Mr. Speaker, these petitioners from Nanaimo call on the government to legislate action on abandoned vessels.
Although the announcement by the Minister of Transport last week in Ladysmith was nice, it was only $64,000, which is clearly not enough.
The petitioners call on the government to designate the Coast Guard as the responsible agency to be the first to take action on abandoned vessels. They are calling for repair in legislation of vessel registration, and a pilot vessel turn-in program to deal with the tremendous backlog of abandoned vessels polluting our coastlines.