Mr. Marchand:

Mr. Speaker, if it will make the hon. member feel any better, now that the reorganization legislation is going through we in my department are examining all the legislative authority we have. At some point we will bring forward an omnibus bill which will address some of the deficiencies located in some of the legislation we have at our disposal.

I repeat that I do not want to put myself into the position of being a pollution czar, having all regulatory authority in this country to handle every situation. Certainly there must be regulatory authority left with the Department of Transport, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and other governments. We will have in my department the capacity to make sure that the environmental legislation brought forward through the various departments is adequate and meets the requirements we have as an environment department.

Mr. Marchand:

Mr. Speaker, I am checking on the validity of those press reports. It is my understanding that all appropriate arrangements have been made for the stern once it arrives at Port Hawkesbury. I think my colleague, the Minister of Transport, explained very clearly, in an answer he gave earlier to the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East, why it took six days. Those six days were not all lost by doing nothing. It took some time for both the stern and the bow sections to be in a position which would allow a decision to be made.

If the hon. member will recall, the weather conditions were absolutely awful in the whole area and a lot of danger was involved. If the decision had been taken to tow the vessel into deep water, they would have been bucking severe weather conditions. There is a possibility it could not have been done, two lines could have broken, and so on. So the decision was made that the best possible solution was to attach tugs to both the stern and the bow sections and try to nurse them along in the best way possible until a decision was made. Now a decision has been made and we are just waiting for the fog to clear at Chedabucto Bay so that the stern can be brought safely into Port Hawkesbury.

Mr. Marchand:

I do not think there was really any serious delay. As far as the advice being given by my officials is concerned, it had nothing to do with the legalities: these were being negotiated by Transport Canada. The advice that my officials gave was based on environmental grounds and we agreed finally with the decision, which was agreed to by all parties concerned, that the safest thing to do environmentally was to go into Port Hawkesbury.

I would say to the hon. member that there has been some oil-stained ice observed in the vicinity, or north of the entrance to Chedabucto Bay. It is oil-stained floe ice which we feel came into that area from the original site where the tanker Kurdistan broke up. We do not have a complete evaluation of it yet, but since we found it yesterday there have been a number of surveillance flights over it. To the best of our knowledge, there is really no danger at this point. This is not a slick; the officials are calling it oil-stained ice. There is no environmental danger observed. But we hope we will be able to get people on site and not just rely on aerial observations. We will be able to bring people on site today to observe exactly the condition of these oil stains, and if any clean-up action has to

be taken, we have plans and equipment and it will be taken once we have made the evaluation.

Hon. Len Marehand (Minister of State (Environment)):

Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member is getting indignant about the thing.

Mr. Marehand:

As long as I am satisfied-