Transport committee  We have inspectors everywhere. Of course, since these facilities interface with ships, they are located on the coasts or along the St. Lawrence Seaway. We have some in Newfoundland and Labrador, the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, the north and the Pacific region. Currently, our facilities' transfer rates vary between 150 m3/h and 2,000 m3/h.

Transport committee  The current system has been in place for about 25 years. This bill aims to increase monitoring powers and ensure better oversight of facilities that receive oil products and load them onto ships. We are working with those interfaces. Our system's current value could be improved.

Transport committee  We have not been waiting for the bill to be passed to start working on that. Currently, we are hiring people and implementing the system. Of course, we will have to adjust the system to comply with the resulting regulations, which are not yet in place. After the consultation process, the regulations will impose certain operating parameters on us, and we will have to take them into account.

Transport committee  Well, once the regulations are in place, we'll have our workforce. Our inspectors will be equipped with policy procedures, work instructions, and training to go about and inspect the oil handling facilities.

Transport committee  No, sir. Those options are still open to us, either decertification of the response organization or prosecution in court. Those are still open, but there's nothing in between right now, between doing nothing and decertification or prosecution in court. We are adding new tools to our tool kit to enforce things that need enforcement but may not require going to court or decertifying a response organization.

Transport committee  Of course the nature of those infractions will be set out in regulations. We'll consult our stakeholders and everybody when we need to set those classes of infractions. However, just off the top of my head, for an outboard motor that's not working or that should be working, $250 sounds like something that could be accurate.

Transport committee  I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak of the important amendments to the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, as part of Bill C-3. The amendments focus on three key areas, the first of which is the removal of obstacles to respond to an oil spill by addressing gaps in the civil and criminal immunity protection provided to response organizations, oil spill responders, and responders coming from outside of Canada at the request of a Canadian response organization.