Natural Resources committee  Thanks for the questions and the comments. Those are exactly the kinds of things that we hear about on a regular basis. The National Energy Board is the regulator that would establish, by looking at the evidence base, the circumstances, and the elements of a pipeline, where the shut-off valves should be and what the conditions of the shut-off valves might be related to the environment, the habitat, or the land base where you find the pipeline.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly, the bill provides a number of areas where its focus is on prevention. For example, the bill provides clarified audit and inspection powers of the NEB, which is part of the monitoring and inspection areas in order to prevent incidents from occurring and trying to detect practices that may lead to incidents.

Natural Resources committee  The bill provides us the ability to move forward with how we would do that. Today we can't so I would suggest that without the ability to move forward on how to move toward prevention and better prevention, it would allow for that. Certainly the other aspect around bringing greater clarity around sentencing and how we deal with incidents and how things occur are all in the ambit of our efforts, and certainly efforts in the bill attempt to ensure that pipeline companies do their very best and work to do their best.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the question. I think it's a good one. Looking at the analytics, volumetrics is a fairly straightforward way of identifying where you would see the majority of the movement of energy goods. I think the risks associated with a particular product moving through a pipeline vary because pipelines move different products.

Natural Resources committee  If you relate volume to the activity level the activity level is represented.

Natural Resources committee  No, it's not any different from most pieces of legislation that establish authorities to provide regulations. Generally speaking, without being entirely disingenuous to Parliament, legislation doesn't get changed very often, and it takes a great deal of activity and attention from parliamentarians, whereas the regulation- making function tends to be a little more responsive to changes that happen in time and over changes in society.

Natural Resources committee  Correct.

Natural Resources committee  It's fairly complex. It's more complicated than it seems. The act provides the entry into a broader conversation that will take some time to work through with different jurisdictions. There are nine different jurisdictions that regulate pipelines in Canada. There is quite a bit of discussion to have with different jurisdictions, some of which are quite extraordinary and have phenomenally large numbers of pipelines, some of which have very few.

Natural Resources committee  Just to be clear, harmonization will be around damage prevention regulations, not around liability. What's proposed in the bill will only apply to federally regulated pipelines. Provincial pipelines have their own legal regime around their liability. There are no provincial jurisdictions that have absolute liability and none that have a billion dollars.

Natural Resources committee  Roughly speaking, the federal pipelines tend to be larger, but my colleagues in Alberta and Saskatchewan might take issue with that. There are some pretty big provincial pipelines in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It's really a function, typically, of how far and how large a network we're dealing with.

Natural Resources committee  Correct. Go ahead, Joseph.

Natural Resources committee  The act provides the ceiling of a billion dollars for a major oil pipeline of at least 250,000 barrels per day, if it's individually or an aggregate, and then provides a regulation-making authority. We do not have the regulation-making authority today to establish the classes until the bill passes the House.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for question. Mr. Chair, I think this simply clarifies the existing law. In ordinary civil law an agent can be liable to the principle for any of their misdeeds. This is simply a way of clarifying that existing law.

Natural Resources committee  Correct. It extends a step further even if you weren't a contractor to the pipeline company. If you were a construction worker working near a pipeline and damaged the pipeline and caused damages, the pipeline company is responsible even though you weren't working for the pipeline company and damaged the pipeline and caused harm and costs.

Natural Resources committee  I'll start and then I'll have my colleague join in, because he actually worked on the RRD initially. The responsible resource development plan is a series of efforts under way to ensure that there are adequate and appropriate world-class safety regimes around the regulatory systems for our resource development activities, whether those are offshore oil and gas development and the Energy Safety and Security Act, nuclear energy development, whether they're the pipeline safety act here, the marine activities around my colleagues from the Ministry of Transport, or the recent amendments and proposals being put forward on rail related to rail transportation.