Madam Speaker, I would like to assure coastal and shoreline communities across the country that we are seized with their interests related to abandoned and wrecked vessels. We are making significant investments, and taking concrete steps to address this issue as part of the $1.5 billion oceans protection plan that we announced a year ago. The actions do speak for themselves.
Over the last year, we have launched two new funding programs to support the clean-up of small high priority vessels and wrecks across Canada. Problem vessels will be coming out of the water as a result. We introduced new legislation in the House which will help to prevent future occurrences of wrecked, abandoned, and hazardous vessels and to reduce the impacts of those that do occur.
Our strategy aligns with the best practices from around the world, and is delivering on our commitment to address abandoned vessels in Canada.