Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 40 is actually about making owners more accountable.
Taxpayers should not be on the hook for large cleanup costs. Saying that the Coast Guard should be responsible for all abandoned or derelict vessels is giving the owners a “get out of jail free” card. We want to make sure that this actually is not the case.
This motion is calling on the government to put more teeth in the legislation to make sure that it is actually an offence to abandon a vessel and that there are penalties attached to that offence.