Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Welland for raising some very timely concerns as we look at the so-called safeguarding Canada's seas and skies act. As I mentioned before, it is the cobbling together of provisions for forensic studies of airline disasters and appointments to an aeronautics board, and calling it “safeguarding our skies”, and putting it in with provisions to enforce a hazardous products convention for the marine environment. These really do not go together logically, and the title is pure public relations.
However, because he mentioned tankers and how big they are, I say this for that member. Regarding the supertankers that are proposed for the Port of Kitimat—and we will find out later today what is going to be said about that—if they laid the Empire State Building on end, the tanker would be slightly longer.
A tanker holds two million barrels, and not heavy crude. It will hold something called dilbit, which is bitumen. It is a raw product being exported because we do not seem to want the jobs of refining it in this country. It is mixed with other toxic substances called diluent. That Port of Kitimat will have some tankers coming in with toxic diluent and different tankers will come in to take away the dilbit, which is also toxic, and no study yet has determined how dilbit will behave in real conditions in a marine environment. How reckless is this scheme? I ask this for my friend from Welland.