Evidence of meeting #28 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 wharf.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Thank you, Mr. Arseneau, and thank you, Mr. Blais.
Mr. Stoffer, you have four minutes.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Folks, in other jurisdictions we've been, we have seen different fee structures at different harbour authorities. Some charge a berthing fee. Some charge a transient fee. Some charge an off-loading fee.
Very quickly, when fish is off-loaded at your docks, in your harbours, do you charge an off-loading fee? We heard in Newfoundland that it can be up to a quarter of a cent a pound. That money goes directly into the harbour authority. Do you do that here? Do you have an off-loading fee?
9:55 a.m.
Administration portuaire de Shippagan
Yes. Our harbour authority leases 26 off-loading sites to buyers. There are charges involved. A site brings in money.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
What do you charge for an off-loading fee, sir? If you have $100 million worth of product coming in at a quarter of a cent a pound, that's pretty good money going into the harbour authority.
9:55 a.m.
Administration portuaire de Shippagan
The mission of the harbour authorities is to manage facilities at the best possible cost for the users. We forecast how much money we need to set aside to make minor repairs, which enables us to know how much we should be billing users.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
But my question is how much do you charge for off-loading? Is it so much a pound? Or do you charge at all?
In other words, when fish comes in and it's off-loaded from a boat, do you charge the fisherman or the buyer for that off-loading?
9:55 a.m.
Administration portuaire de Shippagan
We invoice the buyer. That may cost approximately $1,300 per off-loading site.
9:55 a.m.
Administration portuaire de Pointe-Verte
You have to differentiate between the big wharves and the small ones. If our authority were to demand a certain amount of money to offload the fish, it would be completely ridiculous. We have 25 fishers. We weigh the lobster and the herring. They have a fleet of vessels which offload quite sizeable quantities of fish and crustaceans.
9:55 a.m.
Secretary-Treasurer, Stonehaven Harbour Authority
We actually have a fee schedule. We have a list of the traditional Stonehaven fishers, those who have fished there forever, since the implementation of the harbour authority. They pay $12 a foot per year. We also have a separate amount for transient boats. This would include people who off-load herring or crab or whatever. If they land in Stonehaven and unload in Stonehaven, they would pay per day, per week, or per month, on that basis.
So we have a very clear schedule. We also have fee amounts that the fish buyers need to provide to us on an annual basis. That goes for anyone else who uses the wharf, whether it's for recreational facilities or whatever. We have different amounts.
9:55 a.m.
Administration portuaire de Pointe-Verte
We have the same kind of docking fees in Pointe-Verte. We don't charge per pound. You were asking how much per pound, but none of us in a small harbour would--
9:55 a.m.
Secretary-Treasurer, Stonehaven Harbour Authority
And we don't charge per pound either. The boat would be there as a transient, in and out, and they'd be charged for that.
9:55 a.m.
Secretary, Administration portuaire du Quai de Tracadie
We used to do that, but we let it go because it's administration. The fact of the matter is that there comes a time when we as volunteers just don't have the time. But we also we have to be careful; we have a small wharf, a small community. There's no double-dipping there. There's only so much the fishermen can handle there. We have to be careful with that.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
April 18th, 2008 / 9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I certainly appreciate what I have heard so far today. We always hear something new everywhere we stop, and I've heard certainly some new information here.
I have an open-ended question. Feel free to answer if you want, and if you don't want to, that's fine as well.
Basically, the way I see it, you have potentially some opportunities for change in the future. If you're thinking long term, what would you like to see happen with regard to the funding formula for small craft harbours? Obviously there's the status quo.
We could continue with the status quo, which sees the funds being competed for, and essentially we have harbour authorities that are strained, basically playing the game or begging for money to try to keep their harbours, wharves, breakwaters, and whatever they're dredging up to par.
That's one option, I guess, looking forward. We could continue with the status quo and continue to add more money. There was $20 million a year already added to the small craft harbours budget, and we've added another $10 million over the next two years for part of the divestiture program. So we're continuing to add money, but we're not really changing the status quo as far as how the actual program is administered is concerned.
One option could be a regional harbour manager paid for by DFO. There would be a group of five or ten harbours, or whatever, in a region, and some of that money would actually pay for business management. Maybe there would be enough money to pay for a repair person or whatever. The harbour authorities could pool the money they get and put that money with some from DFO to help with that side of it. Or perhaps there's some new way of looking at this, an outside-of-the-box type of thing, a new funding formula.
For example, in the municipality I'm from, if they had a $20 million project they wanted to do, they would use a funding formula and a debenture to borrow over 50 years. They would generate enough revenue to pay for the borrowing over a 50-year period at a fixed interest rate, or whatever the case might be. That's the way it's structured or set up. It allows the municipality to leverage the money that they get today well into the future in order to make repairs that they need today.
I'm not saying that's what it has to look like, but I'm just giving that as an example. I'm just wondering if there is some way that we could do this better and get better value for money. Right now the annual budget--and it has fluctuated--is around $100 million a year. If you were to take a look at that and divide it on a per harbour basis, obviously some of it would go for administration, but $90 million divided by 750 core harbours across Canada is $120,000 each per year. If you're looking at it from that perspective, there has to be a better way of doing this.
So if somebody would like to throw in a comment, I'd like to hear it.
10 a.m.
Administration portuaire de Pointe-Verte
If you gave each of us $120,000 a year, I would be really glad to get it, because for us $100,000 would mean the refacing of the inside of the wharf in the first year. In the second year we'd go with half of the dredging. In the third year we'd go with the wall inside of the wharf. We would manage that money easily.
If that's the way, it's a really good way, because we don't see any money coming in anyway.
10 a.m.
Secretary, Administration portuaire du Quai de Tracadie
We can let go of the bunching of the wharves, because we have a priest doing five churches and it doesn't work.
Give us some money for administration. Start with that, depending on the size of the harbour facilities, and then we can think of something else. Then we can have an administrator filling out the forms for APECA and anything else they can think of. But until then--
10 a.m.
Vice President, Administration portuaire du Quai de Tracadie
To come back to what you were saying—
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Go ahead very quickly, Mr. LeBreton. We need to get to our next witnesses.
10 a.m.
Vice President, Administration portuaire du Quai de Tracadie
I'd like to come back to what you were saying about giving an equal share of the $120,000 to each of the sea ports. As Mr. Arseneau said, $120,000 would suit small craft harbours like ours, but I'm sure that for Mr. Mallet, $120,000—
10 a.m.
Vice President, Administration portuaire du Quai de Tracadie
Exactly. That's what you need and it's understandable. That's the difference.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
The formula I put out there was a very simple formula, and there would be a more complicated formula, but it's the idea.
10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
I'm sorry, but we have no choice. We need to get to our next witnesses.
I thank you for your presentation this morning. It's been interesting. We're going to break for five minutes to prepare for our next witnesses.
Thank you.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Welcome back, colleagues.
Once again, I want to welcome our witnesses.
We are the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, for those who may not have been around for the first round. We represent the four different political parties in the House of Commons.
Last fall we began a process of doing a study into the small craft harbours program for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We presented an interim report to the House of Commons prior to the Christmas break, and we are in the process now of concluding our study and hopefully will be presenting a full report to the House of Commons before the summer break.
Part of that study last fall included hearing from people within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the regional directors of small craft harbours, the national advisory board of small craft harbours, and several other groups and organizations.
Our study continues this week. We are travelling to the four Atlantic provinces, and to Quebec this afternoon, to hear from you people who are on the ground, or on the wharf as we say, with regard to the harbour authorities themselves, the volunteers themselves.
Our process includes trying to create a foundation for the minister to take to his cabinet colleagues and others to enhance the financial side of the small craft harbours program, but also to find out from you about any concerns you have as you volunteer your time and effort in your communities, and about any assistance that harbour authorities themselves could have from the government.
We allow a few minutes for each presenter to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about their operation. Then we open the floor up for questions. We operate on time limits here; otherwise we would end up going over our time. We ask that you take that into consideration while you're speaking.
As I said, our report will hopefully be concluded by the summer break. If, after today, you feel that you haven't had the opportunity to say everything you wanted to say, feel free to forward that to the committee, and we will include that as part of our discussions when we finalize our report.
Most of the members around the table represent rural ridings in Canada and are very familiar with the small craft harbours program and with harbour authorities themselves. I represent a rural riding in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I have 68 harbour authorities in my riding. That just gives you an example, and most members are the same. We are quite familiar with it, but at the same time, we have not made a stop yet where we have not learned something new.
We look forward to hearing from you this morning as you raise the issues and concerns that you may have.
I believe Mr. Landry will begin. The floor is yours, Mr. Landry.