Sheila Malcolmson

[Endangered Whales, June 4th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am feeling a little homesick, being far from my home on Gabriola Island, but when I think about the number of people who will send the word out on Facebook, especially when Margy lets everybody know that there are orca whales at Orlebar Point, I feel a bit better.

Masses of people stand on the shorelines of the Salish Sea and watch as these amazing whales go by so close to the shoreline. Mudge Islanders post videos all the time of orcas going through Dodd Narrows, which has an extremely strong current of nine knots. These animals have the intuition to know when the current has changed, but they are also determined to push through it. It is phenomenal. We are privileged as B.C. coastal people to live so close to these amazing animals.

A constituent of mine, Charles Thirkill, sent me a note on this, saying, “Orcas are the last surviving species of the whales that once roamed the Strait of Georgia. In 1907, a whaling station was set up in Pipers Lagoon. They caught 97 whales in the first year, and by 1911, there were none left, so they packed up the gear and took it to Graham Island Haida Gwaii. Whaling in the area continued till 1967”—the year after I was born—“and spotter planes were used to locate the prey for the boats. The whales were hunted for their oil. Now ain't that ironic-like?”

He finishes by saying, “We are just beginning to see whales return to the Strait, and it would be sad if they were killed by an oil spill or tanker propeller blades.”

They are imperiled indeed. Chinook salmon numbers have dropped to the point that southern resident orcas are starving. They are miscarrying.

The Raincoast Conservation Foundation says, “69 per cent of pregnancies in the last decade have failed, and what should be healthy animals are being lost to malnutrition and other human-caused mortality.”

Do we need to take action on whales? Yes, we do.

Add to this the harm from shipping traffic in the Salish Sea. A few weeks ago, the Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorages Society, GAFA, hosted a screening of the film Sonic Sea. It was devastating. I had no idea the impact of shipping noise on whales' ability to communicate with each other, to stay together as a pod, to mate, to keep united with their calves, and to be able to echolocate to find the fish they need to eat. Seismic testing for oil and gas and sonar from navy ships are thought to be responsible for some of the mass beachings of whales, an unexplained phenomenon up to this point.

This movie was made by the National Resources Defense Council and can be seen at www.sonicsea.org. I encourage anybody who is in a decision-making position or who is reliant on the sea, as we all are, to watch that movie. It changed my view.

The whales are in trouble already. Misty MacDuffee of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation was quoted in The Guardian in November 2016, saying, “You can visibly actually see the ribs on some of these whales.” They are in trouble.

Add to that a sevenfold increase in oil tanker traffic in the Salish Sea. After the Harper Conservatives gutted and undermined the legislation, the National Energy Board heard evidence that deafening noise from increased tanker traffic in the Salish Sea would place orcas at a high risk of population decline. Increased noise was expected to decrease the ability of killer whales to communicate, to acquire food, and to survive. This would prevent the population from growing and increase its likelihood of extinction.

In its report, the NEB states that the operation of marine vessels related to the pipeline project would likely result in significant adverse effects to the southern resident killer whale and to indigenous cultural uses associated with this marine mammal.

This is another element of the flawed review by the National Energy Board. It made an eleventh-hour decision to arbitrarily truncate the Trans Mountain project at tidewater in Burnaby, the end of the pipeline, inexplicably excluding impacts to killer whales from the environmental assessment. As a result of the Prime Minister having broken his promise to redo the review on the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the Liberal government approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline knowing that the project could wipe out these iconic orcas.

They are not just iconic to us. They are a SARA-listed species. They have been listed as endangered, and the federal law on this is extremely clear. It is the federal government's responsibility to protect the habitat and the animal. Extinctions are not allowed legally to happen under a government's watch, and yet the Liberals approved this pipeline, knowing it was the one impact identified by the National Energy Board as being inevitable and irremediable. That is a quote from the report. Still, the Prime Minister broke his word and approved the pipeline.

The federal government is being taken to court on this. One of the many court cases that remain against the Kinder Morgan pipeline is about the violation of Canada's Species at Risk Act. Ecojustice lawyers, on behalf of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Living Oceans Society, contend that the federal government violated the law when it relied on the National Energy Board report. They say the NEB used an overly narrow interpretation of the law to avoid addressing the harm caused to endangered southern resident killer whales and their critical habitat, yet the Liberals bought the pipeline.

The Liberals just keep digging deeper on the violation of their most serious responsibilities to whales and to the Salish Sea. They say they make their decisions based on science and evidence. The science and evidence say that the impacts on orcas are irremediable. They say that all cabinet decisions go through a sustainability screen, yet they say, “The pipeline will be built.” Now the Prime Minister is going to be fighting first nations and science in court as the defendant.

There is another failure of the government to act and protect the southern resident killer whales. They were designated as endangered over a decade ago, yet neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals have produced the recovery strategy required by law. The Georgia Strait Alliance, which is in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, and many non-governmental organizations have been pleading for an action plan, and so have many constituents in my riding. I have had hundreds, probably 300 emails on exactly this narrow point, that the emergency order the State of Washington has put in place needs to be enacted by our government. Those from Colleen Alexander and Kay Morisset are both examples of very powerful letters calling for an emergency order, and saying again that time is running out on this.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans curtailed the chinook fishery to spare salmon for the orcas. That is a good move. I really wish it had been done two and a half years ago, as soon as the Liberals took power, because that would have saved some orca calves. I also hear chinook fishermen ask why they are the ones taking the hit. They find it hypocritical that the government has approved and in fact invested in a 50-year-old bitumen pipeline that will threaten the whales in the Salish Sea, yet it is the chinook fishermen who are taking the hit by having to cut back.

I am going to vote yes to Motion No. 154, which we are debating today, because I love whales, and the more study we have the better. The more we can be a voice for these unique and iconic mammals that have no voice in this Parliament, and the more we can talk about them, the better.

Overall, the situation is critical. This is an emergency, and real actions can be taken right now, not a future strategy or study. Action is needed now to prevent extinction. A Hill Times headline just a couple of months ago stated, “Research and technology won't feed starving southern resident orcas”, yet the motion before us is to study, not to act. To me, it feels like too little, too late, given the emergency orcas face.

The government amendment to the member's motion that is before us pushes the timeline further back and specifically says to find a balance between competing claims. I do not accept that. Our responsibility is to protect the species and the habitat. We can take input, of course, from those who would be most affected, but it is not a trade-off we are looking for the government to make. I urge the government and all parliamentarians to please act now to protect the southern resident orca whale.

[Petitions, June 1st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, there is a long-standing problem with abandoned vessels that remains unresolved on our coast. As abandoned vessels pose economic, environmental, and navigational risks to my coast of British Columbia especially, but also to the Atlantic coast, I present petitions from coastal people asking the government to make the Coast Guard one-stop shopping, so that people and communities do not get the runaround when they identify an abandoned vessel anymore; establish a vessel turn-in program to deal with the backlog of abandoned vessels; fix vessel registrations and adopt a fee to get the cost off taxpayers; and finally, create good green jobs by supporting local salvage companies.

Petitioners from Truro, Bible Hill, and River John in Nova Scotia join petitioners from Gabriola Island, Lantzville, Ladysmith, and Nanaimo in B.C. in urging the government to finally act on this long-standing pollution problem on our coast.

[Natural Resources, June 1st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, since the Liberals announced they are buying Kinder Morgan's old pipeline, my phone has not stopped ringing. British Columbians are telling me they feel betrayed by the government and dismayed that the Liberal priorities are so stuck in the past. They are angry that the Prime Minister has given a Texas pipeline company a massive bailout by putting all the financial and environmental risks on Canadians. This is about the future of our country and the future of our planet.

What kind of climate leader buys bitumen pipelines?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear more of the views of my colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

Is the member hearing in his riding, as I am in mine, people's absolute astonishment at the Liberal government when it, for example, said to veterans that they were asking for more than it can give? What confidence should we have in a Liberal government that somehow found $4.5 billion to buy the discredited 65-year-old Kinder Morgan pipeline, which was valued in 2007 at just $550 million? Does the government really believe the pipeline has increased in value so much in the 10 years since Kinder Morgan bought that asset? What does that say about the government's priorities?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the government, the Liberal Party, has been promising pay equity implementation since 2004. Given that the all-party committee asked that the government table pay equity legislation by June 2017, which is now a year late; given that last year the labour minister said that the consultation on pay equity was complete, which we thought was complete in 2004; and given that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in last year's alternative federal budget asked that the government budget $10 million a year to implement pay equity for federally regulated industries and this year the Canadian Labour Congress said to at least fund the establishment of the pay equity commissioner's office, why on earth is there nothing in the budget implementation bill for this long promise, actually a 42-year-old promise, by the Liberals?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on the 40th occasion of the “sunny ways” government shutting down public debate on very important legislation, I have a quote to read to the environment minister. I am curious whether she can tell if it was a Conservative or a Liberal member of Parliament who said this:

Canadians do not like it and they are waking up to the way the government is doing things. Who would have thought that Canadians would be familiar with procedures such as prorogation or time allocation during debates or the use of in camera in committees? Slowly but surely, Canadians are beginning to understand these procedures and beginning to question what the government meant when it promised, six and a half years ago, to be open, transparent and, most of all, accountable. I believe Canadians are beginning to feel that there is a contradiction between what has been promised and what is actually being done by the government.

Was it a Liberal or a Conservative who said that? We are having a hard time telling the difference.

[United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I had the great honour of meeting modern-day pilgrims coming from the faith communities across Canada, young people, people well into their eighties who had been walking for days. Members of the Mennonite Church and young activists were expressing themselves through their church in a way that I had never seen before.

The cause they had taken up, in the spirit of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was to urge the government and Parliament to adopt Bill C-262, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It was such a beautiful marrying of faith, activism, and commitment to improving the country, to indigenous reconciliation, and to our parliamentary process. To see protest signs with a bill number on them is not something we see every day. It was the bill that was advanced by my New Democrat colleague, the member of Parliament for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.

I am so honoured to have been greeted by that final pilgrimage coming into Ottawa. I am also grateful to be at the service of the people of Nanaimo—Ladysmith in Coast Salish territory, representing that riding at this time in Parliament, because this is a historic day.

My colleague said so powerfully in his opening statement this afternoon that there was no reconciliation in the absence of justice. He reminded us that UNDRIP had been reaffirmed eight times by the United Nations, by consensus. He reminded us that no state in the world opposed UNDRIP, and that even the Harper Conservatives in 2010 acceded to UNDRIP. Therefore, it is well past the time.

The framework for UNDRIP is the framework for reconciliation for Canada. It was used by Justice Sinclair in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the framework for the report. In turn, Bill C-262 responds directly to the calls to action in the TRC report, specifically calls to action 43 and 44.

I am reminded of the words of my friend and colleague from Snuneymuxw, a former Snuneymuxw chief, Doug White III. Kwul’a’sul’tun is his Coast Salish name, his Hul'q'umin'um' name. He said:

...to those of us personally and intimately engaged in the struggle for justice for Indigenous peoples, one can sense that while the work remains fierce and intense, there is momentum building toward potential breakthroughs.

He further stated:

Canadians are far more aware of our history of colonialism, and the required work of reconciliation. I am hopeful that in 2018, Canadians will not succumb to voices that are intent on looking backward and maintaining what has been. The reality of what has been for Indigenous peoples is nothing to be preserved.

He urges specifically the endorsement of UNDRIP, and my colleague's bill, Bill C-262.

I asked this Parliament if we need this bill, given the government has acceded to the UN treaty. I say we do.

UNDRIP article 18 calls on governments to recognize that indigenous people have the right to participate in decision-making in matters that would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, yet the government has approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline and its attendant oil tanker traffic running through the waters of the Salish Sea, through the riding I represent.

The hypocrisy of the government in saying that it believes that communities should control their own destiny, that it believes in the nation-to-nation relationship and then run roughshod over democracy and those promises tells us that we need the bill and we need to legislate a commitment to UNDRIP. Despite articles 21 and 22, which specifically point to the ending of violence against women and children and the particular role of indigenous women in our democracy, the government passed Bill S-3. It specifically chose to enshrine the continuation of discrimination against the rights of some indigenous women in the Indian Act over the urging and the voices of the six women, known as the Famous Six, who had fought for 40 years in the Supreme Court. We fully expected the government, given its feminist agenda and its commitment to a nation-to-nation relationship, to do better.

We do need this legislation. I am so honoured to serve with the member. The spirit he is offering to our country, especially given his own family's personal history with residential schools, is an extremely generous gift.

I urge the House in its entirety to vote together in consensus to move our country forward.

[The Environment, May 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, to stop oil spills and protect jobs, the BC Chamber of Commerce on Saturday endorsed the same abandoned vessels solutions that I brought to the House.

Thirty-six thousand businesses joined hundreds of coastal communities that urged the transport minister to include solutions in his fix, like vessel turn in and recycling. Despite years of coastal advocacy, the Liberals' Bill C-64 still does not include coastal solutions to deal with thousands of wrecks off our coast. They have dragged anchor on resuming the debate.

Why is the government leaving abandoned vessels on our coast for another season?

[Fisheries and Oceans, May 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the member, I think he is answering the wrong question. This is not an intervention about amendments to the Fisheries Act. In fact, the irony here is that the Environmental Assessment Office study of the proposed Gabriola anchorage has said that because the Harper Conservatives had gutted the Fisheries Act, no fisheries permit was needed for this project. It was not going to be assessed. The fact that the government is now amending the Fisheries Act reveals completely that the review of the Gabriola anchorages was inadequate, which is why we have asked the government to cancel the five new anchorages on the basis that the process was so undermined. If they want this to go ahead, they should start it completely under a new review.

Specifically, the environmental assessment review also identified that the consultation with first nations was inadequate. I have an exact quote on this, which says, “the lack of Public/First Nations consultation leaves potential for significant effects”. Indeed, this year, in March, Lyackson First Nation wrote to the minister saying that the anchorages consultation process was inadequate. The mayor of Ladysmith wrote the same in May of this year.

There is nothing about the Salish Sea anchorages plan or the pilot project that aligns with the government's bold promises on first nations consultation. Why is it so hard to get the member to understand and the government to live up to its promises on environmental protection, marine protection, and first nations consultation related to anchorages in the Salish Sea?

[Fisheries and Oceans, May 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I asked the member for Burnaby North—Seymour in this Parliament, will the Minister of Transport listen to Gabriola Islanders and cancel the five bulk anchorages proposed off the undeveloped shoreline of our community on Gabriola Island? These are 300-metre-long vessels designed for export of Wyoming coal, which all the west coast U.S. ports have refused. They are bound for China where the coal will be burned in power plants. There is no local benefit; it is all local risk.

I did not get an answer in question period and, for the folks at home, this is an opportunity, in four minutes rather than in 30 seconds, to hear a full answer from the government.

The risk of bulk anchorages to coastal communities is real. I know that from when I was chair of the Islands Trust Council. In a year and a half period, we had three bulk carriers in Plumper Sound drag anchor and almost go on the rocks. These were massive vessels that were improperly sited.

I am going to relay to the representative of the minister some of the impacts that are being described by coastal constituents throughout the Salish Sea about what anchorages are doing to them right now. These are vessels that are waiting to go into port in Vancouver. They are not bringing goods or taking goods from Vancouver Island. Again, it is all downside; there is no upside for our communities.

This is a letter that was sent on March 14 to the minister by Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorages, Anchorages Concerned Thetis, Cowichan Bay Ship Watch Society, and Plumper Sound Protection Association, with the Valdes Island Conservancy. These are grassroots groups from a whole bunch of the islands that are affected.

They said that over recent weeks they have seen a surge in the number of freighters using south coast anchorages before going to berth. They were told that this is due to rail delays in delivering the grain to the port. They were also told that with expansion of trade and the potential expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, anchorage usage is only going to get worse.

They said they take very seriously the impacts of these ships in their midst. They continue to have grave concerns about the risk of accidents, such as collision or grounding that could occur as freighter traffic increases through the confined inlets and bays of the south coast waters and southeast coast of Vancouver Island.

They also referenced freighters dragging anchor in strong winds.

Robert Krize from Gabriola said that he shudders every time he thinks of the damage that these anchorages could do. He is from Alaska and saw first-hand the damage done by the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound. He said that these proposed anchorages make no sense at all.

Kay Morissette from Saltair said that the potential damages to the environment are well known. The bilge pumps, anchors dragging, and other scraps from the boats are impacting the water and ecosystem directly.

The Cowichan Bay Ship Watch Society said that the average length of stay has doubled just in the last year, from eight days to 16 days in some of the anchorages.

Another constituent, Janet, on Gabriola Island said that they do not see why islanders have to take up the slack for inadequate planning demonstrated by the Vancouver harbour authority.

My questions for the minister's representative are, why has he not cancelled the Gabriola anchorages already, and when is he going to put pressure on the ports to clean up their act so that we do not externalize these costs on to coastal communities?