Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak on this bill, which is so beneficial to our environment, to our wildlife, and, as the honourable member mentioned a few moments ago, to our economy.
I know this bill will please a scientist I know, Lynn Miller, who runs an organization called Le Nichoir, which is not far from my riding, in the village of Hudson, Quebec. Her organization is dedicated to rehabilitating damaged birds. She has done a great deal of research on the impact on birds of exposure to crude oil. She has come up with some excellent findings as to the possible effects of crude oil exposure on humans. If she continues her research, she may be able to draw some conclusions about risks that perhaps those who work on oil rigs and so on may be exposed to.
I would like to tell the House a story about a covert operation off the coast of Newfoundland. It is nighttime and the middle of winter. A ship has left port. Its captain has decided not to pay the $1,000 or so it would cost to empty the waste oil in the water from the engine room bilges. He is following the directions of his operators. This ship has a schedule to meet, and it must not waste time. The ship gets about a hundred nautical miles out of port. Those in the engine room know they should be using oily water separators to get the oil out of the waste water, but they have a schedule to keep and they need to press on. What do they do? They dump it overboard, oil and all. They go on their way under the cover of darkness. What is a little oil in the great big ocean? Isn't business important?
Well, a little oil is a pretty big deal. That seemingly small amount of oil disperses through the water in the cold Atlantic from November to March. The oil comes in contact with millions of seabirds that share the shipping lanes with those big ships.
The oil spot attaches itself to the feathers of a puffin. When the cold of the Atlantic Ocean starts to seep in, the bird struggles against the cold but it cannot, because its defences have been broken down. It finds it hard to move. It finds it hard to eat. This puffin might struggle for two days before it dies. Eventually it washes up on shore.
This story plays itself out so many times over the course of a winter that some 300,000 seabirds die, and that is just off the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland.
And we have to know that the oil in the water is also affecting the plankton, the plant life, the fish, the crustaceans—anything that makes its home off our coasts.We are not proud of this story. But it happens because the risk of detection and the potential fine for that ship operator is so low that he does not mind running the risk of being caught.
It happens because our technology is not being put to best use so we can see that slick behind the boat after the bilge water goes overboard.It happens because we need to make stronger these two environmental laws with this bill before us.
That’s all we have to do; amend two good pieces of legislation so we can strengthen our enforcement tools, make the fines higher, get the science and technology to better work, and above all establish accountability for those who make these decisions.
I urge the hon. members to support this bill before us.It is time for us to bring these stories to an end. This is our opportunity, and perhaps with swift action we can see fewer such stories written as early as the winter of 2005.