Mr. Peter Julian (Burnaby—New Westminster, NDP): Mr. Speaker, for three years the Conservatives have known about inadequate equipment for oil spills and have done nothing.
Our Coast Guard does not have the capacity to cleanup even a single supertanker spill. Yet, Conservatives want British Columbians to accept a massive increase in tanker traffic. “Just trust us�, clearly is not good enough.
Why has the minister failed to act when we have such a shoddy oil response capacity and why is he forcing British Columbians to pay the huge price when things go wrong?
Hon. Keith Ashfield (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, CPC): Mr. Speaker, industry is the first responder to its own oil spills under the polluter pay principle. The Coast Guard, of course, is the lead agency for ensuring appropriate response to ship-sourced spills in Canadian waters.
On March 18, 2013, the government announced the world-class tanker safety initiative that included an investment in the incident command system for the Coast Guard. This responds directly to the recommendations from the 2010 CESD audit.
NDP Critic for Canadian Heritage Peter Julian issued the following statement:
"It has come to our attention that a consultant for a federally funded anti-racism project has a disturbing track record of spewing hate speech online against Jewish and francophone communities. This is completely unacceptable. We call on the Minister of Heritage to take drastic action and terminate his contract.
NDP Heritage Critic Peter Julian issued the following statement:
“Today’s announcement by Hockey Canada is another attempt to delay the important and urgent work to deal with the toxic culture in this organization. While a former Supreme Court Justice is a credible appointment to conduct the review into Hockey Canada, this won’t be the first time the organization undergoes this process.
NDP critic for Canadian Heritage, Peter Julian, made the following statement:
“Canadians are horrified by the incidents of sexual assault and by what they’re hearing from Hockey Canada. They are left with many questions about how this toxic culture is allowed to persist in our sports organizations and what the government is actually doing to ensure this doesn’t happen again.