Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight to reflect on a question of mine for the Prime Minister about World Oceans Day, namely, the use of single-use plastics and the lack of regulations to protect Canadians and our oceans, and to combat plastic pollution.
We know that over a garbage truck of plastic is entering our waterways every minute. Just two years ago, the people of Courtenay—Alberni really stepped up on this very important issue as a result of a November 2016 spill from the Hanjin Seattle off the Pacific Rim National Park, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Over 35 shipping containers spilled, littering our coast with metal and thick styrofoam, which spread up and down our coast.
People like Captain Josh Temple, Misty Lawson, and the people of Clayoquot Action mobilized, got on the ground and started to clean up this huge marine debris spill, one of the largest on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Michelle Hall at Surfrider and hundreds of volunteers hit the beaches with staff from Pacific Rim National Park and Barb Schramm of the Wild Pacific Trail from Ucluelet. These people from Tofino, Ucluelet, Ahousat, Clayoquot, and Tla-o-qui-aht all came out in the spirit of making sure that we protect our beaches and mitigate the impact of what is happening to our environment when it comes to marine debris. We had a very difficult time.
We were asking questions of the government in the House as to who was responsible for marine debris, and we could not get a straight answer. We were asking the question of the transport minister. He said this would be the full responsibility of the shipping company under the Canada Shipping Act. However, what we found out was that Pacific Rim National Park had petitioned the bankruptcy court dealing with the shipping company, which of course had gone bankrupt after the spill, to get funds to help remediate the problem on the coast. The court awarded $72,000 to Pacific Rim National Park. That money came to Ottawa. However, only $15,000 of that money came to the coast in May 2017. We are still unsure what happened to the rest of the money.
What we do know is that local people pulled money out of their own pockets and contributed to cleaning up this mess. Small business people donated money. We had to hire specialized contractors to go out and clean this up on our own accord. There was no help from the federal Government. Even though it could have called back the people who were helping deal with the tsunami debris cleanup after the Japanese earthquake that had brought marine debris to our coasts, it did not. Those people worked so diligently and hard to mastermind cleanups on our coast, cleanups that could be applied on a regular basis. Instead, the federal government chose to sit back and left us high and dry. Therefore, we have no confidence in any future oil spill cleanups. The government failed to build trust and relationships with volunteers and community citizens who were out there protecting our environment. It had a great opportunity.
People are still wondering where that money is. They want to know there is a plan in place should this happen again. We know there is not. The world oceans charter that the government has developed does not talk about marine debris. There is no funding at all allocated for cleaning up marine debris. We know there are Canadians from coast to coast to coast who are cleaning up marine debris every day, people like John Burchette of Tofino to Mark over on Lasqueti Island and all over Vancouver Island who are dedicated to cleaning up our oceans. However, they do require some support. I hope the current government will come up with a plan and provide the necessary resources.