Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Motion No. 40, and I will encourage all of my colleagues to support this motion as well. I had the pleasure of working with the sponsor of the motion, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets, on the fisheries and oceans committee. I am very glad to see she is putting forward a motion that is of importance to her constituents and that would have a national impact as well. That is why we are all here, and I would like to applaud her for moving quickly to try to get the government to take action on this very important issue.
Even for those of us who do not live on one of our coasts, it is easy to envision why abandoned vessels are a problem for coastal communities. These vessels could be anything from end-of-life freighters and large boats to small recreational craft. There is obviously serious and imminent environmental damage that can be caused from these vessels, especially those that are reaching the end of their life cycle. This can be from an immediate leak, a slow trail of debris, or of course the wreckage.
These abandoned vessels can also cause serious interference with navigation by other vessels. Any of these risks can require a variety of federal departments to act. From Transport Canada and our Coast Guard to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or Environment Canada, there significant implications for the federal government in dealing with these abandoned vessels.
From my reading, what Motion No. 40 proposes to do is straightforward and yet very important. It proposes that the government explore legislative options prohibiting the abandonment of a vessel, urges an educational component on responsible vessel ownership from beginning to end, recommends approving vessel registration, and it calls upon the government to assist in the removal of abandoned vessels where their presence creates an economic burden for a community. The value of the fisheries in Canada cannot be overstated. My NDP colleague was very eloquent in talking about the value of fisheries in his area. The fisheries committee, for example, right now is doing two major studies: one on the northern cod and one on Atlantic salmon, two species of great economic, social, and cultural importance, but which are also somewhat at risk in terms of low numbers. Anything we can do to prevent pollution in the ocean will only help our fisheries.
Thankfully, my constituents tend to not have to deal with this problem. I suspect that the most obvious problem for those who live in our coastal communities, aside from environmental concerns, is the negative visual impact these derelict vessels have on coastlines. Furthermore, the technical expertise and costs required to properly remove the vessels are significant and overwhelming. Even worse is how difficult it is to track down the owners and hold them responsible for their poor decision-making or disregard for the consequences of abandoning a vessel. Whether it be private shoreline property owners, municipalities, or provincial or federal governments, the costs are real and very difficult to manage.
That said, I am supportive of the proposed amendment by a government member to add a line to the motion that would urge the government to “consider measures to ensure owners are strictly liable for remediating abandoned vessels”. This is a very fair point; it is the polluter pay principle in action. In no way should taxpayers be solely on the hook for derelict and abandoned vessels. This is a serious issue for many communities, and taxpayers must not be paying potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up these messes. The federal government can assist as required, but not bear the brunt of these costs. Therefore, I hope the government takes this motion seriously and works to ensure that taxpayers are not paying the entire bill at the end of the day.
I must also make mention of the work by the former Conservative member of Parliament for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, my colleague John Weston, who introduced a private member's bill prior to the election that aimed to address a number of the issues related to derelict and abandoned vessels. During the election campaign, our party promised to support the provisions of that legislation, and we had also planned to set aside funds to cover one-third of the cost of removing priority derelict vessels. Just as the Conservative Party recognized this as a serious problem, I sincerely hope that the Liberal government moves to take action on this issue to resolve a very serious problem for coastal communities.
That said, with respect to the motion before us I do believe that the proposed amendment to add a line regarding owner liability is valuable. It leads me to believe that the government does intend to act, and that is a very good thing. I believe that the additional language regarding the onus of responsibility being on the owners of the vessel strengthens the motion significantly when considered in combination with the existing paragraph (d), that the government should “improve vessel owner identification by considering ratifying the International Maritime Organization’s International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks, 2007, and by considering widening the scope of the Canadian Register of Vessels”.
There is clearly a serious problem if we are struggling to identify the owners of these abandoned vessels in order to take action against them. We must seek to strengthen our laws and regulations with respect to these derelict vessels to ensure that we can more easily attain proper identification of the vessel and its owners, and ensure that they are the ones who are responsible for the removal of the vessel, financially and otherwise.
In conclusion, I appreciate the work by the member for South Shore—St. Margarets in bringing this bill forward. I urge all colleagues to support it. Furthermore, I urge the government to take real action on this and introduce binding legislation that can help communities in need deal with this problem. Unfortunately, the problem will not go away on its own and must be dealt with swiftly. I urge the government to consider this and move quickly, following passage of this motion.