Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak about an incident that took place on November 17 on the west coast of Vancouver Island, when CTV news reported an incident that had taken place where thousands of plastic feedbags escaped from an aquaculture farm and washed ashore in the Broken Group Islands, yet the communities were not notified about this. They found out through a leak.
The company that had the spill of plastic bags had reported it to the Coast Guard in October. Its float house had gone down and the bags escaped the float house some time in early November, yet we did not learn about this until CTV reported on it. I am going to read what CTV reported. It said, “The memo says the discovery could attract 'significant' media and public attention, connecting it to broader marine debris issues such as the Hanjin shipping container spill in November 2016.”
We know the efforts of the government to deal with the Hanjin were a disaster. Its plan of action was to let the local communities deal with it and then we will figure out who pays for it later and then try to reimburse them, instead of doing the right thing, which is cleaning up environmental messes and then figuring out who pays for it after, which is what people would expect.
When we learned about this through CTV, the first thing I did was reach out to the local communities, to Chief Dick at Tseshaht, to Chief Mack at Toquaht Nation, to President Les Doiron from Ucluelet First Nation, who is actually here in the House today, and the mayors of Ucluelet and Tofino. I asked if any of them had been contacted about this spill that had taken place. In fact, none of them had been contacted by the government. I will tell the House why. It is because the government was more worried about its reputation than protecting the environment, which is shameful.
The least we would expect as coastal communities is that when an incident takes place, the government contacts the local communities, the people that can help out, such as the Pacific Rim chapter of Surfrider or Clayoquot CleanUp. These groups all are willing to help out when there is an incident that takes place. They understand the significance, all of our region, all of our stakeholders, of protecting our ecosystem, especially our sensitive marine ecosystem, which we rely on for our food, for our economy, and for our recreation, and how important that is.
Most of all, when a memo goes out like this from the minister's office in the department, it compromises local staff. The local parks staff at Pacific Rim National Park Reserve have worked very hard. They live in our communities. They work very hard to create those relationships, that trust. They care about our communities. When the government makes a decision to hide information from the local communities, it compromises the local staff who are working hard to protect our communities and make us a better region.
With tides, winds, and shifting currents, ocean plastic is constantly moving and the government obviously does not understand the sense of urgency to take care of these issues. We hope that the government will support my Motion No. 151, to have an ocean plastics strategy that will dedicate funds to combatting ocean plastic pollution, dedicated funds for cleanups and marine debris cleanups, especially when emergencies like this surface.
I hope the government will make a promise today that it will never betray coastal communities and that it will tell them the truth when an incident takes place. It is the right thing to do.