Our understanding of this particular provision is that proposed subsection 26(2.3) provides the Governor in Council with the ability to raise the absolute liability amounts. This is the clausing that perhaps ought to have been in the legislation when it was passed in the 1980s. It would have allowed liability to have risen without necessarily amending the bill, if you will, as we're doing today. That was the origin of proposed subsection 26(2.3).
The amendment proposes subsection 26(2.31). It would require that the board review every project, which it currently does. Part of the review that the board does under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, is to establish the understanding of what the environmental considerations are, what the risks are, how they might be mitigated, and what the plan is to address those risks. The element of reviewing each project for the risks would occur today, and does occur today, absent this amendment. The element of the amendment that I think is unique is the element that would then, based on that assessment, provide the power to the NEB to increase the absolute liability amount. If they conducted a review of a project in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore and determined that this project had a set of circumstances, I'm presuming what would happen under the bill, if this amendment passes, is that they might establish that there ought to be a $1.5-billion absolute liability amount.
I think the policy direction of the bill is that the establishment of an absolute liability amount is a legislative element. It's in the bill and it's legislated. The board does work under the frame—to reinforce the point today—that in any circumstance in which there's an incident, liability is unlimited, and the companies are responsible for those. The board, in the bill as it stands now, does have the ability to suggest and to require that an operator demonstrate more than $1 billion of financial capacity. While the absolute liability amount is $1 billion, that is really just the amount that they would be subject to without fault or negligence. They do have unlimited liability. The board could require a company to demonstrate $3 billion of financial capacity before providing an authorization to proceed. That could be done on the basis of their assessment of that particular project, whether it was in the north or whether it was in Atlantic Canada or elsewhere where there might be an application.
We have provided the board authorities that allow for the requirement of more, but we have not provided in the bill, as you would know, the ability for the board to increase liability. We've left that in the hands of the government of the day.