Mr. Speaker, before question period, I talked a lot about the new 2009 Arctic marine shipping assessment that was presented in Tromso, Norway. I want to wrap up my discussion on the bill. I have pointed out the importance of preventing pollution being an international concern. We have to work well internationally to accomplish the goals we have for our arctic waters.
The assessment was as a result of the work of a number of Arctic nations, including Canada, so it is important that we look at the recommendations.
Under oil spill prevention, we need to see the Arctic states enhance a mutual co-operation in the field of oil spill prevention, in collaboration with industries that support research and technology transfer, to prevent the release of oil into Arctic waters. They have identified quite clearly that this is the highest priority in the Arctic for environmental protection as the ice recedes and shipping increases in the area. There is a clear message to the government to join in internationally to make this happen.
We should support development of a comprehensive Arctic marine traffic awareness system to improve the monitoring and tracking of marine activity, enhance data sharing in near-real time and augment vessel management services in order to reduce the risk of incidents. As I pointed out before, some 6,000 vessels are in Arctic waters now and are engaged in many voyages. We do have the quantity of ships entering Arctic waters. We need to have the systems to ensure that we can keep track of them and that they are well accounted for.
Last year, we saw the sinking of a cruise ship off the coast of Antarctica. This type of disaster has the potential to occur in our Arctic waters as well. Many of the cruise ships that are now plying the Greenland coast, between Greenland and Canadian waters, are simply not equipped for the Arctic conditions. These national monitoring systems and working together internationally to ensure that vessel traffic is well understood in the Arctic will do more to prevent pollution occurrences. We need to monitor the way the ships conduct themselves in the Arctic waters and work to ensure that the pollution from those ships is limited.
The third recommendation was circumpolar environmental response capacity. This would be to see that the Arctic states continue to develop circumpolar environmental response capabilities that are critical to protecting the unique Arctic ecosystem. This can be done through circumpolar co-operation and agreements as well as regional bilateral capacity agreements. This would cover areas as well as search and rescue.
The world recognizes the importance of protecting the Arctic environment. Canada's role is to work with the rest of the world in co-operation to achieve the goals for our rapidly changing Arctic.