Fisheries Committee on May 13th, 2008

[Marjorie Buck]

If I may add to Mr. Hyndman's comments, the focus of the MIII programming relates to our water, sewer, and streets in the area immediately north of the federal lands. When we looked at it, the federal lands, being the infill, were causing flooding to the private homes.

We're anticipating that the changes to the infrastructure--the water, sewer, and street upgrading Mr. Kester is involved in--will help our residents and take care of items that are a major expenditure for the City of Belleville. We're marrying the two together, so that working in partnership with our engineering department, we're able to cost-share a little more in the city's budget. Doing this project with a divestiture, along with Mr. Kester's project of the streets, will save the city money. A $50 million project for the City of Belleville is a large one. It increases the odds of getting a very competitive bid, and we had outstanding competitive bids by doing this partnership together.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I know my time is up. Is a share of funding coming from the county?

[Marjorie Buck]

They are not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Blais.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen for appearing today.

On those provincial changes that were imposed upon you after the negotiations with the federal government, when those changes were announced--besides the MIII program--did they consult with you in any way about those changes, that by costing you additional dollars...that there would be provincial money flowing at that time?

[Steve Hyndman]

No, they did not. When we started to develop some of our risk management plans for how to deal with the contaminants on the site, the nature and the degree to which these provincial changes in policy were going to impact us became apparent. We did actually ask ministry staff to come down and spend time with us on the site to try to problem-solve together. Unfortunately, the ministry felt they could not operate in that fashion. They saw themselves as more of an independent adjudicator, as opposed to a participant in problem solving. I guess that's a philosophical decision they had to make. So unfortunately, we did not have the opportunity to pursue that with them as much as we would have liked.

To some degree, I believe the provincial government was using what we were doing as a bit of a test tube, or a process, so they could learn just how well their programs and policies were working. Hopefully they learned a good deal. We certainly did.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

To be perfectly clear, when all is said and done, the town of Belleville will own the wharf. Is that correct?

[Steve Hyndman]

Yes. Our intention is that at the end of this process we will take ownership of the federal assets.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

So the federal government will be completely out of it. There are some divestitures happening on the east coast where the government still owns the property, but it is managed by a harbour authority.

Will you have a specific harbour authority, independent from the Belleville council, that will manage this complex for you?

[Steve Hyndman]

Council has not made the decision to do so yet, although it's within their mandate to make that decision. At the moment it's administered by one of our departments under Marjorie Buck.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Are you anticipating user fees for recreational use?

[Steve Hyndman]

Yes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I assume the community is aware what these fees may be in the future.

[Steve Hyndman]

We have them in place today. As far as what they might become, Marjorie can speak to how that might be determined.

[Marjorie Buck]

The user fees are presently based on the small craft harbour regulations. For this year we have advised our boaters that following the construction and completion, the city will look at the cost operations relevant to the harbour. We'll look at our fees, and they may be adjusted.

The focus of the City of Belleville has been on a user-fee mode for our services. Our department staff will be recommending to city council that they copy what we do in our arenas, so the very minimum would be a 50% user fee. So if you're going to spend $100, then your user fee will be $50. Of course, that's subject to a complete report and a business plan presented to city council.

One of the unknowns we have as a department that we need to address is the costing relevant to the water pre-treatment plant. We have some estimates from our consultants on what that will cost us annually, but they aren't firm yet. We will be looking at a direction, anticipating that we will keep our subsidy at the same level we have now. But we won't know the facts until the project is totally complete.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

This is my last question for you.

This divestiture program, in various forms, is happening across the country as well as in the great province of Ontario. Are there any cities, other than this one in Ontario, that you're cooperating with in terms of best practices and understanding the dialogue with the small craft harbours people so that instead of just going on your own, you're either assisting other communities or they're assisting you in this development process?

[Marjorie Buck]

A number of years ago, actually, when this program was first announced as a divestiture, there was a regional group that got together in the profession of operating municipal harbours, and we have shared information since the beginning of this program. We continue to talk to each other with regard to the direction we are going in. As a matter of fact, I'm very pleased to advise the committee that it was through the efforts of two individuals--one who has worked for our department and one who went to harbour operations in the city of Kingston--that a harbour administration group got going and is now active with regard to some provincial bodies. We are sharing information and working together to ensure that when the bottom line comes out, the city has something that it can afford and the public can enjoy, and the federal government has a lower liability.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you for appearing before us. Thank you for the invitation to come.

It's great to be here, and as my colleagues have said, it's good to be here with Daryl. I can assure you that he represents you with enthusiasm in the House of Commons. We have similar last names, as you may have seen, and we get confused for each other. I guess that's because we look quite a bit alike too. He has more hair than I have. Anyway, it's great to be here.

I just have a few questions, and then I'll kick it over to Daryl.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the history of the harbour? You've alluded to it. For DFO to own this, obviously it was something other than a recreational harbour. You said it was commercial, but was there ever any commercial fishing out of this harbour?

[Marjorie Buck]

I guess the short answer to that, if I may use a personal experience, is that at one time we did have some commercial fisheries along the bay, in terms of our causeway, and some of the boaters did come into what is now known as Meyers Pier. Meyers Pier tended to be more of a cold storage area. The apples were there. The lakers came in. The coal freighters came in. Commercial fishing was limited to along the causeway and some in the Meyers Pier area. They, of course—and I'll go back to when I was probably about 14 or 15 years of age—slowly disappeared, and it's now recreational fishing that's the focus, save and except some of our native fishing.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Are there commercial recreational enterprises?

[Marjorie Buck]

Yes, we do have some private charter boats in this region. For about three years we had about seven boats at Meyers Pier that used the docking.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

If I understand what you've told us so far, for many years it was owned and operated by DFO, and at one point--I wasn't sure I heard--in 1984 or 1994, the city or somebody took it over more or less as a harbour authority to manage it on behalf of DFO. DFO continues to own the property up to now. Am I right so far on the chronology?

[Marjorie Buck]

In 1984 the City of Belleville took over the management and operation of the harbour on behalf of the small craft harbours program.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

What were the sources of your income at that point? Were you doing minor repairs to the facility based on user fees and so on?