Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, I would refer you to proposed section 132.4 in this bill, called “Recovery of fines and amounts”. In this case, this provision says that a “prosecutor may, by filing the conviction or order, as the case may be, enter as a judgment the amount of the fine or the amount ordered to be paid, and costs, if any, in any court”.

Natural Resources committee  Not all of the provisions. The provisions governing behaviour and conduct of an offender will be subject to the three-year limit. The orders to pay fines would be subject to proposed section 132.4.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is part of the penalty provisions. All penalty provisions have a mix of punishment, deterrence, and reform. The mix of all of those is different in each context. In this particular context, this legislation says that a three-year period of constraint on an offender's behaviour is sufficient for the purposes of this act.

Natural Resources committee  Sorry, which bond are you referring to?

Natural Resources committee  Just to back up what Mr. Labonté is saying, this is federal legislation governing the federal matter of inter-provincial pipelines. So under this regime, those would the rules that would apply. It's not quite a conflict with any provincial regime, because it would be under a special liability regime set up in this section.

Natural Resources committee  All right. Thank you for the question. The three-year limit establishes the time limits in the civil courts as well, so there's the three-year and then there's the six-year full stop limit, and those would apply.

Natural Resources committee  They're all the same, so the time limit, the prescription that is set out by this act in proposed section 48.12, I think. That's right.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much for that question. I think establishing a statutory time like that is a policy question that's been directed to the minister. This tries to follow some of the federal legislation, tries to track it.

Natural Resources committee  There are many different regimes in Canada, and they all have different time limits.

Natural Resources committee  There is nothing that addresses that aspect directly. However, if someone believed that he had been affected by a spill, he could go before ordinary courts; that recourse is always possible. It has not been eliminated.

Natural Resources committee  That could be the case, but in civil law, there are several points to be considered.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, the question here is about the diminishing of liability by not allowing recovery under the Fisheries Act. What this bill proposes to do is that if there is any loss caused by a pipeline spill, and one of those losses is damage to a fishery, the recovery must be done under the NEB Act.

Natural Resources committee  The policy principle at play here would be that the company that's responsible for the pipeline certificate, the operator of the pipeline, would be responsible for any contractors or any parties working for them to avoid the situation of “you were working for me, so I'm not responsible for your actions, so therefore you're the person who's responsible”.

Natural Resources committee  That could well be the case.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much for the question. Indeed, this act clarifies that abandoned pipelines stay within federal jurisdiction until they're completely dealt with. There was also a question about what happens when a company goes bankrupt. In those cases, because there's no backstop, there's a chance that none of the costs of taking out the pipelines or dealing with them will be able to be recovered.