Mr. Speaker, the number of oil spills that have been reported to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canadian Coast Guard, by federal agencies and provincial, territorial or municipal governments in the last four years in Canada is 969.
In 584 cases, an assessment was conducted by Canadian Coast Guard personnel and it was determined that no cleanup was required.
In 385 cases, Canadian Coast Guard determined that an operational cleanup was required as follows:
Cleanup operations were conducted by the polluter in 227 incidents (in these cases, the polluter assumed management of the response to the incident and the Canadian Coast Guard monitored their response operations);
Cleanup operations were conducted by the Canadian Coast Guard in 132 incidents (in these cases, the polluter was either unwilling, unable or was unknown and, as such, the Canadian Coast Guard managed the response), and;
The Canadian Coast Guard provided assistance as a resource agency in 26 incidents, CCG provided personnel and/or equipment to another lead agency for incidents that did not originate from a ship or were mystery-source.
Please note that an operational cleanup could include minor operations, such as placing sorbent pads and boom onto the water to recover sheens of oil, to more significant operations including the deployment of skimmers, containment boom and other pollution response equipment to recover more significant amounts of oil.