Mr. Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources for her question. We have both served on the committee together.
I would not necessarily use such laudatory and glorious language. Nevertheless, we will support the bill at second reading because it really is a good step forward. However, nobody should make the mistake of thinking that this is a pure and complete application of the polluter pays principle.
The reason is that if there is an absolute liability of $1 billion without having to prove fault or negligence on the part of the company, and if the disaster or catastrophe costs more than $1 billion, taxpayers—the government—could be affected and forced to pay part of the cost. According to the polluter pays principle, those costs should be covered by the company, which must take every precaution to minimize the risk of a disaster. Even though this is a positive step in that direction, it is not a complete application of the polluter pays principle.
When it comes to statistics, I do not necessarily want to talk about the ones that the government likes to bring up. However, other studies indicated that in the case of TransCanada and energy east, the company would be unable to locate leaks amounting to less than 1.5% of the flow. Now, 1.5% can add up to millions of litres along the length of the pipeline, so that is a huge amount of oil that could cause significant damage and affect individuals.
I do not necessarily want to get into statistics, but it is important to look at this kind of study, respond to it, and determine whether the statistics are wrong. If the study is correct, then we need to be able to address that concern. That would improve and optimize the safety of the pipelines we are talking about.