Transport committee  That is correct. It would be shared in the same way as the HNS fund contributions are shared. Parliament can do what it wishes, but it would probably be the receivers of cargoes in bulk, not in cans of Ajax, but in bulk, who would be contributing, if ever there were to be a contribution requested.

Transport committee  First, the oil industry does not pay into the SOPF and has not paid a cent since 1976, as you know, so I don't think we should get too worried about what we're cleaning up. Second, the point is that the oil industry itself is involved in things beyond oil. They are involved in shipping and receiving HNS bulk cargoes which are not oil.

Transport committee  First, I would like to say that my association deals with maritime law. With respect to the proposed amendments in the Canada Shipping Act to extend Mr. Wright's company's liability to his agents, mandataries, etc., we support that. The problem with the bill originally was that when Mr.

Transport committee  The amount that the SOPF would inject in any.... Right now, it only applies for oil. The amount they inject is set by Parliament, and you can set the amount where you want it. Right now it's approximately 160 million additional dollars. That may not be billions, but it certainly is better than no additional dollars.

Transport committee  I could perhaps explain that better; I didn't mean to misstate it. I probably shouldn't have even answered the question of whether there have been HNS spills over $200 million because we'd all have to look on.... There are ways of finding out, but what I'd like to say—

Transport committee  First off, when you're talking about $200 million—why you pick that figure, I'm not sure—that's in today's dollars for us. If you had an event some years ago, less than $200 million would be more than $200 million today. I'm not sure where we would be going with that. I'd just like to say that regardless of the Exxon Valdez, which by the way was apparently $5 billion, the oil conventions will not give us $5 billion in compensation if it ever happens in Canada.

Transport committee  That's right. When I say that was adequate funding, it was funding that we felt was a realistic step forward. You may have noted that the funding available for HNS is less than it is for oil. You may ask why that would be. Well, HNS are such strange products. The reason for that is that oil is a labour intensive cleanup, but HNS is not always.

Transport committee  Yes, you did. In fact, although the committee may not have been made aware of this, Canada, not my association, was the spearhead internationally, I guess you could say, for the creation of the 1996 HNS convention. I won't waste your time with the details of the 1996 HNS convention, but it was agreed to.

Transport committee  No, that's not what I was trying to say. Simply stated, at my association we believe Canada would benefit from joining the international convention on HNS, just like we did with oil. Why would we benefit? It would give us access to very important funding and expertise if ever there were to be a spill in Canada, which of course we hope there won't be, but if there were to be, we would have access to the funding.

Transport committee  I don't think I would say it's an abundance of prudence; I would say that it's very smart to be prepared, both on the funding side and on the preparedness side. If you go back to 1989—I'm not sure that any of you were involved, but I was—when we were looking at the CLC convention, the oil convention, we didn't have very many studies about preparedness in Canada for oil either.

Transport committee  If the question is addressed to me and—

Transport committee  Thank you. My thought on it is that the government has to decide what it wants to do, of course. You asked us to come here as a witness and to give our view on what we think should happen. We gave the same view to the tanker panel. If the government decides that it will go step by step and do this now, wait for the tanker panel, see what they say, and perhaps tweak it or adjust it later with a second bill, it's certainly not a decision for us, but for you.

Transport committee  First, you have to be careful when you ask this question, and I'll tell you why. HNS is not just esoteric chemical products that we don't identify with; it also includes things like oil. The HNS convention includes oil. Therefore, as soon as you get into a spill that costs more than $200 million for oil, you could say it was an HNS spill.

Transport committee  Again, I have to answer that of course there are. Let me say this first. A second point is the HNS convention is not yet in force, so there have been no spills at all dealt with under the convention. If you think, for example of the main categories of HNS—and let's forget about oil because it is an HNS but it is covered under another convention in certain circumstances.

Transport committee  Let's talk HNS so that your colleagues don't get all excited.