Transport Committee on Feb. 5th, 2018

[The Chair (Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)), Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I call to order the meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, December 5, 2017, we are studying Bill C-64, an act respecting wrecks, abandoned, dilapidated or hazardous vessels and salvage operations.

I welcome to the committee Minister Garneau. Thank you very much for coming to this session with your officials.

I'll turn the floor over to you.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's always a pleasure to be in front of this committee, which works very efficiently. I know I've kept it busy over the past two years passing quite a bit of transport-related legislation, so I thank it for its very efficient operations.

I'm pleased to speak about Bill C-64, the wrecked, abandoned or hazardous vessels act, legislation that will help us protect and preserve the health of Canada's marine ecosystems and the safety of the waterways on which our economy depends.

This is the result of a joint effort. The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc and I are supported by officials from Transport Canada and Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard. I'm glad that many of the officials are with me today.

Abandoned and wrecked vessels left in our waterways are a serious problem. They can pose safety, environmental, economic, and social risks, and they certainly are a long-standing and growing source of frustration for many shoreline communities.

Proper remediation of these problem vessels can be complex and costly, and up to now the financial burden has often fallen on Canadian taxpayers. It is estimated there are hundreds of these vessels in Canadian waters, ranging from small pleasure craft to large commercial vessels. Some are very problematic; others are less so. We must take action with a risk-based approach, or the challenge will only increase.

The vast majority of vessel owners act responsibly and dispose of their vessels properly; however, some owners see abandonment as a low-cost, low-risk option. This legislation will change that.

The legislation before you addresses the issue in a holistic way and fills the gaps in the existing federal legislative framework.

Up to now, the federal government has only had the authority to address some of the negative effects of abandoned or wrecked vessels, but not the vessel itself. The government has generally also lacked the ability to take proactive action in those situations to avoid placing a burden on taxpayers.

There are other gaps, as well. There is nothing in law today that generally prohibits an owner from abandoning their vessel. There are no requirements for vessel owners to carry wreck removal insurance, and insufficient authorities to order vessel owners to address their hazardous vessels or wrecks.

When a car reaches the end of its useful life, we don't accept owners leaving it by the side of the road for someone else to deal with. This should not be acceptable with vessels either. Our waterways should not, and cannot, be treated as disposal sites for junk vessels.

This is why we have introduced Bill C-64. Let me explain how it will work.

The proposed legislation would make vessel owners clearly liable for any costs incurred in the course of removing or remediating a wreck. This is critical to ensuring that accountability lies with the owner and not the general public. In 2007, the Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks established such a regime, and this bill gives the Nairobi convention force of law in Canada. On September 21, 2017, the Minister of Foreign Affairs tabled the convention in the House of Commons.

The convention sets international rules on the rights and obligations of vessel owners, coastal states, and flag states with respect to wrecks. It also provides state parties with a global regime governing liability, compulsory insurance, and direct action against insurers. By acceding to and implementing this convention, Canada would ensure that vessel owners would be held liable for locating, marking, and, if necessary, removing any wreck resulting from a maritime accident and that would pose a hazard.

Furthermore, the proposed legislation would also extend these requirements to all Canadian waters. Owners of vessels that are of 300 gross tonnage or more would be required to have insurance or other financial security to cover the costs related to their removal if they become wrecked.

This legislation will also address irresponsible vessel management in a number of ways. It will prohibit abandonment, allowing vessels to become wrecks, leaving a vessel adrift for more than 48 hours without working to secure it, or leaving vessels in very poor condition in the same area for more than 60 days without consent. These are the kinds of vessels most at risk of becoming abandoned or wrecked.

Another important aspect of the bill is that it enables the federal government to address problem vessels before they become even greater problems with higher costs, including by providing the ability to direct owners to take actions. When owners don't act, the federal government would be authorized to take any measures deemed necessary to address all types of hazards posed by abandoned, dilapidated or wrecked vessels, and the owner would be liable for costs. This part would be led by the Canadian Coast Guard.

The proposed legislation also consolidates existing provisions that deal with wrecks and salvage in one place by incorporating existing Canada Shipping Act, 2001 provisions that pertain to the International Convention on Salvage, 1989, as well as the receiver of wreck. Several important amendments have been made to the long-established and critical function of the receiver of wreck to continue to protect and preserve the rights of owners of found wrecks, as well as the rights of salvors.

This bill has teeth. It would establish an enforcement regime that authorizes the issuing of administrative monetary penalties, establishes regulatory offences and sets out a penalty regime that is intended to deter non-compliance. The penalties are higher than in other marine legislation, to provide a deterrent that reflects the high costs of addressing these vessels. Enforcement of this new legislation will be shared between my department, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. This sharing of responsibilities takes advantage of the distinct roles, mandates and capacities of both departments.

I want to stress that this proposed legislation is one element of a comprehensive national strategy to address abandoned and wrecked vessels that this government announced as part of the larger oceans protection plan in November 2016. The strategy includes a suite of measures to both prevent these problem vessels in the future and address those that litter our waterways now.

We are developing a national inventory of abandoned, dilapidated, and wrecked vessels, along with a risk assessment methodology to rank these vessels according to the risks that they pose. This will allow for decision-making based on evidence.

In 2017, the government launched two funding programs to support the cleanup and removal of smaller high-priority legacy abandoned vessels and wrecks. These programs will help get these boats out of the water, provide funding for educating vessel owners about their responsibilities and disposal options, and support research that will help improve boat recycling and design.

To address the costs of abandoned and wrecked vessels, large and small, in a sustainable way over the longer term, we're also looking at options to establish owner-financed remediation funds.

Our comprehensive strategy also includes improving vessel owner identification. We are currently working on improvements to large vessel registration, and working with provinces and territories to improve pleasure craft licensing.

We will continue to collaborate with provinces, territorial and municipal governments, indigenous groups, local and coastal communities, and stakeholders to implement the national strategy and the proposed legislation effectively.

Our coasts and waterways are the common heritage of all Canadians. They are crucially important to our environment, our communities, our economy, and our way of life.

To conclude, I would remind committee members of the unanimous adoption by the House of private member's motion M-40, which was tabled by my colleague the honourable member for South Shore—St. Margarets in the fall of 2016. It called for a comprehensive approach to dealing with the problem of abandoned and wrecked vessels. With this bill and the oceans protection plan's comprehensive national strategy, we are delivering on these commitments.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Minister Garneau.

We'll move on to Ms. Block for six minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to welcome the minister as well as all who are here supporting him as we begin to study Bill C-64.

Before I begin, I recognize that Ms. Jordan and Ms. Malcolmson have a vested interest in this study, but would it be appropriate to invite our colleagues who normally sit on this committee to also to join us at the table? There's probably no reason that they can't be here if they want to be. I would welcome them to the table if they choose.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Of course.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Minister, I would also like to thank you for the reminder on motion M-40, which was passed unanimously by the House in 2016. In that spirit I will put a couple of things on the record for us to consider and for you to understand why we even fast-tracked it past second reading to come straight to committee.

In June of 2015 a former Conservative member of Parliament, John Weston, introduced a private member's bill addressing issues of wrecked, abandoned, and hazardous vessels. Also the 2015, Conservative Party platform included a commitment to support that bill that had been introduced in the House. Finally, as amended at the May 2016 national convention, the Conservative Party's policy declaration has a statement that says that the Conservative Party stands by its commitment to facilitate rehabilitation or demolition of abandoned and derelict vessels.

We have a strong commitment, then, to the issues that are being addressed in this bill. In fact, it was the previous Conservative government that was signatory to the Nairobi convention. I know you mentioned that in your opening comments as well. I was pleased to see that it was introduced in the House as well.

We're supportive. I think we look forward to the study and what we're going to hear from the numerous witnesses who are coming forward. Thank you for introducing this bill.

A couple of my questions are going to be a little more technical in nature. I'm wondering, based on the data you have, if most of the vehicles that are wrecked or abandoned in our waters are flagged under Canadian or foreign flags.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

First of all, thank you very much for your opening comments, which I think very clearly indicate that we both, your party and my party, support the bill. I won't speak for the New Democratic Party, but I sense a very strong support there as well for going ahead with this bill. I remember when John Weston brought it up a little while back.

With respect to your specific question, I will get back to you on the answer. Part of our challenge here is to create that inventory. I suspect I know the answer but I don't want to give it unless I have accurate information.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, there are hundreds of these wrecks. One of the first tasks we need to do is to inventory them, and that would include establishing under which flag they operated and also assessing the risk they present at this point, either to navigation or the possibility of pollution.

The real answer to your question is going to take some time to establish because, as you know, Canada is a trading nation. Many ships come to us from foreign shores, but we also have a large number of Canadian ships as well. I think that's probably the best I can do at this point, although the majority of them, by the hundreds, are pleasure craft, so there's a strong suspicion they will be of Canadian origin.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

I think I will leave it there because I don't think any other question I would ask would give you enough time to provide an answer.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We will move on to Ms. Jordan.

Welcome to the committee, by the way.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here, and thank you for this legislation. Coastal communities have been waiting a very long time to deal with the problems we've seen with abandoned and derelict vessels. As you know, in my riding I have a number of them.

I understand that the legislation is on a go-forward basis, but what happens to the people who have them in their communities now? How do we deal with the vessels that are already there, especially the bigger ones, the ones that a small community cannot afford to remove? I want to make sure that this legislation does address the problems we're facing in towns like Bridgewater.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Thank you for your question, and thank you for your motion M-40, which I think has been very important input to all of this.

Yes, there are hundreds of existing wrecks, and our legislation aims to make sure that we don't add to that in the future. We are putting in place measures that will create liabilities for the owners and more solid ways of identifying ownership, as well as a number of other measures.

In the meantime, what we have done is provide two sources of funds. One is called the abandoned boats program, which is run by Transport Canada. This fund is focused on working with communities that have wrecks in their local waters, to work with them on a cost-shared basis to find and to actually remove some of those wrecks. There is also a Fisheries and Oceans small craft harbours program specifically for small craft harbours. It is to do the same thing, essentially, where there are abandoned vessels or wrecked vessels.

Is that going to be enough? No, it's not going to be enough to cover the hundreds that we're talking about. We have taken some specific measures in special cases. Your own experience is in Shelburne, with the Farley Mowat. There is a larger program called the Kathryn Spirit in Lac Saint-Louis in Montreal. The MV Miner is another example, and sometimes the provinces have stepped into it. The Manolis L is another example; there has been removal of leaking oil, but there will be a contract let this summer for bulk removal.

However, there will be a requirement to have more money to deal with these many wrecks. One of the things we're exploring—and I talked about it in my presentation—is much the same as the ship-source oil pollution fund for shipping, which all shipping lines have to contribute to in the case of shipping spill. We may explore the possibility of having a fund that people who own vessels have to contribute into, a fund that is there to take care of incidents when we can no longer trace the original owner and we may have to access something like that. We're looking at ways we can build the funding that's necessary to take care of the existing wrecks that are out there.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

To that point, in Bridgewater we've had the Cormorant, which is a former naval vessel that has sunk at the wharf and then been refloated at great cost. It probably would have been easier to remove that vessel to refloat it and clean it. Now it's still sitting there, listing, and the possibility that it could sink again is still there.

The Town of Bridgewater has spent a great deal of time and effort and money revitalizing their downtown core. They have spent a lot of community time and effort to build parks and green spaces, and then you look out and you see this ship.

I just want to make sure there is a way for us to address those kinds of problems when towns are faced with an economic burden because of them. They don't own the wharf that it's at, but it's affecting their ability to capitalize on tourism and it's affecting their ability to use the river in the best way possible. I think it would be great to see that this bill can address those problems as well.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

It will definitely address them going forward. For example, as I said in my remarks, there will be a rule that if a boat or a ship is 60 days in a location in a dilapidated condition, then we can take enforcement action. If it's just sitting there and clearly not going anywhere, we can take the actions that are necessary with this new legislation. The problem up until now is that we haven't had the tools and the power to take action.

Certainly there will be rules with respect to what we call dilapidated vessels just sitting at anchor and eventually sinking—and I see it, as transport minister, on a regular basis—or sometimes mysteriously catching fire or something like that. We don't want this kind of situation to occur in the future, so we will have measures in place.

It's the same thing for vessels that are abandoned out at sea. If they're drifting and no action is taken by the owner to do something about it, then we will take action in that kind of situation. We're trying to address all the situations in which we have an abandoned vessel that clearly presents a hazard through the possibility of sinking and costing the taxpayers a lot of money or of creating environmental problems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Ms. Malcolmson.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the minister for being here, and all of your supporting crew.

As you know, I had hoped to see legislation. I brought some forward that was blocked by the government. It would have included some of the pieces about recycling, prevention, turn-in programs, and so on. In that spirit, I'm going to feel out what your ministry is doing here. Because I'd love to fit in as much as possible, are you amenable to yes-or-no answers as much we can?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Sure, I'll try that.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Great. Thank you. I appreciate it, Minister.

Here's my first question. Is the oceans protection plan contingent on the Kinder Morgan pipeline going through? We heard quite a lot about this in my riding in Nanaimo just over the last couple of days, and I'd like to be sure that it's going to proceed no matter what.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

The oceans protection plan will proceed no matter what.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that very much.

Also, when I was elected to Islands Trust Council, a local government in British Columbia, whenever I said “derelict vessels”, it triggered live-aboards. People got very concerned. This is more of a west coast phenomenon than east coast. I've started saying “abandoned vessels”, and every time I could, I have tried to reassure people who are living on board their vessels that my legislative solution would not negatively affect them, would not limit them. When I read in clause 30(1) that:

It is prohibited for an owner of a dilapidated vessel to leave it stranded, grounded, including on the shore, anchored or moored in the same location...for a period of 60 consecutive days...

without

the express consent to leave the vessel from...the owner, manager or lessee of the location

that worries me.

Does your legislation restrict or limit live-aboards in any way?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

That's not covered by Transport Canada because it's covered by municipal and provincial rules that also address the question. I'm very familiar with live-aboards in a number of provinces, but we don't come directly into it federally.

However, I want to tell you that in the municipalities and provinces where there are live-aboards, there are different rules and laws in that respect. They also address the issue that we're concerned about, which is that the ships could represent a hazard if they sink. It's not directly under us. They're sort of a special case that is not federal.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

We heard a lot from live-aboards who do recognize that there is a continuum. A live-aboard may not be well cared for. People are facing affordable housing problems, and people fall on economic hard times. In the absence of a vessel turn-in program, as other jurisdictions have developed, people sometimes simply aren't able to keep their boats afloat. I note that the ship-source oil pollution fund in its reporting said that over a 10-year period, 51% of the people to whom they sent a bill for cleaning up an abandoned vessel lacked financial assets to pay that bill. Many of them were not found, unknown, or did not respond.

I'm concerned that someone who gets sent a fine under this program is not going to be able to pay it anyway. Did you design this legislation with the express intent of looking at the affordability problems and economic hard times, and also people's ability to pay?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

The intent of our legislation is to make shipowners, vessel owners, or pleasure craft owners accountable. It is not fair, in our opinion, for taxpayers to have to—if I can put it this way—clean up a problem that they had nothing to do with because the owner either allowed the ship to become a risk or an environmental hazard or just walked away and disappeared into the night. Those are the things that have created the situation of hundreds of vessels—

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

With respect, Minister, I'm very well familiar with it. You and I are talking on the same page here. My question is about whether the remedy you've designed is not going to work because a lack of economic means is at the heart of this problem. Sending shipowners and boat owners a bill when it's already evident from the ship-source oil pollution fund that they cannot pay—how does that protect the environment?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Well, we're going to make it very clear from the beginning that those who acquire a boat or a vessel—and we will work with the provinces with respect to licensing and registration—understand that they have a responsibility from the moment they acquire the vessel until they dispose of it. That will be put in place.

Will that guarantee, 100% of the time, that we will recover any funds if somebody walks away? It will not, but it will significantly improve the situation, and there will be measures that can be taken, such as administrative penalties and pursuits for those who are not going to respect those regulations.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Minister.

I have one more question.

The reporting that you sent to us said that under the new funding available for removal and assessment of abandoned vessels, you've received only seven applications, and only three of those are for boat removal. Were you surprised at how small the take-up was on this big program?