Thank you. Good afternoon.

Today I'm offering information, questions and, perhaps, criticism of the current abandoned vessel practices. I have direct experience with the ship, the Cormorant, which began back in 2002.

The Canadian government disposed of the 240-foot former Canadian navy vessel and sold it to an American company. The ship was brought to the port for repair. Their financial difficulties caused the port to arrest and resell the vessel to a new American company in 2010. By 2013, we had the same problem back again. The ship was broken into at night in March 2015 and intentionally scuttled alongside the wharf. The Canadian Coast Guard intervened, raised the boat and removed the pollutants. The Canadian Coast Guard on-site manager, Mr. Seward Benoit, showed me the cause of the sinking and confirmed it was an intentional and a criminal event.

In 2016, the ship-source oil pollution fund initiated litigation on a subrogated claim for $534,000. Their broad-brush approach named the port and all the various American owners that could be identified. The port also made a court application to take some management control and have it removed. The Canadian government, inexplicably, opposed this application. This demonstrated to me that there was something amiss about the whole situation. The port, its volunteers and the entire town of Bridgewater were being held hostage by Canada's opposition to dispose of the vessel. Concurrently, the ship-source oil pollution fund pursued a course of focusing on ownership. In 2018 a summary trial was held with no result, because the court could not decide on ownership.

The port applied again to remove the Cormorant ship in the summer of 2019, which Canada again opposed. Their position was that the boat posed no threat to the environment. Coast Guard employees Stephan Bournais, Keith Laidlaw and David Yard previously stated the vessel was not leaking, the pollutants had been removed and the ship was stable. The port was asked to support a government survey in July 2019.

As our last motion hearing for management control allowing for the disposal was opposed by Canada, the court prothonotary suggested that an out-of-court solution might be more timely. The port and Canada agreed that the port would take control and title of the ship—only for that agreement—and dispose of it, and any funds collected by the ship's sale would go to a guaranteed payment of $400,000 within two years. Over the two months needed to get court ratification, one hurricane and the completion of unshared draft survey reports, a consent judgment was agreed upon. Within hours the Coast Guard then came back and seized the vessel, claiming it was a grave and immediate threat of pollution. The Coast Guard has withheld all documents required for discovery purposes, including ministerial decisions and financial disclosure.

These thoughts I'll leave with you. The vessel had pollutants removed in 2015, and the costs for doing so were reimbursed to the Coast Guard. Then, there were, all of a sudden, contaminants in 2019, and we're still asking, “From where?” The ship was being held in Bridgewater by actions of the ship-source oil pollution organization, holding the community hostage and incurring a considerable cost. We don't know why.

The ship-source oil pollution fund reports to Parliament through the Minister of Transport, and the Canadian Coast Guard reports to Parliament through the Minister of Fisheries. Are they all still considered the Crown, one Crown? If subrogation laws relate to these same two entities, are they expected to speak in one voice, co-operate fully and honour any legal obligations made?

Were survey reports produced, even as drafts? Were they withheld during a settlement negotiation for months, a discovery process, through a major hurricane and, even, an election, knowing the plan was to seize the vessel as soon as a deal was signed? Was the seizure made by ministerial decision, as is required? If the seizure was unlawful, the ship broken up and its contents disposed of, does it fit the definition of piracy? It is still on the books, in sections 74 and 75 of the Criminal Code.

I am pleased to answer your questions.

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