Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech. I am honoured to serve with her on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
I will have the pleasure of giving a speech on Bill C-46 this afternoon, but I would like to ask my colleague a question about liability. The bill limits liability to $1 billion in the case of a disaster caused by a pipeline where there is no proof of fault on the part of a company. Why did the government choose that amount? In Kalamazoo, in the United States, costs have already reached an estimated $1.2 billion, and only a tiny proportion of the mess has been cleaned up.
Why did the government peg liability at $1 billion? Would it not be better to set a higher amount? That seems to me to be nothing more than a round number.