Madam Speaker, I guess there are two fundamental questions here. The government keeps talking about how there are enough safety mechanisms in place that people should rest assured. We know, and they point to the Canadian Coast Guard as the group that is responsible for oil spills from tankers, which is true. That is the authoritative body that has to clean up the mess if any of these things spill. We hope that never happens, but we know that in the oil and gas industry accidents do happen from time to time. The consequences can be quite striking.
The question to my colleague is this. He has put his faith in the regulations, his government and the Coast Guard's ability to respond. We know from an internal audit from the Coast Guard this very year, and I am quoting here:
The Canadian Coast Guard lacks the training, equipment and management systems to fulfill its duties to respond to offshore pollution incidents such as oil spills....
This is an internal audit that was done by the Coast Guard on its own ability to handle oil spills.
We know that during the gulf disaster, the BP spill, the Canadian Coast Guard from the east coast sent down several kilometres of oil booms, which represented half of all the oil booms on our east coast. That shocked Canadians because the total was a little less than three kilometres' worth of oil booms. What was used in the gulf to try to contain that disaster was many, many times more than we have in total in Canada.
My question is this. The hon. member is trying to relieve the concern of the people of British Columbia, three-quarters of whom have said this is a bad idea. All the municipalities of the UBCM said this is a bad idea and the first nations have consistently said this is a bad idea, but the Conservatives are saying they know better. They are saying this is a great idea. This should be permitted.
The fact of the matter is that right now on our books one can ship super oil tankers off British Columbia's coast, and the Coast Guard is not able to respond. I would like the hon. member to respond to that one statement of fact. Where, then, does he put his faith regarding an oil spill happening from one of these super tankers, which are three times the size of the Exxon Valdez? On what does his faith rely?