MP says not enough being done to deal with abandoned vessels on Canada’s coasts
HALIFAX — A British Columbia MP is pressing Ottawa to do more to deal with the hundreds of abandoned vessels that blight Canada’s coasts and harbours, despite a new federal program announced last month.
New Democrat Sheila Malcolmson brought her campaign to Nova Scotia on Tuesday, where money and years of effort have been spent dealing with such high-profile cases as the MV Miner in Cape Breton and the MV Farley Mowat in Shelburne.
Malcolmson said that as things stand, it appears abandoned vessels will still largely remain a problem that is often left to municipal and provincial governments.
“We have a real legal hole in Canada,” she said. “Other countries and other states have fixed the abandoned vessel problem, but this is costing coastal communities on all three coasts big time.”