Evidence of meeting #25 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was boats.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
So if small craft harbours people say you have so many boats anchored up to your wharf, actually there are more than that, because you talked about the swordfishermen as well from the United States.
2:40 p.m.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
The swordfishermen thing was a lucrative deal we worked into. We ended up having anywhere from five to six enterprises from the New England states operating there, and most of the crews now are Newfoundlanders. One came up last year and she took the skipper and engineer and they got two Newfoundlanders to fly down and take the boat up with them, and then the rest of the crew was picked up in Bay Bulls before they started fishing. So these are Newfoundland harvesters.
A lot of them are crew members from larger longliners. When they're finished now at the last of July with the crab and shrimp, they have a berth on an American swordfish boat, and they can provide for their families now up until October, when that particular species stops.
I mean, $2.5 million to $3 million is what is normal for these boats to land in Bay Bulls, all trucked out. Businesses have been operating now unloading the boats. Groceries are bought in the community. They actually purchased $110,000 worth of lumber at the local hardware store in Witless Bay to build what I call caskets, because every swordfish has to be packed individually, or two or three in a box, and wrapped in ice. All of that is done in Bay Bulls and Witless Bay, in that area, as we're generally a community for the whole area. It is all done there and brings in major dollars for the crew members, the unloading, and for the hardware stores and businesses.
2:40 p.m.
Harbour Authority of Port de Grave
With us there is off-loading also. A lot of longliners off-load in Port de Grave that are not from Port de Grave. That's one thing, and then there's a place to winter, because we have a very safe harbour--one of the safest, I would say, on the island now. As I mentioned earlier, it's man-made, and the way it was done, it's just like going into a big pond. Back years ago you could have them on lines and you wouldn't get them to last a week. Now they can be there, since the harbour really got straightened away about 10 or 12 years ago, and you haven't had to change your lines more. Do you know what I mean? It's a really smooth, really good harbour.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
How many boats do you turn away in the course of a season? To how many would you say you just don't have the room, that you know you accommodated them last year, but this year it's a different story?
Go ahead.
2:40 p.m.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
Just for myself, I will use one example. We have our berth draw, it's called, for berths at the wharf. We have so many berths there, and you can put your name into a hat and your name comes out and you pick the berth that you like. They're two and three abreast. So far this year I've had 12 phone calls from people wanting to put in boats that I just can't fit in there, along with the ones that are already there and ones that have used it over the last number of years. We do accommodate the ones we've had.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
2:40 p.m.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
These range from 20 feet to 40 feet, depending on the size of the boat. Two years ago I had fifteen boats wanting to come to Bay Bulls for approximately two weeks from the mainland--it was a group of pleasure boaters--and I just couldn't. We got our fishermen together to see how we could move our boats around to fit these boats in. We tried everything. There was just no way we could fit these boats, so they didn't come. That would have brought money not only to the Bay Bulls area and St. John's area, but to other communities around the island.
They wanted that stopover. They were planning on coming somewhere across and staying on the Burin Peninsula, then going to St. Mary's Bay and then to the Bay Bulls area. Being so close to St. John's, that's a taking-off point then to be able to do St. John's and Avalon from, but then that was totally eliminated because we didn't have the space to do that.
Bay Bulls in particular gets 85,000 tourists a year to the bird sanctuary. Our three Liberal MPs were there last year and participated in the boat tour and everything. I was on the tour myself with them. That's the norm for what we get every year there.
2:40 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Mr. Petten, do you want to make a comment on that?
2:40 p.m.
Harbour Authority of Port de Grave
We're in the same situation. There is no way we can get enough berths at the wharf. That's impossible. We're tied up three and four abreast, and of course our boats are mostly larger fleet, 65-footers. So as I said earlier, no matter how big the wharf is, it will never be big enough to accommodate everyone. But we wouldn't mind adding on a few more wharves in the harbour. We have now several wharves within that harbour you saw this morning. There are several different finger piers sticking out. We wouldn't mind putting more there.
2:40 p.m.
Harbour Authority of Admirals Beach
In St. Mary's Bay, as I said in my presentation, on the whole bay, we have six harbour authorities. The reason is that most people use one or the other. Even people from the Placentia area come over within the same area and tie on. They land in Riverhead, on from Admirals Beach, and then they could end up landing anywhere. But there are two different ports: there's the landing port, and then we have safe harbours. Our biggest problem is that during the summer there's not enough room for everyone to tie on because all the boats are out, and in the wintertime there is no real berthage.
On December first of last year I got home from holiday. They'd had a big storm, and I had two ropes busted off the boat in Admirals Beach. It's not really a safe harbour. I harbour there because if you go to O'Donnells, what happens? They're tied two abreast, so against the westerly wind, when you leave them there, everything gets beaten up. There's only room for six at the wharf; when you go on the side, it slaps around.
In Riverhead, where I put my own boat over winter, I got stuck. I had to come back and drive her in through the sand two or three times before I got in there. I got out the other day in high tide. Most of the bigger boats can't get into Branch because of the gulf that runs back and forth.
So I think in our area, if there were landing ports and safe harbours.... The biggest problem is that we haven't got enough safe harbours to put the boats in case of storms.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Interesting.
Mr. McGrath, I think you wanted to add something.
2:45 p.m.
Harbour Authority of St. Brides
You asked how many vessels we had to turn down during the year. In St. Brides haven't come to that yet. We see no problem with 20 or 25 boats, but the weather determines all that kind of stuff. When storms come up, people realize that they have to move. If the vessels are too big and there's not enough room, people move on their own.
2:45 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm very happy to be here in Newfoundland and Labrador once again. I wish to touch upon subjects that have already been raised by my colleagues, as I share entirely their concerns and I am quite familiar with the testimonies because I represent the riding of Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
Since you are sailors, and friends of sailors, you understand thoroughly that for the Gaspé and Magdalen Islands, the wharf plays an essential role: it is the heart of the village of the community. Without this wharf, our infrastructure and future would be mortgaged.
I wish to hear your comments on some of the new points that have been raised with respect to small craft harbours. Everyone knows that there's not enough money in the program itself, and that significant amounts must be invested. In the meantime, each province and territory only gets a small share, and is unable to rise to the challenge.
I want to refer back to some of the points raised earlier, specifically relative to boats. The boats have changed, and become larger. This means that space is needed and lacking, and additional investments must be made. There's another element that should have been factored in these last years: storms that have resulted from climate change have a far greater impact than in the past. As such, if there are no breakwaters, the infrastructure or rock fill will only erode further with time.
I would like to know if you share these concerns, which have just surfaced recently, but which are becoming more and more significant.
2:45 p.m.
Harbour Authority of St. Brides
I agree with everything you said there about climate change and the boats getting so much bigger. I agree with you. I think there should be more money put into the management of the harbour authorities so that we can address those problems.
But I think we could also address something else. We're situated in the mouth of Placentia Bay. There's all this new development coming into Placentia Bay; everyone hears tell of it. St. Brides is right up on the headland. I think there's a need in some of the harbours around Placentia Bay for cleanup facilities and so on, in case there are oil spills and mishaps with all of this new development that's happening. So probably from some other association we could go looking for some funding too, for firefighting equipment and stuff like that.
All of that would make our harbour a lot better and a lot safer.
2:45 p.m.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
On the storm surge part of it, I do agree with his points. We all have large shipping areas, and oil is a big issue to all of us. We're all just waiting to see when something is going to happen, in Placentia Bay more than anywhere else, and St. Mary's Bay, because there's so much oil traffic directly through those areas.
Growing up as a fish harvester in my own community, I never thought of storm surges as being a fear. Now you watch the storm surge warning as much as you watch the weather warnings. When you see a small community with no wind or tide, and all of a sudden, on a beautiful day, in a matter of two hours there's no water left in the inner part of the harbour in an area where's there's 25 feet of water, and then in a matter of three hours the wharf is underwater--these are the things that have been happening in the last couple of years that never happened before.
Because of those surges, the small marginal wharf we replaced a couple of years back was actually built higher than the previous one that had been there before. Everything that we're doing now is going higher, because we do see the conditions are getting worse. Again, that puts the price up, but if we don't make those moves and don't put in the higher breakwaters and everything, what we have is not going to last.
2:50 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Another element that was mentioned in recent weeks and months is extremely concerning for you, who are in such need of this infrastructure. I'm talking about the negotiations of the World Trade Organization on fisheries subsidies. The negotiations are being held very far from us, but concern us all.
The preliminary text contains provisions prohibiting subsidies. These prohibitions strike me as a problem; they run the risk of further mortgaging our future. They concern prohibitions on wharf infrastructure subsidies, something we are defending today.
Firstly, I would like to know if you have been made aware of these negotiations. Are you just as worried as I am over them? How would you like to see us take action on this issue?
2:50 p.m.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
Just as a comment, the European Community talked of these as subsidies. Without subsidies, how would the agricultural industry for flowers work in the Netherlands? If they were not eliminating ground from the deltas to prevent water from building up and the tides coming in, they would not survive. It's an economic avenue that they've been using for hundreds and thousands of years to build a country where there wasn't one.
I say yes, get subsidies. There are wharves to be built. Whether it's for fish harvesting enterprises or a truck coming off the ferry in Port aux Basques to truck lumber material to the mainland, or whatever, those are there. They'll pick and choose as they want. There is infrastructure needed, and it's not only for harvesting or fishing, whatever it is, but all countries of the world use this in different avenues. When you're building a wharf in Spain or Portugal to walk down to the local café, that is an economic subsidy. It's not being built by the person who has the café there, but they are building a structure there for economic benefit to their community, and it could be a Newfoundland tourist sitting in the café.
2:50 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's a pleasure to be in your riding, and a pleasure to be once again back in Newfoundland and Labrador.
2:50 p.m.
Conservative
