Fisheries Committee on April 16th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

I want to welcome everybody here.

My name is Fabian Manning. I am the member of Parliament for the Avalon riding in Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm also the chair of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

Going a little bit outside the norm here today, we'll start with the Mayor of Georgetown, Peter Llewellyn, who brings some greetings and welcomes us to the beautiful town of Georgetown.

I would just advise our witnesses that interpretation is available. You may need it later. You may not need it right now. Sometimes you need interpretation from us Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, but island to island, we get along pretty well.

Mr. Llewellyn.

[Peter Llewellyn, Mayor of Georgetown]

Thank you, sir.

Members of Parliament, committee members, staff, and presenters, it is my honour to welcome you to Georgetown. I want to tell you a little bit about Georgetown, because I know that for many of you it's your first visit here.

Don't let appearances fool you. A lot of times when people come into Georgetown they miss the pizza parlours and the McDonald's--and the Tim Hortons, of course, which we all miss--and make a lot of assumptions about our little community here. I'd like to tell you that we have a thriving fishing and aquaculture industry that operates year-round. We live right on the water, so our boats are operating here all winter. We're an ice-free port.

The other thing about this community is that over 10% of the total manufactured goods coming off Prince Edward Island come through this small port, and are actually manufactured here. We manufacture deep-sea tugs for shipment all over the world. We have a seafood plant.

Also, our history as a port goes back to Confederation. We were the actual connection to the mainland when Canada was formed. It came from Georgetown to Pictou.

We have Atlantic Canada's only underwater welding college, which is just up the road here. Students come from all over the world. Again, that's tied directly to our ports. They use the wharf facilities here to do their training.

We have more jobs in Georgetown than we actually have people. Over 80% of the jobs are tied directly to our port. It is one of the most important industries in Georgetown, or actually in Kings County, which is right here.

One of the things we've had since the addition of the Confederation Bridge has been a direct connection to the mainland. As your chair said, we're both islands, but ours has a little better and more consistent connection than Newfoundland. I lived for 13 years in Newfoundland.

Actually, one thing we see for Georgetown is a potential sea connection to Newfoundland, and making a distribution point here in Georgetown. We'll be talking to some of the Newfoundland members later on today, I hope, about that.

We'd like to see Georgetown expand. It has repair facilities for coast guard. It has facilities for research here. So it has a lot of potential.

In closing, the harbour facilities in Georgetown make up one of the economic engines in P.E.I. We continue to grow and expand in a number of areas, all of them tied to our harbour facilities--underwater welding college, shipbuilding, aquaculture and fishing, recreation and tourism. We really do need this committee's help to make sure that this area of Prince Edward Island continues to grow through its ports. It is our connection to history, and it is also one of the biggest economic engines in Kings County--right here in Georgetown.

Again, welcome to Georgetown. Please don't leave here without taking a little drive around. And I do have a craft shop down on Water Street.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

We're certainly delighted to be here in Georgetown this morning. And yes, we're still disconnected, to some extent, from the rest of Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador--Newfoundland anyway. Many days we like that, to be honest with you.

I live in the small fishing community of St. Bride's, on the southern tip of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. It's a community of less than 500 people, so I'm very comfortable in small communities.

Welcome to our witnesses. As I stated earlier, we are the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans of the Parliament of Canada. Last fall we began a study into the small craft harbours program of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Needless to say, it's a very important program for many of the ridings represented by the members that you see around the table here.

In my own particular riding, I have 68 harbour authorities. It is by far the busiest file in my office. We do a tremendous amount of work with fishermen and harbour authorities and the communities at large.

The purpose of our study is to enhance that program in whatever way, shape, or form we can and to present a report to Parliament, to the House of Commons, to give the minister strength and some foundation to go forward and push for more funding for the program, and also to look at the different aspects of the harbour authorities themselves. As we understand, they're made up of volunteers, who do a lot of work above and beyond to ensure that the harbours are safe and that they're able to be used. If there are any concerns that you want to express as members of harbour authorities in relation to training, better access to funding, and so on, we'd also like to hear that.

I'd ask you to feel very comfortable. Basically we ask you to make some opening comments, let us know who you are and who you represent, and then we open up the floor for questions from around the table in more or less of an interaction, what I like to call a conversation, because from straight-talk conversation we can learn. We go to very few places that we don't learn something new, and all of that will become part of our report at the end of the day.

We did produce an interim report, which was presented to Parliament prior to Christmas to assist the minister at that time and certainly to put our feelings and our thoughts forward. We hope to present the final report before the summer recess break, or an election, whichever one comes first. But the fact is that we are doing this ongoing study now to prepare for a study to be presented before the summer recess.

With that, I once again want to welcome you all here. I think we had decided that Mr. Jenkins was going to go first. Which Mr. Jenkins, that's up to you guys.

Seriously, Mr. Bobby Jenkins, I believe, is going to start.

Once again, welcome everybody.

[Bobby Jenkins, Chair, Annandale Harbour Authority]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On behalf of the Annandale fishermen, I'd first like to offer our condolences to the families in the Maggies who lost their loved ones there a couple of weeks ago. I'd like to do that first.

I have a brief here that's been prepared for us by the Annandale fishermen, so with your permission I'll go through that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

You can certainly go ahead, Mr. Jenkins.

We just came from two hearings in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we have the interpreter here who's interpreting what we say for our colleagues from Quebec. Sometimes we speak a little bit too fast, so if you can bring her down to about 50 kilometres, we'd appreciate it. In Newfoundland we exceeded the speed limit many times, and they asked us to slow down, because the interpretation is going on at the same time that you speak. Just remember that.

[Bobby Jenkins]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, welcome to P.E.I. I hope your visit here will allow you to appreciate the scope of the problems we face.

Second, thank you for the opportunity to appear before your group and for the opportunity to share with you the challenges we face, both from a harbour infrastructure point of view and from our community.

With the financial restrictions experienced by the federal government in the 1990s, a significant change in harbour management and maintenance was introduced. Fishermen at first were skeptical, but eventually were either urged or forced to enter into a port authority system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.

I'd like to advise our committee that three different groups will be presenting to us, so we are going to have three one-hour sessions. That's our plan. Therefore, we will do one round of questions for each group. That is just to advise you of that.

Mr. MacAulay, I believe you would like to start off, since we are in your neck of the woods.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much, my honourable Mr. Chair.

It's a pleasure to have the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans here in Georgetown, Price Edward Island, to learn a little bit about the needs. Sometimes when you're far removed from these things and removed from the people who actually take their lives in their hands if funds are not spent appropriately...and if the funds are not spent appropriately we can have disasters, as the presenter had indicated.

What I hope we can do with this and other groups across Quebec and eastern Canada is bring more pressure on the government to put more funding.

[Gregory Norton, Chair, Annandale Harbour Authority]

I'm kind of the bodyguard.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Lawrence MacAulay]

I'm certainly pleased to have you here, because you've been involved in the fisheries all your lives and you understand what it's all about; you understand what is at stake and what you put into it.

You mentioned a number of things, but in ten years' time you've mentioned what you might see if things are not done appropriately. What I mean by appropriately is that right now we spend less than $100 million in the nation on wharf repair. Figures there say it should be $500 million to $600 million to put them back in shape. That's a large figure, but it would put the infrastructure back in place, and we know that can't happen all at once; it will not. We need it, because the mechanism probably wouldn't be in place to spend the money properly.

What I'd like you to expand on, gentlemen, is what you think needs to be done--we know we need the dollars--in order to put the wharves where they should be, or as close to where they should be, in ten years' time, as Bobby mentioned. He's very concerned about what will be in ten years' time. If we don't do what's right, what will we have in ten years' time?

[Bobby Jenkins]

Thank you very much, Lawrence.

One of the things I mentioned in our brief is to do an in-depth look at all the harbours. That has to be done right away. Some harbours are suffering worse than others. There are very few harbours that we know of that don't need some kind of major repair. Where you guys want to start on that, I don't know, but you're going to have to start looking at each harbour individually. The big things have to start being looked after. The mandate has gone on long enough. Some of these harbours need infrastructure done right away.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

A band-aid in some cases, from my involvement with you and other fishermen, has been more or less a waste of money--just to patch. Sometimes it's washed away, or sometimes when the job is done it has to be taken out in order to do the job properly. If you'd like to expand on that a bit....

[Bobby Jenkins]

You're absolutely right, Lawrence.

Gregory has been instrumental in securing money for our harbour, and I have too, on occasion. We've fought for pretty well everything we've got. If it hadn't been for you, as I mentioned, with your interventions down through the years, a lot of the time we wouldn't have got it.

We don't take it lightly when we go looking for money. It's not cosmetic. We need it. Most fishermen, when they go looking for money, are not looking for cosmetics. They're looking for money to fix that facility. It has to be done. Annandale right now is looking at an east wall that has to be repaired, and it's going to cost a lot of money.

I'll turn it over to Gregory; he can give you a better idea because he talked to some of the engineers on it. It's not a band-aid.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

What I'd like Gregory to expand on, too, along with the funding we need, is how big the bill will be as we go down the road. I remember the Savage Harbour wharf. When I visited it the first time politically, about $150,000 to $200,000 would have fixed it. When we repaired it, it cost us close to $3 million.

Is that where you're going with your harbour?

[Gregory Norton]

Yes. What we have done in the past, to try to keep the harbour where it's at, is.... The Seven Mile Road, which is the road just up a little piece here, was covered in cement. I made a deal with the provincial government to get the material from it. Instead of having to replace our wing, what we've done is put the cement on the outside to try to hold the wood so it won't fall out.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Then as you say, when that figure goes from perhaps $100,000 to $500,000, the first thing you know, you're into a number of millions of dollars.

I'd like you to comment also on your harbour authority. I was around when the harbour authorities were put in place and I probably was not the biggest supporter of the move, but things did happen. I think we probably have to agree it was a good thing in the end, because it put fishermen in.... It's a good thing in the end if every party does what they're supposed to do. My concern, and I'm sure it's yours too, is that you enter the deal to have harbour authority with the promise that you would have the proper funding. Now, you knew you wouldn't have the proper funding in a day or two, or in the first year.

I would like you to comment on how the harbour authority is performing--you're doing it for nothing, you're volunteers when you do this--and on the problem with acquiring the funding in order to make sure your ends are met.

[Gregory Norton]

There's a document, which is probably longer than anything you guys have ever seen, that we have to fill out in order to try to convince the small craft harbours people that it's important enough--or a safety reason. If it's not safety, they won't even consider it. That's the first thing.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Greg--not to interrupt you--we can be annoyed with small craft harbours directorate, of course, but there are people above small craft harbours who make the decision as to what dollars are available in order to do the repair. What I'm trying to do is make sure we get into the skulls of the people who really make the decisions that more funding is required. I've worked with small craft harbours directorate for almost 20 years, and they can't do something if they don't have the funds to do it.

[Gregory Norton]

Yes.

What's going on right now, though, is that basically the fishermen are being pitted against each other. If I'm fishing at Annandale and I have to go to North Lake to fish for the summer, because maybe the tuna's up there, I have to pay the full annual fee to tie up at that harbour. It's not the fishermen's fault, because they're trying to gather enough money to keep their harbour together. So every time you move from harbour to harbour, you have to pay the full fee there to tie up every year. It's between $400 and $500 a year in each harbour that you tie up in. So basically, if you're there a month, you have to pay a full year's fee. You've already paid back at your own port, so before the year is over, you could have paid as much at $2,000 to different harbours where you've tied up.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Greg, how long would you be in a port before you would have to pay the fee?

[Gregory Norton]

Upon arrival, you could be approached by somebody who says you have to pay the fee.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's not a month; it could be overnight, and if you are fishing somewhere else you pay the fee again. We heard this in Newfoundland, that they had to go to a number of different areas, and with that they had to pay a number of different fees.

[Gregory Norton]

That's right. And basically all we're trying to do, off our own backs, is survive enough to drag out more of our own money to try to keep the harbours going, and that shouldn't be the case. The small craft harbours program should have the structure and funding in place. The fishermen shouldn't have to be paying $2,000 a year in tie-up fees. You should have to pay at your own harbour, and for P.E.I. that should be enough. You should only have to pay one yearly fee, not four or five.

It's because of the way the small craft harbours program is set up. That's the reason it's killing us too. And it's only a band-aid. The money they get from us isn't very much, but it helps a bit, I suppose.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

I know very well the chairman is about to cut me off, so I will pass.