Sheila Malcolmson

[Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, June 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the basic structure of my predecessor Jean Crowder's legislation asked that the Coast guard be named the receiver of wrecks. That was supported by the Liberals when they were the third party in the previous Parliament.

They voted down that amendment that I moved, both my legislation and then also the amendment at committee. We do hear from the transport minister that he considers the Coast Guard now to be the de facto lead, and so it is not necessary to change it in legislation. However, we are not sure that that same interpretation might be taken up by a future government in this House.

We still, with regret, are sorry that the Coast Guard has not been named the receiver of wrecks in legislation. We know that the good men and women of the Coast Guard, on the water, are doing yeoman's work to fill this gap, and under their own steam are taking a great deal of responsibility. We want to see them resourced and have that reflected in legislation.

[Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, June 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, who has been fighting to have the Kathryn Spirit removed from a drinking water lake in her riding since the previous Parliament. It is now six years, at least. Seven years, my goodness. We are tenacious. New Democrats are tenacious on this subject.

At the transport committee, we heard testimony that making government vessels subject to the same legislation that is meant to deal with private abandoned vessels would be really important. In fact, the manager of the Washington state program for abandoned vessels said:

We do deal with larger vessels ourselves in Washington State. Just a couple of years ago we removed a 170-footer that was previously a military tug. We've done old scientific research vessels. We've actually done a couple of old Canadian Coast Guard vessels that were purchased by someone in Washington several years ago.

One of the amendments we proposed in committee that was voted down was to have the government take some responsibility when it is selling off a government asset, to make sure that the person purchasing it has the means to look after the vessel until the end of its life. That was also voted down by the Conservatives and Liberals at committee, although we had strong witness testimony saying that we should take that route.

This is our last opportunity to agree with my amendment to close the loophole that would make government vessels also subject to Bill C-64, to deal with abandoned vessels.

[Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, June 19th, 2018]

moved:

That Bill C-64 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Mr. Speaker, I am standing once again in the House to talk about the imperative for federal action to deal with abandoned vessels. Because of fishermen being forced out of the commercial fishing fleets, because fibreglass is reaching the end of its lifetime, and because climate change is creating different types of storms, all coasts of Canada are littered with abandoned vessels.

For 15 years, it has been clear that there is a jurisdictional hole that no government has been able to fill. As a result, it has fallen to coastal communities, which have had to try to jerry-rig solutions. My predecessor, Jean Crowder, as the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, had legislation in the House that was supported by the Liberal Party when it was the third party, so we had real optimism that in this session of Parliament, we would find legislative solutions for abandoned vessels.

I think back to my start, when I was first elected chair of the Islands Trust Council, which is a regional government in the Salish Sea charged with a mandate of preservation and protection. We were approached by ratepayers on Parker Island, just off Galiano Island, in the Salish Sea. They had been trying for 10 years to get a government department to agree to help them with a wrecked barge from the early 1980s that had been sitting on their shore for 10 years. Every department gave them the runaround. They were told to talk to navigation, talk to environment, talk to land management, and talk to the Coast Guard. They were at the end of their rope, so on behalf of the Islands Trust Council, I went to the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities conference. There were five other resolutions, not just from the Islands Trust Council but from local governments from all over British Columbia, the Sunshine Coast, and the Vancouver Island area that were facing the same problem, and we were all at the end of our rope.

We were able to bring together solutions. We said, “Let us get together and design what would be a good fit.” We looked to Washington state, which has had a very successful abandoned vessel program operating since the early part of this century and lots of working experience. We passed resolutions. The AVICC did, as did the Union of B.C. Municipalities. It became a big election issue in my riding, because with a huge, 100-foot, hulking boat that the federal government towed into their harbour, residents wanted to vote on this. They were looking for an MP who would take the imperative to act to Ottawa. I was so honoured to be elected to do this work.

In the legislation I tabled in this House, I built on Jean Crowder's bill, and then I updated it a year and a bit later when my amazing staff team found a way to build all the solutions from coastal communities into my private member's bill. That was in April 2017. I was on the verge of bringing all those solutions to the House to debate in December, when, as we will remember, the Liberals used some unused tactics to block and then basically vote down my bill to prevent it from even being debated and voted on. It was not a possible outcome I could ever have imagined.

Because the transport minister said he was going to legislate on abandoned vessels, I really hoped he would just plagiarize my bill and bring my elements into his or at least recognize, when he tabled his own bill, on Halloween last year, that Bill C-64's proposed remedy of penalizing and fining for abandoned and wrecked vessels would not work unless he brought in the elements of my bill. They would deal with the backlog and also fix vessel registration. If we are going to fine an abandoned vessel, we need to know who the owners are to send them a fine or penalty. This has been said in the House before.

The two pieces of legislation would have worked well together. Members could probably recite the pieces I proposed along with me. They would deal with the backlog by putting in place a pilot program, a vessel turn-in program, as has been done with great success in Washington and Oregon. It would be kind of a boat amnesty. People who did not know how to deal with a boat at the end of its life could get it out of the water where it could be safely recycled. We could create incentives for fibreglass recycling and piggyback on the government's avowed innovation agenda. Let us do something to help us deal with marine plastics and waste fibreglass. Let us find new markets so we can recycle and work with local salvage companies to deal with this mess.

We need to fix vessel registration so boat owners can be more accountable and so the costs do not end up on the backs of taxpayers. And there is more.

I had all of those solutions from coastal communities and coastal governments in my legislation. When my private member's bill was killed by the government, I worked hard at transport committee to insert each of those solutions into Bill C-64.

To my great disappointment and despite the fact that so many witnesses said they wanted all those elements in the legislation, people on the ground like the Chamber of Shipping of British Columbia, West Coast Environmental Law, local governments, marina operators, people who all endorsed the solutions from coastal communities that I proposed to amend the bill, both Liberals and Conservatives voted all of those amendments down.

Here I stand with my final attempt to improve this legislation and to bring the solutions that would help coastal communities into the bill.

During the committee's study, we identified the fact that the government is not going to apply the fine and penalty system that is in Bill C-64 to government-owned property. We have a lot of examples on the B.C. coast and the Atlantic coast of government assets becoming abandoned vessels.

The member of Parliament for Courtenay—Alberni was involved in the removal of the vessel Laurier from Baynes Sound, which is a rich aquaculture shellfish area. A lot of jobs are dependent on it. Everybody was worried when the Laurier sank. It turned out that it was an old fisheries inspection vessel with many stories. It was also a Coast Guard vessel. It was a government asset that became an abandoned vessel.

On the east coast the Cormorant is an old Navy ship that has been languishing at the dock in Bridgeport for over 10 years. It too is an abandoned government vessel. A lot of my British Columbia colleagues will have seen the old wrecked BC Ferries vessel still with the logo on its side. It is a disaster. It looks like a ghost ship.

We have Coast Guard vessels, Navy vessels, the whole gamut on the coast of British Columbia. My amendment before the House proposed to close that loophole and make the fines and penalties equivalent, whether it is a government asset or a private vessel, in order to bring accountability and fairness as well.

From both a fairness perspective and an environmental perspective, this is our last chance to try to improve the transport minister's bill.

We take pride in the fact that this legislation is going to be voted on during the final days of this Parliament because of the tenacity of and pressure from the Nanaimo Port Authority, the mayor of Ladysmith, and Chief John Elliott of the Stz'uminus first nation. There has been a lot of co-operation and that has led to some success and has really put this issue on centre stage.

I am pleased to see the pan-partisan support for solutions on abandoned vessels. I remain discouraged that some of the solutions that were proposed by coastal communities, that would have dealt with the backlog, that would have worked with salvage companies to create jobs and innovate and recycle are not present in Bill C-64. None of those elements have any presence in the transport minister's bill. There still is a lot of work for us to do as a country to get this problem off the backs of coastal communities.

Voting yes to my report stage amendment to remove the clause that would exempt the government from the same penalties that it is putting on private boaters would be the one thing that we could do in these final hours of this Parliament.

For the sake of coastal communities, for small businesses, for tourism, for the coastal environment, I urge my colleagues to vote yes.

[Petitions, June 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, there is unprecedented awareness these days about the problems of marine plastics all around the globe. There are terrible images of whales choked on plastics and sea turtles entangled. As a result, we are seeing great citizen action in terms of collecting petition signatures in support of the motion tabled by my colleague, the member for Courtenay—Alberni. Motion No. 151 calls on Canada to adopt a national strategy to take real action on marine plastics. This would include regulations to limit the use of single-use plastics, as well as ongoing funding to deal with historic ghost fishing nets and other debris that originates in places other than Canada.

On Oceans Day we had a lot of people from Ladysmith and Nanaimo signing petitions, and we commend this petition to the House.

[Petitions, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition from coastal people who urge the cancellation of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Petitioners from Ucluelet, Qualicum, Parksville, Nanaimo, and Vancouver ask the government to cancel the purchase of the old Kinder Morgan pipeline, instead of paying $4.5 billion to a Texas oil company. They request that the government invest in a renewable economy, recognize that the pipeline is opposed by a significant number of coastal communities, and that the problem of oil tanker risks and dilbit pollution have not yet been addressed.

[Petitions, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

Petitioners from B.C.'s coast call on the government to take urgent action on the abandoned vessel problem. This could prevent oil spills and marine pollution, and could save marine jobs and tourism from the blight of abandoned vessels on our coast. Specifically, they call on the government to legislate to improve the vessel registration system, to create a fee to help with the cost of vessel disposal to get the cost off the backs off taxpayers, and to pilot a vessel turn-in program to deal with the backlog, which government Bill C-64 does not do.

These petitioners are from Parksville, West Vancouver, Ladysmith, Edmonton, Nanaimo, and Sydney, and they all call on the government to take action.

[Marine Transportation, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the transport minister has the mandate to improve marine safety, but BC Ferry & Marine Workers' Union says a new ruling of Transport Canada has left engine rooms unattended. This risks passenger safety on the new Salish class ferries. With engineers five decks above critical machinery and steering equipment, this risks collision. Millions ride these ferries. Can this really be true? Do the Liberals actually have weaker staffing rules for passenger ferries than for bulk cargo ships?

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, June 18th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, after a nice quiet weekend in my riding, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the pages and all of the parliamentary precinct security folks who looked after us during our all-night voting on Thursday night.

I also want to say a special thanks to my riding staff, because I miss them, Lauren Semple, Hilary Eastmure, and Michael Snoddon, and all the people at home who have been holding down the fort while we have been here since the end of January.

I am really grateful to everybody who is keeping the community work going, NGOs, local governments, everybody who is working hard to support the work we are doing here in Parliament.

We really hope that this is our last week, and I cannot wait to be home. Because we are close to the end, I have to say I am a little impatient about giving this speech. Bill S-210 proposes to amend the title of a Harper-era piece of legislation, the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.

It seems like a long time ago when that piece of legislation was passed. It was passed in what I would call a dark decade of parliamentary rule. The unveiling of that quite racist legislation was one of the low points in the Harper era. It was dog-whistle politics at its worst. It was racist and inflammatory. Ministers stood and said we need to eradicate barbaric cultural practices, when all they needed to say was that we are going to rule against female genital mutilation. We are all for that, but it does not need to be put in the frame of alienating anybody who is not white and born and raised in Canada. Canada is a diverse country. We all practice our culture in different ways. There are acts that should be criminalized, especially acts that are damaging to young girls.

The Conservatives campaigned on that Harper-framed legislation, and I like to think that was part of their downfall, because the citizens of this country said no to it.

I also want to give special thanks to This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which acted like a second official opposition alongside New Democrats in the previous Parliament. I still chuckle about the show's parody on the barbaric cultural practices act. It named things like wearing socks with sandals as a cultural barbaric practice, and kissing the cod in the wrong way. They had fun with it, but it was not funny.

Given all the damage that was done in 10 years of Conservative rule, the Liberal government received a strong mandate from the Canadian public.

However, here we are today with legislation before us which would simply amend the title of the legislation. It would do nothing else. I am going to vote in favour of Bill S-210, because who would not vote in favour of it? Language matters, but actions also matters. There is so much work to do. Here we are, two and a half years into this term, and we still are not getting it done.

Some time this week, we will be tabling a report on what the Liberal government could do to end the atrocious rate of incarceration of indigenous women in Canadian jails and how badly they are treated. The report also talks about the barriers they face in the justice system that results in them being imprisoned at a higher rate.

Another Conservative law repealed the mandatory minium sentencing. It removed judicial discretion. The Liberal Party campaigned in 2015 that it would repeal mandatory minimum sentencing, but it has not done it.

Of all the things that would make a difference in people's lives, I wish that this legislation had more oomph behind it. Of course, language matters, but attendant action is so important. Voting yes to the bill, which I will be doing, will not change anyone's life. There is still a lot of legislative damage that has yet to be undone, and I do not believe that Bill S-210 would have been at the top of anybody's list.

I also have a bit of a bad attitude about this because of my private member's bill on abandoned vessels, Bill C-352. I worked on my bill with local government partners for about eight years before coming to this place. I tabled it in February 2016, and I updated it in April 2017.

Three days after it went on the Order Paper in October of this year, the government introduced its own bill, which I had wanted to see. I had hoped the government would have plagiarized and incorporated my private member's bill into it. However, then it used a couple of almost never used parliamentary manoeuvres to prevent my bill from being heard or voted on at all.

Obviously, it was a great disappointment. It was a piece of legislation, whether one agreed with it or not, that had some substance and some heft. It would have made a difference on the ground. It would have changed legislation that would have prevented oil spills and marine plastics and pollution on our beaches in the form of fibreglass boats. That is a long-standing problem that local governments have been calling the alarm on. However, that was killed, and here we are taking the time to debate legislation that is only going to amend a legislative title.

I urge all my colleagues to hunker down and get the real work done that would actually change lives on the ground. We have tremendous privilege being in this place. We have tremendous power. We have a huge mandate, and we have a lot of work to do. Let us do the hard work that really matters and get on with the work that Canadians sent us to do here in this place.

[Main Estimates, 2018-19, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is late in the season, and we are all tired, but for goodness' sake, how many more times are we going to hear a speech like that about feminism and lifting women up? It is embarrassing. The goodwill of the government, the words of the government, and the words of the speech, yes, of course, but it is two and a half years later. It was 42 years ago that the previous prime minister Trudeau said the government was going to implement pay equity. It was 42 years ago, and it still has not happened. There are zero dollars in this budget to implement pay equity. My colleague across the way can say until she is blue in the face how important it is. Why does her government not do it? The Liberals have a majority, they have the mandate, and they have the words, but they have no concomitant action.

They say now they are putting in this great new parental leave benefit. Six in 10 workers in Canada do not qualify for employment insurance, so fix EI and do something with the power you have and fund it in the budget.

This is all rhetoric. It is all flowery words, and I so wish you would just get on with it in the year and a half you have in your mandate and put some action in place for feminism.

[Natural Resources, June 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, as Liberals put billions into Kinder Morgan, betraying their promised sunny ways renewable future, pipeline spills and accidents are rising. Equiterre's new report on oil pipeline safety found less than 50% of incidents are reported. The National Energy Board is “not capable” of handling the work on its plate and is not protecting citizens or the environment.

Why did the government buy a leaky old pipeline, knowing these risks? How will it police itself when the next leak happens?