Transport committee  A 100-foot dock on a 105-foot river is not a good idea.

Transport committee  I can't speak to that. I'm just facetiously giving you the example that we would take a look at the size of the dock. As opposed to the aesthetic aspect, we would determine whether or not the length of the dock was substantially interfering with navigation and if possible find a way to work around it.

Transport committee  It's not one of our criteria. They go through building permits to put these things in the water, so I would just assume they are looking at that.

Transport committee  If the item is in the water and posing a hazard to navigation and an owner can be found, we process that. Most times, that's not the case. I think what you're really speaking of is stuff on the shoreline, and that's outside of our jurisdiction.

Transport committee  Again, we're looking for vessels for the most part here. Vessels and other man-made obstructions to navigation are covered for the waterway. When we start talking about the shoreline cleanup...again, the target of this was vessels, which are obviously within the Transport mandate.

Transport committee  As part of our navigable waters protection program, we also regulate under the Canada Shipping Act as the receiver of wreck for Canada. Those items are covered under that particular jurisdiction and legislation. It's not so much that they have to stay there for 12 months; they have to turn the items into the receiver of wreck for Canada.

Transport committee  For major dams, it could, absolutely. For Lower Churchill hydro-electric, for example, or Voisey's Bay--major projects--it could absolutely.

Transport committee  For a larger project with substantial potential interference to navigation, you're probably about right.

Transport committee  I just wanted to let you know, Mr. Carrier, that these things are done concurrently--the navigational study and the environmental assessment. The results of our navigational study, our navigational concerns, have to form part of the environmental assessment. So they're not done in a linear format but concurrently.

Transport committee  We claim--for financial reasons right now, I think--that we don't have that jurisdiction. Again, the age of the act...it doesn't define it. The other jurisdictions come at us and say, “You're responsible for removal of obstacles and hazards.” When we claim that it's not an obstacle, it's not a hazard, it's not in the navigational channel, they reply, “It is an obstacle to me, an eye obstacle, and it's a hazard to our enjoyment of the beach, so come and clean it up.”

Transport committee  Absolutely not. Our very first approach is always to the ownership. Even if things had to be removed on an urgent basis, such as the two halves of the ship I just mentioned, we would be dealing with the insurer subsequently. If we couldn't deal with them immediately, we would deal with them subsequently to recover costs.

Transport committee  We would define “minor work”. It would be defined under a specific set of criteria. “Minor work” right now is pretty much defined as something that already has a predetermined fate—work that will be approved as long as you build it in a specific way in a specific type of water.

Transport committee  The proposal would be to include all Canadian waters in this legislation. There is a reason for that. The reason right now is that it takes time to determine what navigable water is. You have to do a navigability assessment, and the criteria for navigability have never been clearly identified.

Transport committee  So for “navigable”, I don't have a good definition. The one we have now, provided by the courts, is not working. Indeed, it is creating much of this backlog, because it's dealing with waters that need to be determined to be navigable. It's also dealing with a lot of waters we know aren't navigable.

Transport committee  Then you start to pull things off with exclusion lists. In other words, I know Red Tail Creek, say, in Saskatchewan only trickles during a large rain, and yes, during that rain it could probably support a canoe, but nobody is going to travel 600 miles to get to Red Tail Creek to float the canoe for the two hours it trickles enough water to float it.