Bill C-16

My first piece in Canadian Sailings was on whether a Canadian owner should be concerned about the approach by the Dept. of Justice in the USA in regards to fraudulent entries in the Oil Record Book (ORB). Under US law, presenting an ORB with untrue entries to a Coast Guard inspector is a criminal offense, regardless of where and when these entries were made in the ORB. You present such an ORB and you have defrauded the USA.

A company facing the courts in such a situation is typically assessed a few million dollars in fines, the company is put on 5 year probation and is required to implement an Environmental Compliance Plan (ECP) for all the ships in its fleet or under management.This ECP covers all waste streams and usually requires annual auditing of 75% of the fleet. We were involved with a couple of cruise lines and their implementation of the ECP. Their shipboard audits were carried out by third parties (typically marine consultants) in 3-5 day cruises by a team of 2-3 persons, at considerable cost.

Bill C-16 seems to introduce the above mentioned method in dealing with pollution offenders. By adding "directing the offender to implement an environmental management system that meets a recognized Canadian or international standard specified by the court" in paragraph 66 (1)(c) the company will have to implement a court imposed ECP.

We find a company is better served by implementing a voluntary, vigorously managed ECP. This helps to demonstrate due diligence and thereby helps to shield the corporation, its managers and directors from the implied liabilities in paragraphs 50 and 51 of the proposed bill-16.