Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to represent a constituency in New Brunswick that represents a considerable part of the New Brunswick coastline. A number of hundreds of kilometres from the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island, in the area of Cape Tormentine, my constituency stretches north along the Northumberland Strait to the waters around the Kouchibouguac National Park.
The discussion about the need to toughen legislation with respect to oil pollution on our coastline is something which is obviously of great importance to me, to the tourist industry that I represent, and to many of the inshore fisheries that have created great economic wealth in my constituency.
It is from this perspective that the legislation before the House now offers a great deal in terms of providing severe and strong legislative tools whereby we can reduce the very dangerous effects of oil pollution on our shorelines.
As I said, the beaches of Atlantic Canada, including my own constituency and throughout Atlantic Canada, draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The tourist industry has been growing in Atlantic Canada. Ecotourism, which includes the natural heritage of which we are so proud, has been an attraction which brings many hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. These visitors inject millions of dollars into the local economy that sustain hundreds of thousands of jobs often in areas of small rural communities where employment opportunities may be considerably limited.
The same beaches and ocean waters have defined the so-called maritimer or Atlantic Canadian, because it includes obviously our friends from Newfoundland and Labrador, for many generations. These images will continue to define what Atlantic Canadians feel of themselves, and the image and impression of Atlantic Canadians throughout the country.
These same beaches and oceans provide thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in Canada's east coast fishing industry. There is a wrong perception in many places that the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada is a dying industry or is an industry without an economic future. If we look at the value of the east coast fishing industry and the billions of export dollars that this industry generates, thousands of jobs in my own constituency and throughout Atlantic Canada depend on the health of our oceans, and the health of the resources which have for generations provided economic opportunity.
Let us imagine a tourist visiting these beaches of Atlantic Canada for the first time, say for example in Shediac, New Brunswick, in a community close to my heart. The tourist who comes to Shediac would see a wonderful ocean vista, the Northumberland Strait, as I mentioned, and long sandy beaches. As the tourist publicity says, it has the warmest waters north of Virginia.
On those beaches there would literally be millions of different species of birds that have lived there and found food there for a very long time. A nice early spring or summer walk on that beach for a tourist however might turn into an experience that the person would never forget. Washed up on the shores of these beaches would be dead seabirds from the region, dead from oil pollution out at sea. This is certainly not a picture that we want tourists to take home.
Let us imagine an inshore fisherman out on the water for a day's work. It could be a lobster fisherman, or someone fishing rock crab or herring, or scallop dragging, and off the bow of that fisherman's boat is a dead flock of birds floating on the water, dead from oil plumage that caused the cold ocean waters to get past the natural defences of these birds and left them dying a slow and painful death.
That same fisherman may also find his gear fouled with oil pollution. People who come from proud generations of fishers, who have lived by the sea and earned a respectful living from the ocean waters, may walk the beaches often, and not only in the high tourist season in the summer. These people may walk the beaches because for them it is home. They live and earn their living from these shorelines.
Thousands of small birds that used to be in such abundance do not seem to be as numerous anymore. A person might see dead seabirds washed up on the beaches of a place that he or she has considered home for generations. These images unfortunately are all too frequently a reality. These pictures of oily ocean waters in Atlantic Canada have become in many cases a death trap.
There are some 35 million birds that feed on the rich resources along these waters of the continental shelf. During the months from November to March they form some of the world's largest concentration of seabirds in any one place and at the same time they are sharing these waters with some of Canada's busiest shipping lanes. This mix, as I just indicated, can often be disastrous.
The reason is oil pollution, and it is oil pollution that can be avoided. This oil pollution comes from some of the ships that move through this habitat. Oil is deliberately and illegally dumped into the ocean.
I urge all members to support the Act to amend the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.It will help bring an end to this unacceptable situation.
We can keep our beaches as attractive tourist destinations and send visitors home raving about their beauty and abundance of birds--not telling stories of oil pollution and dead carcasses washed up on shore.
We can help our fishing industry by ensuring the waters are less polluted from oil deliberately dumped overboard.
As I indicated, in my own riding, remarkable groups of volunteers havegathered to take care of various watersheds. These individuals have taken to heart the protection of the environment and set out to reduce the pollutants and practices that have contributed for so long to the pollution of our waters.
Some of these volunteer groups in my own constituency have talked to me about the importance of strengthening legislation like the legislation that is before the House today. They understand that practices in the past have not been dealt with perhaps as severely as they should have been. They have led to this very difficult situation and to something which is unacceptable on the east coast of Canada and in any marine environment. For that reason, I urge all members to support this bill.