Transport committee  That's correct.

Transport committee  That's the maximum.

Transport committee  The cargo owners will be funding the HNS fund.

Transport committee  They do, up to $400 million.

Transport committee  On the chemical side, I would say no. This is a fund that Canada led to get to the $400-million limit and actually to get that convention in place in the first place to where we are today.

Transport committee  That's right.

Transport committee  No, I think you're absolutely right, but in the first case I would say on the marine side there's never been any chemical or hazardous or noxious spill even approaching the $400-million limit. Also, as I mentioned, there's no requirement for the government to step in if anything happened to exceed, in a rare case, $400 million.

Transport committee  No. [Inaudible—Editor] I'll refer to my....

Transport committee  I'm going to refer to my colleague. The question is very complicated between the current regime in place now for non-persistent oils and this one for persistent oils. I'll ask François Marier to answer your question.

Transport committee  I think we're getting into a bit of confusion between what this bill does in terms of the Marine Liability Act and what the world-class oil spill pollution regime we're working on is. If you're talking about oil, there's a separate regime already in place.

Transport committee  It has no bearing on that regime at all. This is basically focused, as François said, on hazardous and noxious substances, which for the most part are chemicals and liquid natural gas. If you're talking about the carrying of oil, there's a separate regime that addresses that.

Transport committee  Okay, I'd say in recent history, from about 2005, this convention was being discussed.

Transport committee  No, but the Marine Liability Act already includes provisions to address oil being shipped off the west coast. There's already a regime in place.

Transport committee  It's an international fund set up by the IMO, but the way it's going to be structured is that shipowners will pay for it only post-incident.

Transport committee  The $400 million was set by international convention, which involved a lot of discussion, debate, and dialogue among the several countries that sit there. Through consensus, they came up with the $400-million limit. Just to clarify, for hazardous and noxious substances, there has never been a chemical spill that came anywhere near that amount.