AR-News: (Canada) Canadian waters plagued by polluters: federal environment minister

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

http://www.940news.com/news/news.cfm?dir=national&file=n030533A&n=1 

at 15:50 on March 5, 2004, EST.
DENE MOORE 
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) - Ottawa will increase surveillance off the East Coast 
to improve enforcement of Canadian environmental and fisheries laws, federal 
Environment Minister David Anderson said Friday. 
But pollution from foreign ships will continue to be a problem until the 
courts start to take offshore crimes seriously, Anderson added. "In the past, the 
fines levied on people who polluted were not appropriate for the crime 
committed," he said following a speech to an environmental industry conference. 
It is estimated that 100,000 seabirds die annually from oil and bilge water 
purposefully dumped from ships traversing Canadian waters. 
In U.S. jurisdiction, those ships face crushing financial penalties, 
forfeiture of vessels and possible jail time. 
But small penalties and lax enforcement by the courts has made Canada a safe 
haven for polluters, said Tom Osborne, environment minister for Newfoundland 
and Labrador. 
MORE LATER 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040305/f5ffcdea/attachment.html