Fisheries Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Cal Hegge]

Okay, I have that now, yes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

You'll see in the bottom recommendation: that the federal government allocate $400 million over the next five years to address the rust-out problem in remaining core small craft harbours so that they be brought up to speed. I think we're currently, if I remember what was said earlier in the documents, at about $97 million per year.

But it looks as though the response of the government of the day was about $28 million per year, if I read those figures right—or am I missing something there?—to address that problem in the interval between 2001 and the current time.

[Cal Hegge]

I think I'd have to look at this in a little more detail, but the $28 million, for example, somewhat compares—and perhaps for different reasons—to the $35 million that we say we're short now to address the rust-out or the poor condition of the harbours. But we'd have to factor in the....

We did get the $20 million, which was to be sunsetted and is now continued. I'm not sure how it plays into this, because I see it's referenced here as well.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

It may be a little challenging comparing the years against these figures, but I think we can all agree that there was certainly a big shortfall for quite a period of time here.

I'm looking at page 5, “Maintenance of Core Harbours”, and here you mention the $82 million, leaving a funding gap of $32 million in 2007-2008, increasing to $35 million in 2008-2009, and ongoing. Maybe it was on the previous page, page 4, but somewhere I saw that even with that $82 million....

[Cal Hegge]

That would be under divestitures.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

That's another page; that's page 9. “Even with adequate funding of $82 million”, based on estimates, a reasonable pre-divestiture, harbour repairs over five years.... Which years are we referring to there? And is that $82 million the current funding?

[Cal Hegge]

No. That's what our estimate would be of one-time funding over five years that would assist us in divesting of the 354 ports, I think it is, that are left to divest.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay, so we'd need an estimated $82 million over five years?

[Cal Hegge]

Yes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay, I appreciate seeing those figures, because they maybe give the committee a target to encourage the Governor in Council to come up with the money to actually deliver the goods in this file. Thank you.

I was trying to reconcile some of these figures. It is correct that in our current budget we're stabilized at about $97 million, going down to $94 million, to address these concerns.

I guess all I can say is that it seems as if a disproportionate number of these harbours in the older part of the country—my colleague from Avalon has many small craft harbours in his riding—are in need of repair. We have a lot on the west coast as well in need of repair, though not nearly the same numbers. The communities certainly are dependent on these harbours.

The dredging issue I think was mentioned earlier, and I know there's been a lot of frustration with some of our harbour authorities over it. I may be confusing this with some recreational harbours just being able to dredge their harbours, and even getting permission to dredge, because of eel grass, siltation, and so on. I'm drifting now into another issue of habitat management, which I think we did raise before when other officials were here. It may be hard for you to answer this, because our habitat person isn't here today. But it's certainly an issue where they're not getting authority or permission to clean out their harbours so they get can access to the small craft harbours.

There's a sense that DFO is just letting them die, or that the impact on these harbours is not being taken into consideration for recreational use and the people who depend on them.

I'll just leave that as a comment. I don't know whether you can comment on that, Mr. Bergeron, or maybe you'd be willing to take a shot at that, Mr. Hegge. I know that finance is more your department.

I wonder whether anybody would care to comment on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We may have to wait until the next round. That took almost a minute and a half to wrap up your questioning there.

Mr. Matthews.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just on the dredging issue, you still do some dredging, is that correct? So do you have a limit on how much you will do, or the cost of a dredging project, or does it have to be tied in with something else? What percentage of your budget would you allocate in a year to dredging requirements?

[Cal Hegge]

I don't know if we'd have that information, but we could certainly pick a year and give you that information. It would be a bit of a guess. I don't know.

Did you want to say something?

[Micheline Leduc, Director, Harbour Operations and Engineering, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

I'd prefer to go back into our historical records to provide you with that information, but dredging is certainly part of our mandate. It's providing access to our harbours, so it's fundamental. We are doing maintenance.

Dredging is a priority. Capital dredging falls into the category of expanding our harbours, but maintenance dredging certainly is a priority for us, and it's usually contained in our expenditure line.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

No, I realize it's an expansion of a harbour or a widening or deepening of a basin, or something like that.

I don't know if Mr. Hegge alluded to this, but in some cases you almost have an annual requirement for cleaning out an area because of what happens with wave action and other things. Quite often it becomes a problem for the local officials to get approval to do it in time for a season. Sometimes there are problems with the budget process. So it is an ongoing problem that I've encountered over the years.

It seems to me that it's probably another area where there is a requirement for more money. As a matter of fact, when we were alluding to dredging, I said to the chairman it's something we should take a note of, because I'm sure we have all come across this in our various jurisdictions, that there's inadequate money for dredging. Oftentimes fishers can't leave the port if certain channels are not cleared, or whatever. So it's an issue.

But I want to go on. You're into the engineering piece, I believe, Ms. Leduc. Do you have engineering expertise in small craft harbours? Is that part of your shop? Because my understanding of it is that you pretty much engage Public Works, I think, to do a lot of your work. Do they do all of your work, or is it a mix between you and them?

[Micheline Leduc]

I'd say it's a mix at this point. It depends on the region; the involvement of Public Works Canada differs from one region to another. For example, in Newfoundland there was high reliance on Public Works for all of the works that were executed for the program.

More and more we are distancing ourselves from Public Works—at least for the smaller works. We're finding it is more cost-effective to do it either from the small craft harbour office, or through private consultants, or with the involvement of harbour authorities. Actually that's part of the initiative we are engaged in with Public Works, in trying to find more cost-effective ways to achieve efficiencies and to lower the cost of projects and therefore to be able to do more projects.

In some regions, for example the Pacific, they are pretty much disengaged completely from Public Works. They have a larger technical unit within the small craft harbour office in that region, allowing them to do more in-house work. So they have a larger in-house capacity in that region.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

My sense would be that the Public Works officials have their own departmental responsibilities and work to do. If small craft harbours is expecting to do their work, it probably slows down the process somewhat. I'm not sure if that's correct, but that would be my sense of it. You almost need your own people.

Every year we run into a problem, particularly in climates that are not conducive to doing work later in the fall. If we don't roll it out in my province now, a lot of the work is not going to get done again this year. Then we have the carry-over problems. To make it more efficient and to work the way we want it, you would almost need that expertise within small craft harbours, Newfoundland and Labrador region.

Of course you can't make the minister announce before he's ready to announce, but you know what I'm saying. If the minister is a bit late announcing the program, getting the press releases out, and small craft harbours has to engage Public Works engineering expertise for the projects, then we have too many carry-overs. I'm sure you're aware of that. I'm not saying that to be overly critical, but those are the facts of life. Every year there are projects where funding is approved but we don't get the work done.

Are you considering building up your own expertise so you don't have to rely on Public Works?

[Micheline Leduc]

It is one recommendation that came from the joint initiative we've been involved in with Public Works over the past year: to build more in-house capacity. It is also linked to the functional review that our ADM was mentioning earlier. Right now we don't have internal capacity to be able to take on all the work that Public Works is doing for us. That wouldn't be feasible for us at this point.

Certainly it's something we would seriously consider. Given that Public Works is charging a mark-up rate, we would gain on that aspect. However, there are the larger projects for which we will probably always want to keep in touch with Public Works for their expertise. They are very professional and they have the technical basis for the types of work we're doing.

There are other ways to streamline our fees by engaging them earlier in the process so our projects are done in a more thought-out way. Let's plan this year and be ready early in the next year so we don't encounter situations where it's too late in the year and we can't deliver on our projects.

We're doing a lot more planning and pre-planning so that we don't find ourselves in these sticky situations. Multi-year planning has become more important, especially for the larger projects.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

Monsieur Blais.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Has an evaluation been conducted to determine how many wharfs are now in such poor condition that they are no longer reparable?

[Cal Hegge]

I think I mentioned the evaluation we had already done. I believe we have a good assessment of the harbours that need repairs.

Did you ask whether there were any harbours in such poor condition that they can't be improved? Did I understand the question?

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

I remind you that there are a lot of wharfs in my riding. I imagine that's the case elsewhere as well. Fences have been installed for safety reasons. That means not only that we can't repair them, but that they are in such poor condition that they can't be used. So I wonder whether an evaluation has been done of that situation.

[Robert Bergeron]

We know that approximately 28% of our structures in the country, in our essential harbours, are in poor condition. A large majority of those structures must therefore be fenced or their use must be restricted in order to ensure people's safety. Those structures need to be rebuilt.

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

You're talking about essential harbours. What about non-essential harbours?

[Robert Bergeron]

As for non-essential harbours, their situation is probably worse than that of our essential harbours. That said, we don't have any specific evaluation in terms of figures on the condition of non-essential harbours. But we know that their general condition is not as good, perhaps with the exception of certain recreational harbours that we want to divest, but that are still very active. In view of the use made of active recreational harbours, we nevertheless have to ensure that those structures remain safe enough.