Madam Speaker, our coastline is becoming a junkyard. There is an increase in ocean plastics as a result of trade, and the number of cargo ships that are going through the Strait of Juan de Fuca are actually immediately contaminating our ecosystems. This is something that is urgent to the people in the communities where I live. It has contaminated our shellfish, our food security, and what we count on most, a clean ocean.
We want to be guaranteed that the marine debris cleanup will be part of the ocean protection plan. Specifically in terms of this case of the shipments that fell off the South Korean ship at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we want to know that the $72,000 was given to Pacific Rim National Park and that the bureaucrats will do everything they can under the direction of the government to release that money to community organizations like Surfrider and Tribal Parks Guardians, because they have used community funds by raising money from local businesses and local people to contribute to the cleanup.
It should be the big corporate interests that benefit and profit from shipping cargo to Asia that should be contributing. There should be a mechanism, whether it be incorporated into each TCU, each piece of cargo, that is directly related to contributing to cleaning up debris. This is having a huge impact on our communities. The amount of ocean plastics that we are seeing, the density of ocean plastics in the water is through the roof—