Madam Speaker, I rise today during Adjournment Proceedings to revisit an issue I raised in the House during question period on September 20, when I asked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport about a letter that the Penelakut First Nation in my riding had written, expressing their anger and frustration about the establishment of anchorages in their traditional territories without their consent. The Minister of Transport responded that no relationship was more important than that with first nations, but we still have a situation on the south coast of Vancouver Island and among the Gulf Islands that is clearly not working for first nations, stakeholders and local communities.
Earlier this year, the federal government created the interim anchorages protocol and in August it announced that the protocol would be extended by one year. However, it is quite apparent that the protocol is not working very well. There is increasingly frequent freighter traffic and freighters are staying for longer periods of time, which is causing more consternation among my constituents. In September, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith and I co-hosted a round table, which a lot of stakeholders, municipal representatives and first nations attended. They were pretty well unanimous that something had to be done to fix the issue.
The impact of these freighters is quite wide-ranging. Not only are they there for longer periods of time and freighter traffic has increased, but they are also parked in a very sensitive marine environment that is home to many species of aquatic life. Some crews of the vessels have been observed power washing the decks, with the resulting dirty water going right into the ocean. There have been reports of crews fishing. I would like to know if any of them hold valid federal fishing licences. The noise from generators used to power lights and power tools at all hours of the day carries across the water. Of course, the navigation lights at night, which are required by international maritime law, are so bright that they can illuminate the houses on the nearby shore. Some people have even reported being able to read books with those bright lights.
I have also consulted with local first nations, namely, the Lyackson, Penelakut and Cowichan tribes. They have described Transport Canada's consultations with first nations as superficial and think that the tone set by the federal government does not demonstrate a sincere effort by it to resolve this outstanding issue. This is really important because first nations are not stakeholders, not in the normal sense of the word. It goes far beyond that: They are rights holders, as guaranteed under our Constitution and upheld by numerous Supreme Court rulings. These anchorages were established on their traditional and unceded territories with no consultation and no consent.
Going forward, we need to fix our transport system as a whole, looking at our railways, our ports and our shipping system. We need better oversight of the ships that are inbound to port, particularly as we now know that the government is planning to reach $75 billion worth of agricultural exports by 2025 and also wants a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic from its disastrous plan to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline. We are also still exporting American coal from Vancouver, which is a shameful blot on efforts to combat climate change.
First nations' rights are important. The government has acknowledged that and all members of the House understand that. We need to stop using their traditional and unceded territories as a parking lot for freighters.