Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight to speak and to ask two questions of the government.

The first is about liability for accidents at offshore drilling installations and at nuclear power plants. The liability limits, in the case of an accident at an offshore drilling operation, are only $30 million in the Atlantic and $40 million in the Arctic. I think the government members would agree with me that these liability limits are too low. These are caps on the amount a company is liable for in the case of an accident.

The Conservatives have hinted that legislation may be forthcoming to increase these limits. Let me just give a simple illustration of why these limits need to be increased. The current limit is $40 million in the Arctic. The cost of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico was $40 billion. That is 1,000 times more than the current liability limit.

I know that the Conservatives have hinted that some legislation may be forthcoming. When is that legislation forthcoming? Could it not have been introduced in Bill C-60, which has a number of pieces that did not appear in the budget?

The second place liability limits need to be increased is at nuclear power plants. Currently the liability cap is only $75 million. I know that when we had a minority Conservative government, legislation to increase the liability limits on accidents at nuclear power plants from $75 million to something like $650 million or more was introduced three different times. All three bills died for one reason or another, whether it was an early election, prorogation or simply that the bill was not advanced by the government. However, now that we have a majority Conservative government, and have for two years, I do not understand why the government has not introduced stand-alone legislation that could be examined carefully and debated.

Why could the Conservatives not simply reintroduce legislation they were willing to introduce in a minority government? I challenge the government to explain why it has not done so. I think people will ask whether the Conservatives, which now have a majority government, really wanted to increase the liability limits when they were in a minority government. That is my other question.

In response to my initial question in question period, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, speaking for the government, said, “the foundation for our liability regime is the polluter pay principle”. That is something that perhaps all members of the House could agree on.

Now that the current government is spending a lot of time going to the United States to lobby the government there to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and to claim that Canada is strong on environmental protection, would the government extend the polluter pay principle, and would it apply it to other things that damage the natural environment? They are lobbying the United States government and claim to be protecting the natural environment and caring about climate change.

Ted Hsu

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Adjournment Proceedings

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