Transport committee  There's a certain protocol. At major rapids we accompany a lot of our trips with safety kayakers, who might kayak over and rescue someone. We set up guides on shore with throw lines. If a raft turns over or people fall out, we'll have another raft placed below. There are certain protocols we follow.

Transport committee  What happens, for example, in West Virginia, a big adventure tourism state, is that they have an assumption of risk statute in their state, where if people do these activities, the operator is not responsible unless there's gross negligence on their part. In the United States, there's no umbrella organization as there is in Canada, because we have a much smaller industry.

Transport committee  Absolutely, yes.

Transport committee  I should have brought a copy of our waiver form, because our waiver form specifically refers to negligence. Our participants sign away their rights for our negligent behaviour. Back in the old days, before the Internet, when we didn't have a way of communicating the language of our waiver, occasionally some people would read that...because we specifically deal with negligence in the waiver form.

Transport committee  Our guide training is a three-week process, and the people we hire and invite to guide training all come from a whitewater river adventure sports background. Those are the people we hire. Even with that, they go through a three-week training program. Interestingly enough, the first day of guide training is always very exciting for our new guides, because on day one of guide training we make them swim the rapids.

Transport committee  Yes, every one we belong to has standards. They have their own internal ones.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Our vessels are safe. Right now, for the first time, our rafts are required to be registered with Transport Canada, even though we object to that. With that registration will come inspections. The nature of our industry is that it's highly specialized, and for the most part, the inspectors who come—and we've never had anybody inspect our rafts—would really not know more about it than we do.

Transport committee  The safety of our rafts is the concern of the Canada River Council. Again, it's a non-governmental agency, an association of operators very much like the law association or the Canadian Medical Association. It's self-policing, self-regulating. And even though Transport Canada is now starting to regulate our industry, our standards exceed theirs—and they really have to.

Transport committee  If I understand correctly, if we lose our waivers, it's basically an industry killer. To give you an example, in our 35-year history we have probably paid out $3 million to $4 million of liability premiums. Our insurers over that time period have paid out $70,000 on our behalf.

Transport committee  I can't speak about whale-watching. We don't operate those kinds of tours. I've never had the opportunity to go on one. To me, what defines adventure tourism is the amount of risk involved and the disposition of the participant to accept some of the risk.

Transport committee  Yes. In fact, we don't even want anybody showing up at our doorstep without acknowledging that. Although we spare no effort to ensure a safe experience, we can assume no responsibility for your safety or loss of personal equipment. In the activity—

Transport committee  It's on every single piece of literature that we provide. It's in all our promotional literature, it's in our administrative literature, it's on our website. The last thing we want is somebody coming to Wilderness Tours and.... Well, part of the registration process is signing the waiver.

Transport committee  Not in our whitewater rafting business. In our jet boating business, the jet boats are very heavy, they hold 50 passengers, and those vessels require Transport Canada captains. With our rafting, the fellow in the back is what we call a river guide. Basically, what we do in our industry is we belong to the Canada River Council, and it's somewhat of a self-policing organization.

Transport committee  The critical point for us is the waiver of release. For example, if I took a ferry ride in Vancouver over to Victoria, I would assume that there would be no risk, that I would just be a passenger, and that it would be 100% safe. If I were on a whitewater rafting trip that's going to be jostled....