Madam Speaker, I have been campaigning for action on the Kathryn Spirit for over five years now. This includes over 20 letters to various ministers involved and hundreds of hours of meetings with ministers, government officials, local elected representatives, environmental groups, and the general public. That is to say nothing of the tens of thousands of pieces of mail sent to explain the situation because the federal government did not want to give any updates, especially when the Conservatives were in power.
Thousands of Canadians have also mobilized, including the more than 3,600 people who signed the petition. Hundreds of others have written to me or to the minister to get information, including local journalists and members of the Beauharnois municipal council. In addition, more than 50 volunteers have worked on this file over the past few years. I would like to thank them all for their dedication.
We welcomed the announcement made almost two weeks ago by the Minister of Transport regarding work that is supposed to begin on the Kathryn Spirit, and we welcome it still. However, a number of questions remain following his intervention, and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard will be able to help the people of Salaberry—Suroît and the surrounding area better understand the situation.
First, the minister announced that Groupe St-Pierre was awarded the contract to build a barrier around the wreck. In order to justify that choice, the Minister of Transport told me that urgent action was needed. That is true. We have been asking that something be done about the wreck for over five years because a disaster could occur at any time and one almost did this summer.
In April, a Transport Canada inspector estimated that the Kathryn Spirit contained close to 7,000 tonnes of contaminated water. In May, I learned from documents that I was able to obtain under the Access to Information Act that one of the main mooring lines at the front of the wreck was in poor repair. It was the subject of many emails from public servants who requested a swift intervention.
It is lucky that the mooring line was repaired before the wreck began to list dangerously in June. In other words, residents of Beauharnois were extremely lucky, and the Coast Guard then made the necessary repairs to stabilize the wreck. I am very grateful to them.
In financial terms, the government has already spent nearly $4 million to stabilize the Kathryn Spirit over the years, and it awarded a $7.9-million contract, nearly $8 million, to the company that caused the problem in the first place. What is more, Excavation René St-Pierre, a subsidiary of Groupe St-Pierre, was fined $10,000 by the Quebec department of environment for failing to comply with environmental regulations at its quarry in the Quebec City region. The public therefore has reason to be concerned.
The questions that I want to ask are simple. Why did the government choose this company, which, at the time, did not have the expertise to do the work? The company was unable to obtain a certificate of authorization from the provincial environment department to move forward.
Was the company chosen simply because it is located nearby or because it has built this type of structure in the water before?
Can the government assure me that the company now has the necessary expertise and will comply with all of the environmental regulations while doing the work this winter and in the future?
I would remind the House that the Kathryn Spirit is lying in a drinking water reservoir in Beauharnois, in Lac Saint-Louis. That is what people are worried about and why they are asking the government questions. I hope that the government will be transparent and explain to us the criteria for selecting Groupe St-Pierre to build the cofferdam.