Bill C-638 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 (wreck)

This enactment amends the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to strengthen the requirements relating to wreck by ensuring that regulations are made to establish measures to be taken for their removal, disposition or destruction. It designates the Canadian Coast Guard as a receiver of wreck for the purposes of Part 7 of the Act and requires receivers of wreck to take reasonable steps to determine and locate the owner of the wreck.

Motions in amendment

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to partake in today's debate, especially since I am speaking here today as a proud coastal member of Parliament who comes from a neck of the woods just south of the riding of the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. My riding, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and my colleague's riding together formed what was known as the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan.

This is a problem that coastal people have been dealing with for far too long, no matter what part of Canada they live in. Abandoned vessels not only pose threats to our environment, and in some cases threats to navigation, but they are an eyesore. They cause real harm to communities that are trying to build up an image of a sustainable community, a place tourists would want to visit.

I spent seven years working as a constituency assistant to former member of Parliament Jean Crowder in the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan. As a constituency assistant, I was often on the phone with constituents who were outraged at the runaround they were getting and the jurisdictional finger pointing. They had gone to the municipality and to the regional district. They had gone to the port authority, to the province, and to the federal government. Every one of those agencies basically pointed at someone else, saying, “It's not our problem.” All those calls and the many years of problems building up prompted Jean Crowder to take action, and I will get to that in a moment.

I want to go over a bit of the history of how my particular community has experienced this problem. Right in the heart of my riding is lovely Cowichan Bay. I hope some members in the House get a chance to visit Cowichan Bay. It is a quaint, ideal little place on the coast. It has a great history of being a big industrial area that transformed itself into this great little community, which tourists come to every year by the droves.

We have had our ordeals with abandoned vessels. I will go back to the Dominion. The Dominion was a large Japanese fish-processing ship, which was towed to Cowichan Bay in 2007. The new owner of the vessel thought that he could buy it as an investment, sell it a few years later, and make a quick buck off it. Unfortunately, the Dominion stayed in Cowichan Bay from 2007 until 2013. It was filled with a variety of hazardous substances. It was subject to vandalism. There was the constant danger, whether from high tide or strong storms, of that gigantic ship coming loose off its mooring and plowing into other ships.

We had the SS Beaver, which was in such dilapidated condition that it sank in 2014. It still rests at the bottom of Cowichan Bay.

As a result of the lack of action, last year six derelict vessels were removed by the combined efforts of private companies. These companies were sick and tired of no government authority taking responsibility or having the resources to remove them. I want to recognize Western Forest Products, Western Stevedoring, and Pacific Industrial & Marine for taking on that initiative as responsible corporate citizens of the area. It affects their livelihoods, too, and they had the means to get it done. However, it should not have come to that.

I also want to give great recognition to Lori Iannidinardo. She serves as the area director for Cowichan Bay in the Cowichan Valley Regional District. A lot of individuals have been involved in this fight over the years, but as the area director, she has had the unique position locally of bringing so many stakeholders together, along with public and community forums, and pushing for action. Lori and Jean worked together hand in glove to try to address this problem.

Now let me turn to the efforts of Jean Crowder in the 41st Parliament. She introduced Bill C-231 in 2011. She saw a way to improve her bill, and it ultimately turned into Bill C-638, which had its opportunity for debate and a vote at second reading at the tail end of the 41st Parliament.

I will note that the Liberal Party at that time voted in favour of this bill, and among those members, there was the Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and others. In fact, there are various ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and chairs of standing committees in the House today who back then supported this bill. We are happy to see Bill C-64 moving ahead, but as the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith has so clearly laid out, there are a lot of gaps that her private member's bill certainly could have filled.

I am happy to say that after years of advocacy, New Democrats and the coastal communities have really informed our work, and all that work is finally paying off. We are very proud that the action to clean up our coasts and waterways from abandoned vessels are finally under way.

I will now turn to the 42nd Parliament, the one we are in now, and the efforts of the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. The first version of her Bill C-219 very much built on Bill C-638, which was introduced in the previous Parliament. However, after a lot of consultation with different coastal organizations and coastal communities, she really took their feedback, which is evidence-based decision-making and evidence-informed policy-making. She incorporated their suggestions, because these are the people who are on the front lines, and introduced Bill C-352.

One of the greatest privileges we have in this place as private members is our ability to bring forward legislation on behalf of our communities. What is really unfortunate about last year is that the Liberals denied her the ability through the procedure and House affairs committee, and then the secret ballot that we had here in the House of Commons, to effectively advocate on behalf of her constituents and various coastal organizations in this place. We know it was the Liberals, because that is where the majority of the votes are coming from, who denied her the ability to at least bring this bill forward for debate and a vote. They deemed it to be non-votable, and argued that Bill C-64 covered all the conditions. In fact, we can see that her bill was actually filling in the gaps that are very apparent in Bill C-64.

However, New Democrats do not give up when they face set backs, and so the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith tried to work at committee. She brought forward a series of amendments to Bill C-64 to actually strengthen the bill and make it reflect the conversations that she had had. We wanted to implement a vessel turn-in program, create a dedicated fee to help the cost of vessel disposal, and we wanted to formalize the Coast Guard's role. The Coast Guard's main role is to guard our coast, but I would argue it is not only to guard against smugglers but also to make sure that our coastal environment is safe, sound, and environmentally secure. She tried to make sure that we could copy Washington state's model, because we do not need to reinvent the wheel. We have many other jurisdictions, one right in Washington state, and we could basically borrow the best elements from its program and transpose them here in Canada. She also wanted to try and give the receiver of wrecks the responsibility and accountability to determine the owner.

Every single one of those amendments was defeated by the Liberals in spite of all of the testimony that we had heard at committee. That is the real shame of this. The Liberals in the previous Parliament were fine to go along with the provisions that were included in this bill, but once they got into government, and flying in the face of the evidence they heard, they refused to go ahead with that.

The bill from the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith was endorsed by the Union of B.C. Municipalities, the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities, the City of Victoria, the City of Nanaimo, the Town of Ladysmith, over 20 more local governments, the Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, Vancouver District Labour Council, and the BC Ferry & Marine Workers' Union. These are organizations and local governments that deal with this problem and confront it on a daily basis. To have those kinds of endorsements behind the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith really speaks to her perseverance, and it is sincerely unfortunate that the government did not allow those.

I will conclude by saying that we are not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We will support Bill C-64, but I hope the government will at least listen to us and accept our amendment at report stage so that we can at least have some accountability for federally owned vessels, because that is a major loophole that exists.

Abandoned Vessels

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as a proud representative of a coastal community on Vancouver Island, I am pleased to stand today to speak to the motion. I would like to thank the member for South Shore—St. Margarets for bringing it forward.

This motion is a good step in the right direction, as it certainly encourages the government to create a mechanism to assist in removing abandoned vessels. As we all know, the NDP has worked on this issue for many years now. My colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith has tabled Bill C-219, which I think will take the real action needed to solve this problem.

There are so many different stakeholders involved in this issue. Many members of the House are involved, but it is of real significance to members who are lucky enough to represent coastal communities, and even to members who have large lakes or rivers in their ridings, because wherever there is a standing body of water that is navigable by a vessel, that body of water is in danger of having abandoned vessels left in it.

I worked on this issue for many years in my riding when I was a constituency assistant to Jean Crowder, the former member of Parliament for Nanaimo—Cowichan, and it is something that does not seem to go away, so I am really glad to see the House taking this issue much more seriously than in previous years.

My riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford is home to a long stretch of Vancouver Island's coastline, both on the east coast and on the west coast. There are places where there are many abandoned, derelict, half-sunken, listing boats that can easily go down in a storm. In fact, in 2014, we had the story of the SS Beaver II, which basically rolled over and sank in Cowichan Bay. It had been identified as a hazard for many months previously, and lo and behold, the thing sank, not to much surprise.

Before that, residents of Cowichan Bay had to deal with the Dominion, a trawler that was basically towed to Cowichan Bay and left there for five full years. It was left there so long that thieves stole fuel from it and started doing damage to the boat, It was listing. It became such a concern and there was such a concerted effort from the community that we finally had the Coast Guard come and take the vessel away.

It is an old problem. It is one that seems to be getting worse. There are a growing number of abandoned vessels on Canada's coasts. Boats are getting older every year, so this is a problem that gets worse over time. The longer we leave this problem, the higher the cost of taking care of the problem will be and the greater the number of vessels we will have to deal with.

Transport Canada has conducted some surveys on the breadth of the issue. It has a list of over 600 abandoned vessels of various types and sizes, but I am sure that the actual number is much higher now, and it is expected to go up.

Furthermore, not every municipality has had the chance to respond. In British Columbia, the last report listed 245 vessels, but that was only from the municipalities that bothered to respond.

A number of proposals came forward in the House in previous years. In 2010, Keith Martin, the Liberal member of Parliament from Vancouver Island, moved a motion for the government to strengthen legislation to deal with derelict vessels and also to impose penalties to recover the cost of cleanup from registered owners.

In the 41st Parliament, Jean Crowder moved two bills. One of them had to come back on the Order Paper because of prorogation, and unfortunately, it was defeated by the Conservative government at the time. I would certainly hope that our Conservative colleagues are having a bit of a change of heart in looking at this issue, because I think it is a non-partisan issue. It is about taking real action on behalf of all coastal communities.

I want to point out to my Liberal colleagues that a number of them still sit in the House today who voted in favour of that bill, Bill C-638. Of note, the current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and the Prime Minister are all on record as having voted for that legislation, and I will expect to see their votes stand up in this Parliament when we get to Bill C-219.

In 2015, in the dying days of the 41st Parliament, we had a half-hearted attempt by a Conservative backbencher, Conservative MP John Weston, to bring in a bill. It had a legal fine of about $100,000 and jail time for those who abandoned, but it was too little too late, in my opinion.

We have had action from the NDP, the Conservatives, and the Liberals on this issue. It is certainly one that all parties are very well aware of.

I will be voting in favour of the motion, but I want to make sure that the House is aware of the contrast between this motion and the bill from my colleague for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Bill C-219. The Liberal motion points to the need for a legislative solution, but unfortunately, it does not compel the government to act.

Motions are great, but we have to look at the very first line, which says, “That, in the opinion of the House”. The government of the day is not bound to follow this motion. It is not a binding motion. I will take note of all the MPs who support it, and it will be great to contrast that with Bill C-219 later to see if the action will be there to back up the words.

The motion compels the federal government to act only if there is an imminent danger. The issue is the fact that the federal government is the only body that can designate someone to intervene before a vessel becomes a hazard. This means that the responsibility falls on us to protect our coastlines. I appreciate the wording of the motion, but I think we need to have further action, and that is why I really want to see action on Bill C-219 later.

It is good to see that there is a six-month timeline in the motion. Hopefully, we will see the government stick to that. I think vessel owners certainly need to be educated about identifying the problems that can come if vessels are abandoned, and so on.

The motion did have an amendment. Several amendments were proposed. One was from my colleague for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, and of course, the Liberals ended up amending their own motion.

The troubling amendment is this:

replacing the words “create a mechanism” with the words “identify mechanisms”

I think this shows that the government is actually a bit scared to take action on this file, because if we go from “creating a mechanism”, which is an action word, to “identifying a mechanism”, we are kind of giving the government a route out, and that, to me, is troubling.

The other removal by the Liberal Party was that consideration be given to “acceding to the Nairobi International Convention for the Removal of Wrecks, 2007”.

This is something that was recommended by Transport Canada in 2010.

We want to see the government take some meaningful steps on this problem. The motion from my colleague for Nanaimo—Ladysmith was that we see, within six months, the dismantling of any abandoned ships or wrecks that lie in waters that are a source of drinking water, threaten the environment, or obstruct navigation. I think that would have made the motion a lot stronger. Unfortunately, it was not passed, but again, we will have time to revisit this issue, hopefully by next year, with Bill C-219.

The problem at the heart of this issue has always been that we live in a land of jurisdictions, as every MP knows. Not only do we have three federal agencies that are responsible for this, Environment Canada, Transport Canada, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but we also have conflict with the province, and sometimes with municipalities, first nations' territories, and even port authorities. I have seen issues in my own riding where there has been just a bunch of finger pointing. We just go around in circles. That is why taking action at the federal level and showing true leadership is so urgently needed.

We absolutely need to pass this motion, but more importantly, we need to compare what the Liberal government is prepared to do, when it comes to real legislation on this matter and their votes at the time, with what they did in the past.

We need to create more recycling facilities and support more salvage businesses. We certainly cannot, as my friend, the member for Courtenay—Alberni said, do this with a ship-by-ship approach. It is an urgent problem. If we do not deal with it immediately with concrete action, we are going to be affecting first nations' traditional waters. We will have more oil and sewage spills. Sensitive ecosystems will be affected as well as migratory bird and fish habitat. Of course, it will also affect tourism, which is so important to communities like mine. We get so many American tourists, and the last thing they want to see is an abandoned vessel that has been left on the beach or is listing off to one side.

If we do not take action, municipalities are going to continue to bear the burden.

The main issue with the motion is that it would be non-binding on the government. We hope that will change with a vote on Bill C-219 at a later point.

I would like to thank my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets for bringing forward this important motion. She certainly has my support on it.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to rise to speak on Motion No. 40 regarding abandoned and derelict vessels, which is a very important issue in my riding of Courtenay—Alberni.

I want to thank the member for South Shore—St. Margarets for bringing this motion to the House. I have had the chance to work with her and her staff on this issue. In fact, I have been to her riding and have seen derelict vessels first-hand. My children's grandparents live in her riding, and she knows them very well. We have something in common, which is a Canadian issue and a coastal issue.

I stand in support of this motion, but I feel there is a need for actual legislation on this issue. I want to make that clear at the beginning. Bills have been introduced in the House, in this and previous Parliaments, calling for legislation on derelict vessels. My colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith has introduced a bill that would strengthen the requirements of the Canada Shipping Act to make the Coast Guard the responsible authority for abandoned and derelict vessels. In the last Parliament, Bill C-638 was introduced by the former MP for Nanaimo—Cowichan, Jean Crowder, and it was defeated in the House. Both of the bills proposed creative solutions to deal with abandoned and derelict vessels in a concrete way.

I want to talk about how we got here and maybe about a bit of the history. I have something in common with my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets. We are coastal people and come from fishing communities, where people rely on fish for their sustenance and way of life. For many years, fishing was an occupation that kept coastal communities afloat. It fed families and was a way of life. Over time, through the mismanagement of resources, lack of investments in science and boots on the ground, there was overfishing and lack of leadership. We saw the decline of Atlantic cod, Atlantic salmon, and Pacific salmon. We have seen a 25-year decline in Chinook, and the lowest return of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River this year.

This led to a buyback program over the last few decades on the British Columbia coast, and I will speak specifically about British Columbia on this issue now. Basically, fishermen got pennies on the dollar for their licences, and their boats were deemed worthless. At one time, boats could be bought for $500 or $1,000. Most fishermen were not able to take care of their boats. They did not have a lot of money from the buyback and could not maintain their boats. Also, at the same time, Canada was divesting docks through Transport Canada and there were increased costs for the moorage of boats. A lot of boats were being moored offshore, so to speak. Due to many of the boats not being taken care of, there has been a huge decline in the maintenance of ships.

We are in a crisis situation. Our boats are getting older and older. It is an aging fleet. People are not taking care of them, and now they are sinking. Over the last 15 years, it has become a huge problem. There is not one coastal community or municipality that does not have derelict boats that are sinking. It has become a huge problem.

Also, in British Columbia, in particular, housing is a huge issue, and real estate prices have gone through the roof. A lot of people are actually moving onto boats for short-term and long-term accommodation. Some do it as a way of life, but a lot of people are buying boats and living on them. The boats of fishermen who have passed on are sitting in the harbour and no one knows who owns them, or the people who have bought boats and are living on them temporarily move on and leave them. No one is painting the bottoms of the boats or maintaining them, and they are leaking.

The ocean is very important for tourism, the economy, the health of communities, the environment, and the ecosystems that we rely on. It affects coastal people's self-worth. When a boat goes down, people are confused about whose responsibility it is.

If it is a navigation issue or a safety issue, it is Transport Canada. If it is going to impact our fishing industry, it is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. If it is an environmental issue, it is the Department of Environment. If it ends up on the land, on the foreshore, then it is the Province of British Columbia. First nations, local communities, are desperate for some leadership on these issues.

I will talk a little about what is happening in my community of Courtenay—Alberni. Just six months ago, we had a call about three boats that had sunk in Deep Bay. They were tied to a flotilla of derelict boats. When the divers went down to see if any of the three boats would have an impact on the local environment, there were two other boats down there that they did not even know about. There were five boats sitting on the bottom of the ocean, and this is not uncommon where I live.

They were tied to a boat that was listing, the Silver King, a 200-ton boat that had bunker fuel in it. I went out on a boat with director Bill Veenhof, from the Regional District of Nanaimo; Michael Recalma, from the Qualicum First Nation; and Vancouver Island Deep Bay marine institution staff; as well as a local business owner who employs 60 people.

Deep Bay is a small community on Vancouver Island. Baynes Sound, where it is located, provides 50% of the shellfish in British Columbia. If the Silver King went down, immediately the businesses and the research facility would have been shut down for a minimum of one year. The impact is significant to the local economy, the environment, and the community there.

We were grateful, and I want to thank the government for taking action. For 10 years, we have been trying to get rid of the Silver King. I want to thank the government for removing it. The Silver King was removed, and then we identified that the Sir Wilfrid Laurier, another boat, was sinking. It took a long time, but the government came along and helped us remove that boat too.

We cannot do this on a boat-by-boat approach. We know that that is not working. In fact, right now there is a boat, the Bluebird IV, which is submerged in water, but because it is not a navigation hazard or a hazard to the environment, no one is taking responsibility for it.

We know that we have to do better at creating a plan. I always try to tell people on land to imagine an analogy. There are a bunch of dead vehicles, but they are not on the Trans-Canada Highway, so they are not Canada's problem. They are not on regional district land, so they are not the regional district's problem or the province's problem. What if no one would take responsibility? They are not leaking oil, but are rusty, and are not having on the impact on the environment, so who cares?

We know what will happen. Eventually, they will be an environmental problem. They are going to bring down the self-esteem of the community. We need to do better than that.

I have outlined some of the concerns around that, and the problems we have had. We know that Transport Canada did an inventory of vessels in 2014 and found there were 600 vessels in Canada that pose a threat. There were 245 in British Columbia that are deemed a risk. More than 59% of vessels on the Canadian Register of Vessels are more than 30 years old.

I think about how we are going to go forward and how important this is. We live in a beautiful place. As coastal people, we rely on our ecosystems. When I go to communities in my riding and I see a mast sticking out of the water, or I see a boat that is half full of water, I think about the self-esteem of the community. I know that devalues communities. I think about the children. I think about how children feel when they see boats sinking or sitting on the shore, with no one cleaning them up. They feel that nobody cares and that Ottawa is pretty far away.

It is time for action, and I will support this motion. I hope the government will adopt my colleague's bill. Let us take some action to protect the environment, protect our economy, create safer oceans, and bring back our pride as coastal people, as Canadians. Let us do the right thing.

The Environment

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr Speaker, once again I rise to draw attention to the failings of the Conservatives when it comes to the west coast water protection.

When I first began working on water issues in the late 1980s, as the executive director of the Pacific Peoples' Partnership, one of our concerns was the rapidly growing great Pacific garbage patch, which at that time was as big as Vancouver Island and is now a monster of plastic garbage as large as British Columbia.

I was disappointed when the Conservatives reneged on their vote to ban the plastic microbeads that are so rapidly accumulating in our local waters. Residents in my riding, like those involved with the Peninsula Streams Society, are far ahead of governments when it comes to working to protect and restore water quality and fish habitat.

That is why I introduced legislation to support local volunteers by restoring federal environmental protection for the Goldstream, Colquitz, and Sooke Rivers.

I am also disappointed that the Conservatives decided not to support NDP Bill C-638 to make the Coast Guard responsible for derelict vessels and for tracking down the owners to make them pay removal and cleanup costs.

We must act now to protect our water, fresh and salt, if not for the fish, if not for the whales, then, ultimately, for ourselves and our fate on this planet.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present.

The first petition is on Bill C-638, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act. The petitioners outline that derelict and abandoned vessels pose an environmental risk and a navigation hazard, and that regulations must be made to establish measures to be taken for the removal, disposition or destruction by the appropriate authority.

The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to support Bill C-638, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act.