Transport committee  Good afternoon. I'm Natasha Rascanin, assistant deputy minister at Transport Canada for transformation.

Transport committee  I can't give you an answer in tonnes. We certainly looked at traffic, volumes, and types of products that are being shipped in that area, both for community resupply and for industry resupply. Based on that analysis, this was the limit that made sense to permit the kinds of shipp

Transport committee  I think the minister actually did highlight that as well, but this is a very pristine region and a unique ecosystem. Other parts of Canada where there is significant marine traffic of various kinds have a lot of precautionary, infrastructure, and response mechanisms already in pl

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  The minister was also quite clear that the schedule to the moratorium bill could be amended through the regular regulatory process should innovations in science and the evolution of products, and so on, warrant products to be added or to be removed from the schedule. That is some

Transport committee  There was a range of input that we received across the different consultations and engagement sessions. Certainly, I would say that everybody is interested in enhanced marine safety and enhanced environmental protections, and in making sure that economic opportunities are also co

Transport committee  My view is not necessarily the right take on this, in that officials do not provide views. What I believe is fundamental to this is that from all of the scientific assessments, the work that we do, we take that into consideration as we go forward, so absolutely, lessons learned

Transport committee  Evidence based....

Transport committee  The approach to the schedule to the act was based on the precautionary principle, and certainly encompasses a range of petroleum products that are at the heavier end.

Transport committee  This is an area that is not under the purview of the Department of Transport. It is our colleagues in Natural Resources and in Environment Canada who do some of this.

Transport committee  We work very closely with our colleagues. We also relied very heavily, importantly, on international standards under the various international elements. Also, under the oceans protection plan, there are investments into ongoing research in this area.

Transport committee  In terms of evidence, it was an analysis of the types of products looking at internationally based definitions and science-based definitions on which ones are the heaviest and most persistent—all the current knowledge scientifically. Those are the ones that are listed on the sche

Transport committee  I'm not able to answer that question directly myself.

Transport committee  We do actually have some NRCan folks here.

Transport committee  We will work with our colleagues.