Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, this is a cap that's set in regulations. Cabinet can change this tomorrow if they want to; the Minister could change this tomorrow. The federal government had these caps. We adopted those with devolution. But after devolution, the federal government, the Auditor General came and looked at how the federal government tries to manage public liabilities and the Auditor General recommended to the federal government that they needed to change these caps in the areas where they retained jurisdiction, the offshore in particular. And so the Auditor General said that you need to change this, especially in light of what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. So the federal government changed its regulations for the offshore and the absolute liability cap, as I understand it, I think is a billion dollars now. So that's the kind of -- and I'm not suggesting that the same kind of risk or blowout could happen necessarily on the onshore but as a responsible resource developer, you would think that by now we would want to protect the public and at least change the caps that were set by the federal government, artificially low in my opinion, and it's something that our government can do tomorrow. So I've raised this in the last Assembly. I've raised it again in this Assembly. But there just doesn't seem to be any appetite on the other side to actually protect the public interest. So, again, I'll be very curious to see how the Cabinet is going to respond to this because the Minister can change this tomorrow if she wants. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Kevin O'Reilly on Committee Motion 358-19(2): Committee Report 39-19(2): Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on the Prevention and Management of Contaminated Sites - Absolute Liability Caps Increases, Carried
In the Legislative Assembly on February 9th, 2023. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 358-19(2): Committee Report 39-19(2): Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment Report on the Prevention and Management of Contaminated Sites - Absolute Liability Caps Increases, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 9th, 2023
Page 5166
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