Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge that this is in some ways a routine moving of a department and something that I believe will be an improvement for the industry. I live on a waterway area that has a port authority and many pleasure craft as well as very extensive shipping through the Detroit River and the Great Lakes, so this bill is very important for my constituency.
My concern is that we will be looking at the environmental aspect here concerning fines and regulations, but what we have seen is a history of saying one thing and then not carrying it out. I am hoping that this does not happen with this particular bill. I hope the committee actually engages in proper discourse on environmental fines.
What I specifically want to refer to is that last year after extensive debate in this House of Commons, the government finally capitulated to at least saying it was going to eliminate environmental fines as a tax deduction. As far as I am aware, right now environmental fines currently stand because the government has not carried out on that promise. If corporations are fined for environmental pollution, whether it be dumping oil, as ships have done, they can write off 50% of that fine.
My question for my hon. colleague is simply this. Does he believe that there would be broad public support for actually implementing those environmental fines and does he believe that can happen as well with pleasure craft? How is the government going to go about doing that?