Mr. Speaker, once again, the member's self-congratulatory remarks leave a bad taste in my mouth, especially since I just listed all the amendments we proposed in committee that were summarily rejected. Twelve of our 13 amendments were rejected. We consulted 50 coastal communities before drafting our amendments. Chambers of commerce supported our amendments and helped draft Bill C-352. That should tell the Liberals something. That bill was rejected outright before it was even debated.
The Liberals say they are open to amendments. I can list plenty of bills that were not amended in committee at all because the Liberals want nothing to do with opposition parties' amendments. The Green Party member knows what I am talking about. She proposes dozens and dozens of amendments, all of which are instantly rejected without ever coming up for debate. It is a hard no every time.
I am saying that we do not have any receivers of wreck. In the seven years that I rose to talk about the Kathryn Spirit and call for intervention from the federal government, Conservative or Liberal, it was always the same old story. I kept getting referred from one department to another, one contact person to another without ever being told who was in charge. We called for a receiver of wreck. The Liberals said no.
We also asked for a registry. The Groupe St-Pierre is responsible for bringing the Kathryn Spirit to Lake Saint-Louis to be dismantled. The ship was sold to a Mexican company. Since the ship had no registration on board, it was extremely difficult to identify that company, who it was, what they were about. When we called the company, it took months for them to return our calls. If we had a registration system, that would make the administrative process much easier.
Eventually, the company declared bankruptcy. It is extremely complicated. To ensure that the public did not bear the full financial burden, we asked that the shipowners contribute and pay to have their ship recycled. The Liberals did not like that idea either. They rejected that amendment. The Kathryn Spirit cost the people of Canada $24 million because the Conservatives and the Liberals dragged their heels on this file and did not want to intervene.