Thank you.
Thank you for being here to talk about the estimates and the department.
I'm going to focus my comments on my concerns about the poor response to the fuel spill in the Vancouver harbour, and how that ties into budget cuts in the estimates. I note that there has been a more than 50% cut in environmental response services since the 2013-14 budget, so it's not surprising that the response to this unfortunate incident in Vancouver harbour was so far from world class.
The first question I have is on the briefing yesterday. On page 6 it says that the coast guard will take over the response to a marine pollution incident if the ship owner is unwilling to, unable to, or is unknown, and will provide on-scene commander roles.
Is that the situation with this Vancouver harbour spill from the Marathassa?