Insofar as merchant ships are concerned, there is adequate provision in the Canada Shipping Act, 2001. I believe it's subsection 163(2) that gives the Minister of Transport and the Minister of the Environment the authority to draft regulations. In those regulations there is adequate opportunity to define what is a heritage wreck, what is an ocean war grave, or any other category they wish to assign. I would not want to see too much of a separation between a heritage wreck and an ocean war grave, because in certain respects they are synonymous and they certainly should go in some way together. However, primarily my purpose here today, and for the past five years, has been to establish ocean war graves, because they've been completely forgotten, whereas heritage matters have not.
On March 19th, 2018. See this statement in context.