Fisheries Committee on May 27th, 2008

[Gerry Furney]

That is very definitely so.

But the whole concept of cooperating with local government is so important that it needs to be emphasized, with the committee and hopefully by the committee, that there is a need for a situation in which you end up with an immovable object and an irresistible force, which quite often happens when you're dealing with bureaucrats. It doesn't happen with elected people, because we find out very quickly that's not a way to get re-elected. Bureaucrats don't have to worry about getting re-elected.

Unfortunately, personalities creep into something like this, and I'm sure it happens everywhere. It has happened to us in clearing a ditch on our main street, which virtually runs dry in the summertime and has water in it in the winter because it drains the lower part of our community. There are weeds in it that are six to eight feet high, and we've been told we can't cut them.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

But you also mentioned, sir, common sense. Would you like to indicate to the committee that sometimes—not very often, but the odd time—there is an absence of common sense?

[Gerry Furney]

I respect this committee, because it's obviously loaded with commonsense people; I talked to most of you this morning. I think it's a great message to take to any senior level of government, and for that matter any junior level of government, because the same situations can happen at the lower level of government.

Unfortunately, the process for a small community that is a poor community.... We don't have any industrial taxation in our community, as an example, and most of the wharves or floats that we've created in our community have been created by local taxpayers. We have about 7,500 lineal feet of moorage at the present time, and we peak at more than 200 vessels at a time in a busy period.

There's a real need for us to continue to function. The private developer who has spent money building a long walkway to get out to deep water supplies fuel there, but he can't get permission to dredge; yet they've dredged in all sorts of other places. In downtown Vancouver there has been dredging going on there for the last few years in developing a conference centre; obviously there were no refusals there. But a tiny little place like ours, which can't afford to go to court or go to higher levels, or to Ottawa making pleas to the minister, just can't afford that kind of thing. We're being penalized in the meantime by someone who is taking a very narrow approach to their responsibilities and not using very much common sense.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I appreciate your comments.

What you're telling us is that what governments need to do is listen to the grassroots people. That's what you want to portray to this committee: listen to the people who make things happen.

[Gerry Furney]

You've explained it better than I could.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

No, not at all; you did an excellent job.

[Gerry Furney]

I'll stand by that statement absolutely. I think that common sense must be utilized at every level of government, and there must be as much communication as possible with the people who are right at the coalface. We're at the coalface: we're doing our things—logging, mining, fishing, aquaculturing; hopefully we'll be oil-and-gassing pretty soon, with any luck. But there are some strictures and blockages at the present time that represent a very real lack of common sense.

Common sense is very important to the local people because they depend on it. We're living in a goldfish bowl. We have critics on all side of us at every council meeting, so we have to smarten up and use common sense.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I like your comments, and it's true that you have to listen to the people who make things happen.

Mr. Wainwright, you indicated that you're dealing with a small population, I believe, but you mention that volunteers take care of your harbour. You have a lot of transient boats; in fact, you have international boats.

How do you handle the fees, what fee structure do you have, and do you have any trouble collecting the fees?

[Phil Wainwright]

In the winter we caretake. We do share the revenue from moorage with the caretaker—25% goes to the caretaker. What we do is that we just collect the numbers off the boats, and small craft harbours directorate cooperates with us and gives us lists of owners of the boats. We just mail the invoices to the owners of the boats. So there is nobody going down on the wharf and putting their hand out and collecting fees in the off season. It's either the honour system, with them coming to see somebody in the community, or....

In the summer we do hire, but we have difficulty hiring people because of the limited number of people available for that type of work. So we rely on the businesses out there to assist, and one of the businesses in the harbour assists with collecting moorage through its employees or the owner.

That's how we run the harbour. We're so few in number that the people who we use for those also sit on the harbour authority and help us run the harbour.

Our fee structure is 15¢ a foot for commercial vessels per day. I don't have the fee schedule for the recreational fishers. In the high season in the summer, we charge more for the recreational fishers.

We don't catch everybody when they come to our wharf. If somebody pulls in for half a day or a day in the winter, very often we don't chase them. Our facility is definitely open. And because we're on the west coast of the island, where there's not a lot of protection from the elements, we do see barges and all manner of vessels coming into the harbour. We see the trawler fleet, which offloads at Port Hardy and then comes to our wharf to mend its nets. So all kinds of incidental traffic hits our wharf.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You don't have much problem with the odd one that you lose, and you don't have a problem collecting your fees.

What we've been told by some of the other groups that we met is that they have difficulty with people who come in and use their power, and whatever, and then just tell them, more or less, take a hike.

So you don't have that kind of a problem. That's a good thing.

[Phil Wainwright]

We have power, but we lock it. Small craft harbours directorate put the power in the wharf a couple of years ago. It's in a locked box; people have to come through us to get to the power.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So you don't get it unless you pay up?

[Phil Wainwright]

Unless they have an arrangement with the wharfinger, that's correct.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Good.

Am I allowed to continue, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

That's your lead-up now, so go ahead.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Ms. Williams, it was a very nice visit that we had in your area this morning. Your father took me around on a tour and it was very interesting.

You tell me that the harbour authority started in 1989 and that you were with them then. It's a pretty important piece of infrastructure, when you have no way to drive to a hospital or anywhere else. Would you like to expand a bit on that and how small craft harbours work? How do you collect your fees?

We've heard a lot, too, about abandoned vessels. Do you have this type of a problem? I could see when I was there that you have lots of traffic, so it would be very harmful if you had people just abandoning their vessels there. So I'd just like you to expand on that.

[Lorraine Williams]

Firstly, I think we were a harbour authority before 1989. It was 1988, or from 1985 to 1988. I know we talked about that earlier today, but I don't know the exact date; it was in the mid-eighties. We were a harbour authority when I started in 1989; it was already well formed then. We were one of the first ones—or maybe the second one, as I guess Port Hardy was the first.

Regarding the fees, we do all the invoicing, billing, and accounting right in the harbour office. I don't believe you had an opportunity to come in there today.

As you know, Sointula isn't incorporated. We have no town office or council, which makes us different from all of the other harbours in the area. So we have no problems collecting our fees. Being in a small community, with most of the people living there, they will see you in the store and say, “Oh, I forgot to pay my bill”. So there's that kind of accountability all the time, and we've absolutely had very few problems with that.

And the same goes for the derelict vessels. The odd one has been plopped into town, but it has never been a commercial fishing vessel. People who have abandoned their vessel usually deal with it themselves, one way or another. It's never been left as our problem. There was one recently that I thought was going to be our first one that we would have to know what to do with, but it just disappeared.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

We had a number of suggestions as to how to handle it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Mr. Blais, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen.

My question concerns the Mifflin Plan. Ms. Williams referred to it earlier. I would like to hear you address your concerns or even your fears with regard to the future. I believe that I've understood from your explanation that there had been some problems with the Mifflin Plan, and I think that there may also be other concerns with regard to the future. Could you be more specific in this regard?

[Lorraine Williams]

The future is interesting when you speak of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I would love to know the future. I think the fishermen who are trying to make a plan for this year's season would like to have even that much of a future in two or three months. We're going to the thirteenth fishing season now since the Mifflin plan, and every year there is the same uncertainty around whether we are going to get to fish and how long we are going to fish. This year this quota vote has happened, and a lot of the guys and gals are feeling right now that they may not get much opportunity to fish this year. It's looking like that.

What's going to happen to our fishing fleet in the future? I would like to ask that question to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They have never been honest and transparent, and that's what I would love to see. If there is a plan for our harbours and what's going to happen, please have some honesty, transparency, and openness to the people. It has not happened in the past.

I'm not worried that the boats are going to be abandoned or left in our harbours. I know people will take care of them. Right now probably a good dozen of our pleasure boats are former fish boats that the older retired fishermen have kept up and maintained, and they are used for pleasure purposes.

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

My next question is for everyone, and you may all respond.

In visiting your facilities, I noted that they are extremely busy at this time of year. I imagine that, with tourism, they will be even busier over the next few weeks or months.

How do you deal with this problem? Are you able to say that your infrastructure is adequate given the number of users? In Quebec, we have similar facilities. At first glance, it gives the impression of everyone being packed in like sardines, if I may say so.

[Gerry Furney]

I would say that we'll do our best. That's all we've ever been able to do. We started about 1959 or 1960 from nothing in our harbour. Before that we didn't have a breakwater. We didn't have the ability to get boats in and out, other than one small float that speedboats served from Alert Bay, which was the main centre at that time.

In recent years we've just gradually grown as the demand increased. I'd like to think that we'll continue to get the support that we've had from small craft harbours in keeping up with the demand and making sure that there's available space when fishers or others--recreationists--come to visit us.

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

Have you applied for funding to develop your infrastructure in order to deal with such traffic? If so, are these projects presented year after year? Perhaps you realize that, due to the financial limitations of the program in question, the projects are not being implemented. Is that the current situation?

[Gerry Furney]

Again speaking only for Port McNeill, we have been able to maintain such a good relationship with small craft harbours directorate that they have been ready and planning ahead of time, working with us to make sure we have available space.

Our current situation is that we have been fortunate enough to get an infusion of funding from the provincial government through an economic development trust that is headquartered in Courtenay on Vancouver Island and services all of Vancouver Island north of the Malahat and close to the Sunshine Coast area. That funding has enabled us to get very serious about increasing the length of our breakwater, thereby increasing the amount of protected space inside the breakwater. With that work being done in cooperation with small craft harbours directorate, hopefully we will be able to extend our breakwater and relocate some of the pilings and floats within that harbour so that we can handle even more boats in the future.