Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech, and I share his skepticism with respect to whether we will have a thorough study in committee. However, hope springs eternal, and maybe in 2015 a committee will actually study it and make recommendations, and the government will actually make changes to the bill.
I would like to get the member's commentary on the $1-billion threshold for liability. As the member rightly points out, it is a no-fault threshold, and thereafter it is unlimited liability. In the matter of oil spills, particularly significant ones, $1 billion is actually just a rounding error. It is nothing in terms of the catastrophic effect an oil spill can have. To use my own community of Toronto as an example, if there were an oil spill and it leaked into Lake Ontario close to a water pipe intake, the consequences would be catastrophic
I wonder whether the committee might actually give some thought to whether $1 billion is a threshold. In fact, liability beyond $1 billion is limited by bankruptcy legislation. No company is immune from bankruptcy, and a company can hit its bankruptcy threshold pretty quickly in some of these things.
The third thing I would like the member to comment on is a terrorist incident. If there were a series of well-planned incidents by people who wished to do us harm, how would the liability play through, both for the $1-billion threshold and the post-$1-billion threshold?