Mr. Speaker, my colleague and friend from Yorkton—Melville and I serve on the veterans affairs committee together and we do some important work for veterans, and I thank her for that.
What we have not heard from the Conservatives is a proposal on how they are going to deal with abandoned and derelict vessels. They were in government for 10 years and they left coastal communities vulnerable. The number of derelict and abandoned vessels skyrocketed, with no action from the Harper government.
In fact, John Duncan, who at the time was the MP for Vancouver Island North, noted that we should have something similar to what is in Washington State, which has very robust legislation that deals with the vehicle owner-operator piece to ensure that there is someone to pay for cleanups, yet even though he was in cabinet and sat in government for 10 years, we saw no action. John Weston also brought forward legislation at the time that was never debated here in the House.
Conservatives from coastal communities were not getting support from their own party across this country. I would like to hear a proposal from the Conservatives describing how they are going to deal with this issue. Do they even see this as a serious and important issue for coastal communities?