Re: “$17M soil cleanup set to begin at Laurel Point Park,” Sept. 23.
Oil spills and debris from thousands of abandoned vessels pollute our waterways, threatening fisheries and tourism across Canada.
After decades of sounding the alarm on the long-standing problem of abandoned vessels, coastal communities have finally got the Trudeau government’s attention, as the announcement in Victoria on Sept. 22 shows. But the baby-steps taken don’t match the enormity of this problem for the coast.
• The federal program’s funding is a drop in the bucket compared with the scale of the problem: $1 million a year for the whole country, while getting one vessel, the Viki Lyne 2, out of Ladysmith harbour cost $1.2 million.
• Liberals are dragging out a promised inventory and risk assessment.
• Just 20 abandoned vessels will be removed this year, across Canada, under the federal Abandoned Boats Program. That includes the six announced again in Victoria. At this rate, it will take more than 40 years to deal with the backlog.
I pushed the federal government hard to close loopholes and deal with the backlog polluting our coasts. I advanced all the solutions coastal communities had proposed over a decade: fix vessel registration, pilot a turn-in program, create good green jobs by supporting local marine salvage businesses and vessel recycling, and end the jurisdictional run-around. The Union of B.C. Municipalities and countless coastal partners from across Canada championed those solutions, but they were voted down by Liberals in Parliament.
Yet coastal leaders won’t give up. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s MPs were recycling a $31,000 abandoned-vessel funding announcement Sept. 22 at Victoria’s Laurel Point, chambers of commerce from across the country were debating and endorsing the same remedies the Liberals had voted down. Nanaimo’s Chamber of Commerce got provincial association buy-in across the country for abandoned-vessel solutions to fix vessel registration, support recycling, pilot a vessel turn-in to deal with the backlog and make the coast guard the lead agency.
And by the time it got to the national chamber’s convention floor in Thunder Bay, Ont. on Sunday, the Atlantic association had got stronger changes still, all to press the feds for deeper reform.
So coastal leaders aren’t giving up, and neither am I. While thousands of abandoned vessels continue to pollute, coastal communities are left with a complicated puzzle of legislation in a maze of government departments. And if the undermined vessel registry isn’t repaired, there’s no way to mail a ticket to negligent owners — “user-pay” doesn’t work if you can’t track down who owns the boat.
I will continue to challenge the Trudeau government to include the accountability and recycling fixes that coastal leaders keep asking for. It’s fantastic that abandoned vessels are now on the federal agenda, but now it’s time to truly take the load off coastal communities and protect our oceans.
Sheila Malcolmson is the NDP MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith and former Islands Trust Council chair.
