Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the members. I appreciate the opportunity to present today. As you might know, I'm a lawyer here on behalf of Ecojustice, which is Canada's largest public interest environmental law organization. Ecojustice has worked extensively on pip

Natural Resources committee  In proposed paragraph 48.12(5)(a), which I believe is what you're referring to, it just says that a greater amount can be prescribed by regulation. There's no clarification of that; there's no explanation on when such an amount might be required by regulation or prescribed by reg

Natural Resources committee  At 48.13(5)?

Natural Resources committee  Okay. Sorry.

Natural Resources committee  I think that's fair. I would comment that it is positive that there's no ability to decrease the liability limit by regulation unlike in some previous bills we've seen.

Natural Resources committee  Under the financial responsibility requirements?

Natural Resources committee  Essentially, the bill as drafted requires a company to maintain the amount of financial resources necessary to pay their absolute liability limit, which is $1 billion for a large pipeline company. Proposed subsection 48.13(5) gives the NEB.... I'm not sure I understand your ques

Natural Resources committee  That's right.

Natural Resources committee  I think this goes back to the need for more clarity around how those damages actually work. There's not even a power to make regulations regarding those damages right now. I think you could probably fit that into such a regulation.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly. If a pipeline spill got into waters containing fish and caused a deleterious effect on those fish, subsection 42(1) of the Fisheries Act could have come into play to make companies absolutely liable for an unlimited amount of spill response costs. Bill C-46 basically

Natural Resources committee  I would have to confirm that, but I think that is cleanup, and not compensation. I could be wrong, though. I would have to confirm that.

Natural Resources committee  I actually do not have those numbers off the top of my head. I'm sorry.

Natural Resources committee  I think that in some ways it's fortuitous that it was such a large company that had that spill in Kalamazoo, because they do have the financial wherewithal. Similarly, in the offshore context, in the Gulf of Mexico, we've seen that BP has the financial wherewithal, although now t

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I agree with Mr. Blakely that it not only preserves but also codifies the common-law right to sue in cases of fault or negligence. What this means is that it could take us 20 years to see any payment come out, as we saw in the Exxon Valdez situation, where the company was ab

Natural Resources committee  As I mentioned earlier, we know that Kalamazoo is over a billion dollars now and still going. A recent study out of Simon Fraser University estimated the potential cost of a worst-case scenario for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion at over $5 billion and, for a bad case,