Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan for bringing Bill C-638 to the House of Commons. It is an important bill. It addresses an important series of issues. I will take a few minutes to explain for Canadians who are following the proceedings around this debate.
It is our view in the Liberal Party of Canada that a federal government has to show leadership in an area that crosses jurisdictions that involve such a variety of important issues.
In my remarks I want to also acknowledge the incredibly good work that my colleague, the Liberal member for Cardigan, is doing as a long-time supporter of action in this area and as someone we look to in our own caucus for leadership when it comes to issues around ports and waterways and of course, ocean policy, as a long-time fisheries critic.
The bill deals with the challenge of derelict and abandoned vessels, which are a very serious concern for our shorelines, harbour authorities, property owners, communities, and orders of government. They can create real problems in our waterways. They can cost all kinds of money in terms of having them repaired or removed. They create obstacles in our waterways. There are of course the implicit and explicit environmental issues that surround this question of abandoned derelict vessels.
This is also an expensive issue for Canada, and it is not one that is going away. There are 2.6 million pleasure craft licensed in Canada today. This is a problem that is not going away. The order of magnitude is simply growing.
There is a financial burden that is falling on community organizations, on municipal and provincial governments, and even on property owners.
One of the problems we see when we look at what the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan is trying to address in the bill, which we support, is the issue of who is in charge. It seems like everybody's job is nobody's job when it comes to this important issue, which is on both the west coast and the east coast and which I am sure is in play as well when it comes to our northernmost shorelines.
It is important to clarify which agency, order of government, or body is in charge of different situations. We need to make sure that we identify all possible measures that can be taken to identify and locate the owners of the wrecks, for example. Confusion reigns in this area.
Sometimes it is Transport Canada. The Minister of Transport can become involved if a vessel is causing obstruction or is blocking navigation, for example. Other times it is the Canadian Coast Guard, when it is called in to deal with threats around pollution, as we saw recently on the west coast of Canada in another episode. The Coast Guard was dispatched to play a role when there was a major leak. Of course, it is in a position to recover the cost of its expenses to deal with that pollution from the ship source oil pollution fund. The problem is that once the pollution has been dealt with and the sources of the pollution have been dealt with, the Coast Guard does not have the authority itself to then move and deal with the derelict vessel, the abandoned vessel, the problem vessel, and this is a real situation for so many of our harbours around the country.
Then again, if this abandoned or derelict vessel, this problem vessel, as I might describe it, is not a major environmental concern and is not posing a problem when it comes to navigation, most of the time there is no action taken by the government, and it can remain a real problem.
It is not just because they are eyesores and not just because they affect local residents in one way or another. It is because they could very well be hazardous. They are hazardous for the good folks who administer and run our harbours, the harbour authorities.
They also become very expensive. This is a very expensive proposition for harbours across the entire country. In fact, one of the most powerful voices I have heard in this area is the voice of the National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee. Ben Mabberley, from the National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee, said:
The truth is that one sinking of a derelict vessel at your harbour can bankrupt the harbour authority. It's that simple. We need to find a solution for it. This is going to be an issue right across the country.
He is right. This is a very important issue.
I understand that there was a study done several years ago by the fisheries committee. It was a very important foundational study that examined very carefully this whole question. The report was entitled “Small Craft Harbours: An Essential Infrastructure Managed by and for Fishing Communities”. It dealt with this very issue and specifically recommended that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans make changes, legislative changes in particular, so that the removal of abandoned and derelict vessels from harbours would be facilitated. As a result of that report, frankly nothing has happened. The government has done nothing.
We have just come through a budget cycle. We are still in the midst of it, in fact. There is nothing significant in the budget to deal with this issue as many of our harbour authorities struggle with these particularly expensive problems. It is hard to reconcile that with the fact that at DFO, since the current government has come to power, there has been $1 billion of unspent resources. In our view, that could have been properly applied to provide assistance to these harbour authorities and other parties that are involved in trying to do right by their communities and citizens by taking action. Nothing in the budget was brought to bear to address the specific challenges for our harbours and wharfs when it comes to this issue.
There is still a lingering problem with the fact that harbours themselves do not have the authority, and more importantly, do not have the budget to deal with wrecks and abandoned and derelict vessels. We need legislative changes, because we need to help with the removal of such vessels.
Given the fact that there are 2.6 million pleasure craft licensed in Canada today, with numbers growing and fleets aging, we need a long-term plan. It is something that has been asked for by the committee's report, by harbour authorities, by communities, by municipalities, by stakeholders, by NGOs, and by civil-society actors. People are rightly concerned, and there is no long-term plan to deal with this, after almost a decade of Conservative government.
It requires leadership, and leadership means we have to pull together different orders of government to work together to come up with a plan that allows us to respond to this nationally, as a country.
This bill would go some distance in contributing to legislative improvements, and for that reason we support it. It would help by designating the Canadian Coast Guard the receiver of wrecks and by requiring the receiver of wrecks to take responsible steps to determine and locate the owners of wrecks. That is important. Who owns these things? They cannot simply walk away. They cannot abandon them. There is a responsibility.
The bill would give a new power to the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to bring in new regulations that would have to be followed by the owners of the wrecks. They would have to remove, dispose of, or destroy them.
The bill is a positive step. For example, it would require the Minister of Transport to file a report every five years before each House of Parliament, so we would have a better idea with respect to part 7 of the act and the operations it governs.
We think this can be a very powerful next step. It could help to deal with these prohibitively high costs.
Funding will be key. If we are to see any kind of national leadership in this regard, coupled with some of the legislative changes that my colleague from the NDP has brought forward, we can make improvements. However, it does require national leadership, something which heretofore simply has not materialized under the Conservative government.