Mr. Speaker, in response to part (a), the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, its regulations and standards require potential polluters to maintain a minimum level of preparedness at all times. Prescribed oil handling facilities must have an arrangement with a certified response organization that would maintain a prescribed level of preparedness to respond to a spill on the polluter's behalf. Oil handling facilities must each have onsite plans, equipment, personnel, and training and exercise programs that allow them to deploy an immediate response in the event of an oil spill.
There are several caches of oil pollution countermeasures equipment in Placentia Bay. Oil handling facilities such as North Atlantic Refining Limited and Newfoundland Transshipment Limited have their own stockpile of spill response equipment equating to 150 tonnes as they are responsible for initially responding to their own spills.
Eastern Canada Response Corporation, the response organization responsible for responding to ship-source oil spills in this area, stores its pollution countermeasures equipment at its base in Donovan’s Industrial Park in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Canadian Coast Guard also stores its pollution countermeasures equipment at its base in Donovan’s Industrial Park in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador.
In response to part (b), Transport Canada is the lead agency responsible for Canada's marine oil spill preparedness and response regime. The regime was established in 1995 to enable industry to respond to its own oil spills of up to 10,000 tones within the prescribed time standards and operating environments, for Canadian waters south of 60 degrees north latitude. The regime is built upon a partnership between government and industry. It sets rigorous standards for response organizations and oil handling facilities, and establishes the requirements for national preparedness capacity.
In response to part (c), designated ports, each with a primary area of responsibility, are an important piece of Canada's marine oil spill response regime.. A designated port has higher volumes of oil transferred between the shore and a vessel than other ports. The associated higher risk requires more concentrated response capability. A designated port thus has advantages with respect to spill response time and capability. Holyrood and Come By Chance are two designated ports in Newfoundland and Labrador. The response time to deploy equipment at a designated port is six hours.
In response to part (d), under part 8 of the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, prescribed oil handling facilities and vessels must have arrangements with a response organization, in this case, Eastern Canada Response Corporation. As part of its response plan, Eastern Canada Response Corporation has response personnel available to respond to a spill when contracted by the polluter.
In addition, oil handling facilities have personnel, listed in their oil pollution emergency plans, who must be available to respond in the event of a spill.
The Canadian Coast Guard monitors the overall response to ensure that it is effective, timely, and appropriate to the incident. In the event that the polluter is unable to respond, unwilling to take action or unknown, the Canadian Coast Guard becomes the on-scene commander.
