Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Vancouver Quadra.
I do not know where to start because right across the street from my constituency office is one of the busiest beaches in Vancouver, Greater Vancouver and British Columbia. It is English Bay. Right now it is still closed. This is a beach where children go to play, where people walk along the water in bare feet. This is where paddlers, canoeists and boaters all just go around as pleasure craft. This is now closed.
It is not as if this is something we have just heard about. I remember standing in this very House in June 2012 when the current government, celebrating the great Canadian Coast Guard, decided to shut down Kitsilano Coast Guard base. In that year, the Conservatives did it without informing the Province of British Columbia, City of Vancouver or the Vancouver city firefighters or police. It was just done. In order to celebrate a wonderful Coast Guard, they cut it.
For the last seven years, since the Conservatives have been in government, there have been cuts of 34% to marine search and rescue and coastal safety. This is a planned series of cuts.
I listen to people talking about world class and what defines world class. What bothers me most is that an oil spill occurred and it took 12 hours to let the City of Vancouver first responders know that there was even an oil spill. It took eight hours to get a boom around that spill so they could try to staunch the surface oil. The City of Vancouver then took 45 minutes to get out there and do what it needed to do. That is not world-class response from the government. I call it “Mickey Mouse” to say the least. Everyone warned the Conservatives when they cut Kitsilano Coast Guard, and not only Kitsilano Coast Guard but all of the marine communications centres along the coast. We saw Comox and Tofino cut. We are now down to two communications stations along that coast of British Columbia, which is the longest and arguably the most treacherous coastline in Canada. However, the Conservatives have cut all the communications links, leaving only two.
They talked about how it was okay to move the Kitsilano Coast Guard base to Lulu Island. They said it would take no time at all for a hovercraft to get there. It takes 35 minutes for the hovercraft to get from Lulu Island. The Vancouver Coast Guard, which was staffed 24/7, would take five minutes to get to a vessel in distress and had the ability to work with the City of Vancouver on oil spills.
We all know it is not just the City of Vancouver. Today we hear of all of the first nations in that region shutting down their fisheries for shellfish and groundfish. We see people in Vancouver cutting their fisheries and closing down for shellfish and groundfish. I live in a very urban riding, but I have one of the largest fisheries in False Creek in the heart of my riding. All of this is cut. People's ability to be able to fish and earn a living is going to be hampered now at the best fishing season. This is not without warning.
They cut communications centres and a major Coast Guard station, when the response time is so long and they fail to let people know that is not just an oil slick. The current government was warned by the City of Vancouver. I will read what the City of Vancouver stated when this all happened. The City of Vancouver, the police and everyone sent letters begging the government to reinstate the Kitsilano Coast Guard station. The B.C. justice minister of the time for the province said that protecting the fabric and safety of society must be a grounding principle for all budget cuts. Everyone said not to do it, that it will be dangerous.
While everyone loves to say that 80% has been cleaned up, bunker sea fuel is a thick globular tar-filled toxic fuel. The sheen at the top is gasoline, 10% of which evaporates, However, what happens when the big globules sink to the bottom? We know that in bunker sea spills around the world, they are on the beds for decades, where there are groundfish such as smelt, which people in my riding love to fry, dry, and eat a lot. Shellfish, which use their mechanism muscles, et cetera, to sift through the sand and clean whatever is there to get their food, to clean their muscles and themselves, clams, et cetera, will deal with thick globular stuff that has now sunk down to the bed and will be there for decades.
How will that impact the fisheries? What would happen if this was a small spill? What would happen when we double, as the government plans to do, the number of tankers going through that whole area? What will happen if one of those tankers has an accident and there is a spill? What will happen when it can not even deal with a 2,700 litre spill? This is extraordinary. This is my province and my riding. This is where people earn livings and children play. It is irresponsible and unconscionable when the government has been warned over and over. The Attorney General said that the government needed to improve the communication stations, which it has cut, the resources, which it has cut, and the number of Coast Guard stations. The government needs to do that in order to ensure marine safety. The fifth estate said that Canada had one of the worst search and rescue and marine safety resources in a lot of the industrialized world.
Under the Conservative government, we seem to be spending so much time racing to the bottom to see if we can be the worst. This is where we are. The problem is we are talking about the health and livelihoods of people. We know that Ucluelet is going to be closed at the end of this month. We know there is consideration that the first group out there, after port metro called it in to deal with this oil spill, will be closed soon.
What do we hear when we talk about world class? The premier of British Columbia had a press conference that day and said that this was not world class and that the province would take over search and rescue and marine safety because it could not depend on the federal government to do it. The city of Vancouver was out there in 45 minutes. It has first responders that do not have any authority over the ocean or the sea, but they are prepared to go out there and do what they need to do because we have to protect our beaches for our children's safety, the people who work there, the fisheries and the shellfish.
This is not a small thing and no one is able to estimate what damage will be caused to the fisheries over the next decades. It is a joke to tell people that because we cannot see the spill anymore, it is gone. Canadians are not stupid. Canadians saw what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. We dealt with the Exxon Valdez. We know there is still tar and oil at the bottom of the ocean, where shellfish live. We know this will harm a valuable resource in British Columbia.
I have no idea what the government is thinking. It cost $700,000 a year to keep the Kitsilano Coast Guard base open. That is just once piece of marine safety. Yet the government is about to spend $7.5 million to advertise the announcement of a budget. It would cost less than 10% of the money it will spend to announce, in a partisan way, its budget, to keep the Kitsilano Coast Guard station open. Where is it written that a government does not put the safety of its people ahead of any other kind of partisan rhetoric in an election year so it can win and be government again? Why does the Conservative government want to be government when it does not give a fig about the people of our country, their safety or security? What does it want to do? Why does it want to be government?
This is extraordinary. I speak for all of the people who signed the thousands of petitions I have tabled in the House, people in my riding in which the spill took place and is creating a major problem for the fisheries and beaches there. All I can say is that the government should care about the people of our country if it ever wants to be re-elected.