Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support the motion moved by my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets about dealing with abandoned vessels.
In the Montérégie region of Quebec, there is an abandoned carrier, the Kathryn Spirit. The ship has been moored on the shore of Lake Saint-Louis, which is a section of the Saint Lawrence between Vaudreuil-Dorion, the Island of Montreal, and Châteauguay, since 2011.
I have recently received over 130 emails from my constituents, who are concerned about the environmental hazard posed by the Kathryn Spirit. I would like to thank the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît for raising this matter in the House a number of times before I arrived here.
The process that resulted in the decision to dismantle the Kathryn Spirit was complex because the wreck contained a significant quantity of pollutants. Fortunately, the vessel is not currently an environmental hazard because most of those substances were removed in 2013.
The Canadian Coast Guard has been keeping a close eye on the Kathryn Spirit, which is not currently a threat to the environment or to people, but residents are nevertheless concerned, and it makes them feel unsafe.
This motion is an excellent initiative, because it prohibits the abandonment of vessels while encouraging responsible vessel ownership. It recognizes the importance of proper management of abandoned naval vessels. It clarifies and expands the roles and responsibilities of the Government of Canada and vessel owners with respect to abandoned vessels. It calls on the government to tighten the regulations on vessel owners and ownership. Finally, it introduces preventive measures that will help reduce the risks of abandoned vessels.
I would like to run through the timeline of the Kathryn Spirit to illustrate how the spirit of this motion could have mitigated the complexity and the delays in this case and how it could prevent similar situations from happening in the future, especially considering the environmental risks associated with abandoned vessels.
In 2011 Groupe St-Pierre, a scrap dealer, brought the cargo ship Kathryn Spirit into Lake Saint-Louis. The ship was then moored to a wharf in Beauharnois and was supposed to be dismantled. Because of the ship's pollutants, the community opposed the demolition and the project was cancelled. In 2012, Groupe St-Pierre sold the Kathryn Spirit to a Mexican company that planned to tow it to Mexico. However, the plan was delayed. That is when people first began raising concerns about the future of the Kathryn Spirit.
In 2013, the Coast Guard assessed the state of the Kathryn Spirit and found no pollution in the water. Nonetheless, it ordered the owner to remove the pollutants. The Coast Guard continued to regularly inspect the ship to determine the risks of pollution.
In fall 2015, the Mexican company in question declared bankruptcy. It indicated that it was abandoning the ship in Lake Saint-Louis. That is when the Kathryn Spirit became the government's responsibility. Since then, the Coast Guard has continued monitoring the ship to ensure that it was not accessible to the public and that no pollutants were leaking. Nevertheless, a solution had to be found.
When our government came into power, Transport Canada, led by our minister, was immediately seized of this file. In January, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard invited representatives from the Town of Beauharnois and the City of Montreal to an information session. Our government then assumed its responsibilities by putting together a working group made up of federal, provincial, and municipal representatives to find a permanent and safe solution.
The working group managed to present three options in May: leave the ship in place, dismantle the ship, or tow it to another location. These options are not as simple as they seem, since there are risks associated with each one.
Then, the working group, with the input of experts, recommended that the ship be dismantled in situ in dry dock, given the risk that the cargo could spill.
As a result, our government contracted a company to build a dike around the wreck. This work, which should be complete by January 2017, will make it possible to then begin safely dismantling the wreck in the spring at the latest. After five years of waiting, the people who live in the area of Lake Saint-Louis can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I thank the parliamentary secretary, my colleague for Acadie—Bathurst, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, and the Minister of Transport for their hard work on this file.
However, the Kathryn Spirit is not an isolated case. According to Transport Canada, there are over 600 abandoned and derelict vessels along Canada's coastlines, in our navigable waterways, and docked at ports across the country.
I fully support my hon. colleague's motion because it seeks to clarify the responsibilities of the Government of Canada when it comes to abandoned wrecks and their owners based on its jurisdiction over marine transportation, navigation, territorial seas, and marine pollution. That is very important. The motion is also in keeping with our government's leadership in and commitment to protecting Canada's marine and coastal areas.
Adopting this motion would not directly impact the case of the Kathryn Spirit, because our government has already taken steps to resolve the problem. However, as my hon. colleague just said, we must not tackle these problems on a boat-by-boat basis.
However, the motion will do much to solve this problem in that it will prevent future cases by recognizing the requirement for the prohibition against the abandonment of a vessel through potential amendments to any relevant legislation; incorporating an educational component within the government’s strategy to address the issue of abandoned vessels; improving vessel owner identification by possibly widening the scope of the Canadian Register of Vessels; and consider measures to ensure owners are held liable.
Had these measures been in effect before the Kathryn Spirit was abandoned, the government could have taken charge of the situation more quickly, and Canadians would not have had to endure the same circumstances.
In closing, this motion will also ensure that the authorities can take steps that will effectively remedy the difficulties caused by the other boats abandoned in Canada while preventing others from being abandoned in the future.
If we do not go ahead with this motion—and I think we are seeing support on both sides of the House—we would be exposing ourselves to other risks and other cases of abandoned vessels that would not only pose a menace to our communities and to our environment but to our country as a whole.