Transport committee  That's right. It's based on the amount of oil received in the member states of the international fund. That's the measure.

Transport committee  So far the fund has managed to lift and finance itself on accrued interest. Hopefully that will continue.

Transport committee  I'm happy to hand it to my colleague from maritime safety.

Transport committee  It is the ship inspectors as well as the coast guard, particularly the vessel traffic management, which is responsible for verifying the existence and validity of a number of certificates a ship has to have in order to operate in Canadian waters. It will be an added responsibility to verify that they also have their insurance certificate.

Transport committee  There is no limitation on who gets compensated. Compensation is available to both public and private claimants. Public claimants could be governments, civil authorities, and so on. In terms of private claimants, it could be any party that suffered pollution damage, including fishermen.

Transport committee  No, there is no provision for compulsory insurance for the operators in adventure tourism.

Transport committee  Did you ask if there is a provision in the new act, or if there was one in the previous act?

Transport committee  There is no provision for compulsory insurance in the new act.

Transport committee  The insurance is left to the operators to obtain; there is no compulsion to do so. Most of them will—we know that—but there is no provision to compel them to have insurance. They have limited liability in law, but there is no provision to compel them to have the insurance against those limits.

Transport committee  In terms of imposing insurance, I don't think it's a matter of hiring anyone. The choice we were facing was whether or not the industry should be treated as it was prior to 2001, when they had a statutory limit but there was no obligation or requirement to have insurance, or whether they would be where they are now, where we know they cannot obtain the insurance.

Transport committee  I am delighted to have this question. That's a legal question, and Mr. Gauthier will take it. He's a lawyer too.

Transport committee  First of all, thank you for your kind words. I learned very quickly that this was a fairly complex problem. Actually, it was initially easy to solve, but there were a number of people involved in the solution. They are in the room, and I know they appreciate your generosity. In terms of how we eventually arrived at the solution, we went through many loops.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  The fund is agency-administered by the administrator of the fund, who reports to Parliament through the Minister of Transport and annually submits a report to Parliament. Broadly speaking, the administrator of the fund is responsible for handling claims that are filed with the fund, claims for all pollution.

Transport committee  This fund deals with the liability for pollution damage, or pollution losses. It has nothing to do with the product carried onboard the ship. There must be pollution, there must be linkage to a ship, and there must be a reasonable demonstration of damages and losses. It has nothing to do with what the ship carries at the time of the incident.