen from the recent vote or referendum in Kitimat, 60% of the people voted against the pipeline, in spite of the huge amount of money spent by the oil industry going door to door to try to get support for the pipeline.

When I was there, we had a meeting with something like 150 people in Terrace, and people of all political stripes do not want the project to go through. At the meeting in Terrace, we learned that if roughly 30% of the oil can be recuperated after a regular oil spill, such as occurred with the Exxon Valdez spill, that is considered excellent.

However, if we can recuperate 7% from a spill of raw bitumen, that is also considered excellent.

It does not really matter what the liability is, once raw bitumen is spilled in the ocean, the environment is basically destroyed forever. This is the point that people in northern communities, people in the area I represent and all over British Columbia are trying to get across. Thousands of jobs in the tourist and fishing industries will be lost permanently. It is not just that the oil is spilled, the company has a liability of $1 billion, and we clean it up. We can clean up only 7% of it, and that is considered excellent. If we do a good job, that is probably 3.5%. If we do a terrible job, we would probably clean up 2% of the bitumen. We cannot allow tanker traffic in the northern coastline. It is as simple as that.

People in my province are mobilizing against this project. For the sake of future generations, we cannot let this project take place. It is often expedient not only for the current government of the day but for governments of all political parties that happen to be in power to think in the short range. It does not matter if governments are Conservative, Liberal, NDP, or Green; we need governments that look to the future. The future is our children and grandchildren. What is the coastline and the province of British Columbia going to be like in the future?

The grandchildren of my friends Dennis and Penny are not going to read in the paper that they cannot go to northern B.C. because the coastline is polluted because a tanker just spilt raw bitumen and none of it was recuperated. Surely we can increase our own refining capacity to create jobs in Canada. I know my party is working on a policy that when we hopefully assume government, we will be able to transition into this green energy strategy that other countries have done, which will provide jobs to millions of people as we transition out of the fossil fuel industry.

If we look at the predictions of climate change, if we look at what is happening in other countries, it is logical. We have this chance, and in the meantime we can increase our oil refining capacity. If we have an oil industry, why not keep the jobs here? For the sake of a few hundred or a thousand jobs for a short period of time, should we build a pipeline and get some hundreds of tankers a year moving in in areas that are prone to high gales and accidents? Why would we do that, rather than taking this product that we take out of the ground and refining it somewhere in our country? We would create jobs as we keep the economy moving, and we would move toward a green energy strategy. That would be a win-win situation. I would prefer that we create jobs in Canada rather than somewhere in Asia.

The bill before us strengthens the current liability regime but will not help protect the environment, or Canadian taxpayers either, because it still exposes them to risk.

The Conservatives constantly lag behind our international partners. They disregard best practices that are used to identify inadequate liability regimes.

We have previously criticized the inadequacy of nuclear liability limits. Even though these provisions must be considered a step in the right direction relative to current limits, this bill does not duly reflect the actual risks Canadians face. We hope to address this point in committee. Consequently, this bill must absolutely be referred to committee. We need to hear from witnesses.

I eagerly await my colleagues’ questions.