Madam Speaker, I am raising an issue today in our Adjournment Proceedings that I originally raised on October 2 in question period and again on November 5.
Tragically, in that intervening time the government did nothing to address the concern I was raising and it is a matter that has now had a significant change for the worse, in that the U.S. government has now approved seven years of naval testing activities in the habitat of our southern resident killer whales. We are now in a position where I am not asking the government just to take action, but to remedy its failure to take action when the comment period was open.
Here, in brief, are the facts: The U.S. Navy proposes to run offshore testing throughout the extent of the Pacific offshore from Alaska to California, of course including the waters of the Salish Sea and the critical habitat of one of our most iconic endangered species. The southern resident killer whale population is now down to 74 individual animals, and they are threatened by many things.
They are threatened by lack of food supply and from the failure to take action. It was 14 years, just to make note, between when the species was identified as endangered and when a recovery plan came out. We know we need to protect their supply of chinook salmon. That is their favourite food. They are starving.
We know they need to be protected from ship strikes and increased shipping activity, yet the current government is pushing ahead with the now taxpayer-owned and funded Trans Mountain pipeline with an increase in tankers in their waters. We know they are threatened by ship strikes of other vessels, including not just ship strikes but the intrusive activity of whale-watching vessels. We created a sanctuary zone for the whales but we have not enforced it. That is in the area around Saturna Island, Mayne Island and Pender Island. It is not being enforced and their so-called sanctuary, which is the size of a postage stamp, and their habitat are being intruded upon without penalties and without fines.
Here is what a responsible government would do. I am going to quote from a letter from an elected official who said, “Simply put, [this jurisdiction] considers the level of incidental takings of marine mammals in [these naval exercises] to be unacceptable.” The governor of the State of Washington, Governor Jay Inslee, wrote those words in July 2020, urging the U.S. government not to approve these naval tests.
In response, Canada has said nothing. Every time I have raised it on the floor of the House of Commons, every time anyone in the media has asked any minister in the current government, we are told, and this is the talking point and I am sure we will hear it soon, that the southern resident killer whales are important to Canada and we will work with our partners, that being, I guess, the U.S. Navy, while they conduct sonar tests, while they use torpedoes, while they detonate bombs and they use underwater drones. These activities could not make matters worse for our population of southern resident killer whales.
We should have been taking a strong stand, telling the U.S. Navy what the governor of Washington told them: This is dangerous for our whales. What they call “incidental takings”, as many as 243 incidental takings of key requirements for the southern resident killer whales over seven years, are completely unacceptable.
Therefore, I put this to the minister in debate tonight: What will we do to take this up with the incoming president-elect? Can we put this on the list of things where Canada needs action from the U.S.?