Madam Speaker, I gives me great pleasure to again raise one of my pet concerns, the issue of the Coast Guard.
The other day in the House I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, on behalf of all Canadians, a question which I thought was very simple.
When the commissioner of the Coast Guard, John Adams, appeared before the fisheries committee hearings--and the hon. parliamentary secretary was there to hear his comments--the committee asked Mr. Adams if the mandate of the Coast Guard was to guard the coasts. Mr. Adams' answer was, no, that was not its mandate.
Since we have three very large ocean coastlines and a large Great Lakes water system, I am thinking, very nervously, that if it is not the Coast Guard's responsibility to guard the coastlines, then who does it.
We have had indications that it is the responsibility of the RCMP and defence. Therefore we went to the RCMP and the defence department. The RCMP in Windsor said that it did not have the resources or manpower to do the Great Lakes protection at all. We then went to officials at DND and they told us that they did not have the resources or manpower to patrol our three oceans, even on an irregular basis.
It makes us think that it is no wonder the United States would be nervous about us in terms of a security risk when ships of any size can come on to our coastline completely undetected.
If the House does not believe that to be true, last year we had two incidents just outside Halifax harbour, including one at Chebucto Head where a freighter landed on shore. We did not know about it until authorities went to see it. Nobody was on board and the crew was caught hitchhiking down the road. How does a freighter land on the shore right next to Halifax harbour, with a population of almost 380,000 people? One has to wonder who is guarding our coastline.
We have a tremendous problem in terms of environmental spills. In fact, the commissioner of the Coast Guard said that 75% to about 80% of all spills in Atlantic Canada are mystery spills. Officials have no idea where the pollution comes from and yet it is destroying our marine life and aquatic species that many people rely on for their economic opportunities.
It begs the question, who exactly is providing security for our coastlines?
I will say that a company called Provincial Airlines, which operates out of Newfoundland but has offices in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, does some surveillance on contract but even it has a contract with the government that clearly says that it does not have the resources or manpower to do everything it would love to do for the government.
Once again, on behalf of all Canadians who think the Coast Guard's role is to guard the coast, I will ask the question. If it is not the mandate of the Coast Guard to guard our coasts then who exactly is in charge of protecting our Great Lakes system and the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic Oceans?