Mr. Speaker, I begin my speech, on the topic of shipwrecks and derelict vessels, with cannibal rats, and more specifically, Canadian cannibal rats. That should get everyone's attention. It is not every day that Canadian cannibal rats make it into a speech in this honourable House.
How is this for a headline? “Ghost ship crewed only by Cannibal rats feared to be heading for Scottish coast”. That is from the Scottish Daily Record.
This is another from the Plymouth Herald: “Ghost ship full of cannibal rats could be about to crash into Devon Coast”.
The last quote is, “Hedging its bets, ThisisCornwall.com declared, 'Ghost ship full of diseased cannibal rats could crash into coast of Devon OR Cornwall'.”
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are known far and wide as the friendliest people on the planet, but sending a ghost ship full of cannibal diseased rats across the North Atlantic is no way to treat one's European neighbours. We are better than that.
The ghost ship crewed by cannibal rats was the Lyubov Orlova, a 38-year-old, 4,250-tonne Russian cruise ship that was tied up in the St. John's Harbour for two years. It was tied up for two years after it was apprehended by the RCMP after a financial scandal involving the boat's European owners. The ship was an eyesore. It was a rusty, dirty smudge on the St. John's waterfront for months. Nothing, apparently, could be done about it.
Finally, in January 2011, the Lyubov Orlova was towed to the Dominican Republic, where it was to be taken apart for scrap. The ship was only out of St. John's Harbour for a day when the tow line broke. In the words of our then Transport Canada critic Olivia Chow, Transport Canada should have never given a “licence to allow an unreliable and unsafe tugboat to tug the Orlova in the first place”, but that is another story.
The ship drifted for a week toward offshore oil platforms on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, which was a real risk, before it was towed clear by an offshore supply boat. The Lyubov Orlova was then towed by a vessel hired by Transport Canada, but that tow line also broke, and the ship, full of Canadian cannibal rats, if we believe the headlines, drifted into international waters, where it made international headlines for the threat it posed of crashing into the Scottish and Irish coasts.
The ship eventually sank, or that is a widespread belief. Members should keep in mind that it is a ghost ship.
The story of the Lyubov Orlova is a bizarre one. It comes across as a Canadian joke. However, it is not funny; far from it. The Lyubov Orlova was an eyesore in St. John's Harbour for months. The ship was a threat to our offshore oil platforms and a threat to shipping. It was a threat to the British coast.
This brings us to this private member's bill, Bill C-638, An Act to amend the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 (wreck), which my party supports. If this bill had been in effect when the Lyubov Orlova was still around, the world could have been spared the suspense of where the transatlantic cannibal rat ship from Newfoundland and Labrador, from Canada, would end up. This bill would give the Canadian Coast Guard the regulatory power it needs to take action before a derelict vessel becomes a problem. That is a perfect example of why the Canadian Coast Guard needs to be given that power.
As has already been pointed out, derelict vessels are a growing problem across Canada, with the aging of both industrial and pleasure craft. In 2013, the National Marine Manufacturers Association estimated that there were 4.3 million boats in Canada. The number of derelict and abandoned vessels was pegged at 240 in November 2012, with the majority of those boats on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Normally, only a vessel that is an immediate hazard to navigation or the environment will be dealt with by any level of government.
That leaves derelict vessels like the Lyubov Orlova in a grey zone. No one is responsible for preventing them from deteriorating and becoming a problem. This bill would designate the Canadian Coast Guard as the receiver of wreck for the purposes of the Canadian Shipping Act, allowing the Coast Guard to take action without being directed by a ministry. It would compel the government to create regulations for the removal, disposition, and destruction of derelict vessels or wrecks.
Giving the Canadian Coast Guard the authority to deal with derelict vessels is only a first step. The hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, who tabled this bill—and a fine member she is—wanted to create a derelict vessel removal regime similar to that in Washington State. There, a fee on the annual vessel registration helps pay for the costs of removal of derelict vessels. A single public agency, the Department of Natural Resources, is responsible for administering that program.
However, that was beyond the scope of a private member's bill, so we have this first step: a private member's bill that would give the Canadian Coast Guard the power to take action before a derelict vessel becomes a problem. It makes sense.
To elaborate on what happens in Washington State, the abandoned and derelict vessels program there has been in place for 10 years and has resulted in the remediation of roughly 500 vessels.
There are signs we may be headed in that direction. We would not say that after listening to the speech from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, but let me quote from a letter that his minister wrote to the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan. In that recent letter, the minister stated:
Transport Canada will be further analyzing wider policy options related to derelict, abandoned and wrecked vessels, including legal authorities and governance models.
That shows a sign of hope. My party will be keeping an eye on that to ensure there is follow-through.
I also have an example of an abandoned vessel in the waters off Newfoundland's northeast coast that has been an environmental hazard for years. It has been leaking oil into the waters off Newfoundland's northeast coast for years. To date, the current Conservative government has failed to fix the problem permanently.
The Manolis L, a paper carrier, sank 30 years ago this year in the waters off Notre Dame Bay with 500 tons of fuel aboard. The wreck sat dormant for years, but a powerful storm two years ago dislodged the vessel. That storm also dislodged the 500 tons of fuel that were in the vessel's hull. Last year, the Canadian Coast Guard replaced a cofferdam, a device that catches leaking oil, in order to stop the fuel leak. However, that is not a permanent solution at all. Oil-covered ducks and other animals have been discovered, and with eastern Canada's largest seabird colony just 100 kilometres away, people are worried, and rightly so. So they should be.
In the words of local resident David Boyd, “The patient is slowly bleeding out, and we're putting a Band-Aid on it rather than going in and doing the operation that needs to be done.” The operation that needs to be done is the removal of that oil.
There is no consistency in this country when it comes to derelict vessels or shipwrecks. A couple of years ago, the Canadian Coast Guard launched a major operation to extract hundreds of tons of fuel from a U.S. army transport ship that sank in 1946 off British Columbia's remote north coast. There is no consistency. The oil aboard the Manolis L off Newfoundland and Labrador's northeast coast has not been cleaned up, yet it must be cleaned up, and permanently. Why would the Canadian Coast Guard clean up a wreck off the B.C. coast and not clean up a wreck off Newfoundland and Labrador's coast?
First things first, though. Let us pass this bill and give the Coast Guard the regulatory power it needs before a derelict vessel becomes a problem.