B.C. MP Jean Crowder has a sinking feeling about her bill on shipwrecks.

The Nanaimo-Cowichan representative thinks that Conservatives may blow it out of the water.

Crowder’s private member’s bill seeks to have one agency—the Canadian Coast Guard—responsible for what happens when there is an abandoned ship.

The NDP MP’s keeping her hopes afloat as the House of Commons will hold a second round of debates in April regarding Bill C-638.

“It is possible that people can put enough pressure on their MP to support the bill...to not have the bill sink like another derelict vessel,” Crowder told the Straight in a phone interview.

According to Crowder, Transport Canada will remove an abandoned vessel only if it’s impeding navigation.

If the watercraft is leaking, it becomes the responsibility of Environment Canada. “It won’t necessarily remove the vessel but if they’re spilling oil, they’ll deal with the environmental spill,” she said.

In these cases, the Canadian Coast Guard, which is under Fisheries and Oceans Canada, is often called in, according to her.

“That’s three separate government departments,” Crowder said. “And depending on what’s happening with the vessel will depend on knowing which department to call. And so it’s very confusing for the public, for the provincial government, for municipalities to know what to do.”

According to her, abandoned and derelict vessels pose not only navigational and environmental hazards. They are also eye sores. “You get some of these harbours, they’re tourist attractions, and you get these lumps of rusting vessels half in and half out of the water.”

In November 2012, Transport Canada released a study regarding abandoned and derelict vessels. It was a survey of data for the Pacific and Quebec regions of the department’s Navigable Waters Protection Program, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s information regarding small craft.

The survey found the following: 46 abandoned and derelict vessels in the zero to 20 feet size class, 129 in the 20 to 40 feet class, 39 in the 40 to 100 feet class, 13 in the greater than 100 feet class, and 170 that had no length data available.

When Bill C-638 was debated for the first time in the House of Commons on February 26, Crowder noted that there was a report called “Vessels of Concern Inventory” produced by Transport Canada in March 2014.

“In this report, and it only focused on British Columbia, it said that a total of 245 vessels of concern have been identified in this inventory,” Crowder said on the floor.

Her bill seeks to amend the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, by designating the Canadian Coast Guard as a receiver of wreck.

A paper released by the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations notes that it’s not always easy to address derelict vessels.

“Dealing with problem vessels and structures can be highly complex due to the mix of provincial ownership of land, federal jurisdiction over navigation and shipping and sometimes conflicting federal and provincial laws,” reads the ministry’s Dealing With Problem Vessels and Structures in B.C. Waters.

It explains that a wreck “may be treated in one of two ways: as an obstruction to navigation under the Navigation Protection Act, or as a wreck under the Receiver of Wreck provisions of the Canada Shipping Act, 2001”.

“Under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 a person who finds and takes possession of a wreck, the owner of which is unknown, is required as soon as feasible to report to the Receiver of Wreck and take actions directed by the Receiver,” the paper states. “The Receiver of Wreck is a Transport Canada official within the Navigation Protection Program.”

Ontario’s Jeff Watson was one of two Conservative MPs who stood up in the House of Commons on February 26 to say that the government does not support Crowder’s Bill C-638.

According to Hansard, Watson said that the bill “proposes to shift the liability from the owner of a vessel onto the government and therefore onto the taxpayers”.

“I do not know whether the member thinks that might not lead to people dumping their boats when they realize they are no longer responsible for doing anything responsible with them. That is a problem,” Watson said.

But according to Crowder, Conservatives have misrepresented her bill.

On the phone with the Straight, Crowder said that if the Canadian Coast Guard becomes a receiver of wreck, part of its function would be to get in touch with owners of abandoned vessels.

“Right now, people end up having to phone Transport Canada or the Coast Guard or Environment Canada,” Crowder said. “So this is an attempt to focus. And also to raise awareness around the challenges around derelict vessels, and to pressure the government into taking further steps.”

Crowder is hoping that Bill C-638 will still set sail with the support of backbench Conservatives.