Fisheries Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Cal Hegge]

Yes, absolutely.

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

How?

[Cal Hegge]

There are a lot of factors, and I can't clarify that exactly, but I can mention, for example, that I get the impression the formula we're using today isn't consistent with the conditions of the harbours in each region. That's a factor that we obviously have to consider, as well as the other factor that you just referred to.

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

At the same time, allow me to emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that it is unfortunate that we've come to this kind of debate, because it's a false debate. The major problem is the lack of financial support from the department on the small craft harbours issue. If enough money were paid to your directorate, we wouldn't have to criticize the allocation... Perhaps we could do it, but let's say that this debate would be much less important. You understand that every $1,000 that we manage to obtain, based on the allocation, corresponds to an amount of work that can be done for wharfs that are in terrible condition. This becomes a false debate, but unfortunately we are forced to conduct it. I wanted to emphasize that the current allocation, in my view, is harmful to Quebec. I'd like this evaluation to be taken into account in 2007-2008.

Does Mr. Bergeron have something to add on that?

[Robert Bergeron]

I would add that I'm a bit surprised by your criticism of the current formula. In fact, only one of the criteria used in our formula takes into account the harbours remaining to be divested. It's the last criterion, to which only 5% is attributed. You mentioned earlier that that criterion concerned all wharfs or harbours in each region, but it's the last criterion, to which only 5% is attributed. All the other criteria are based more on essential harbours. They are the ones we want to preserve in the long term.

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

Does that concern a number?

[Robert Bergeron]

Yes, it concerns a number. It's the allocation of all the harbours in the program, but only 5% of the allocation is attributed to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I appreciate that, Mr. Bergeron, but the time allocation is over. Somehow I missed that.

So we'll go to our next questioner, Mr. Manning.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our guests.

First, I want to echo the comments of Mr. Matthews from Newfoundland and Labrador in relation to the dealings we had with the local personnel. Mr. Goulding and company have been second to none. I've only been here less than two years, and in my riding of Avalon I have 227 communities and 68 harbour authorities, so needless to say that file alone is a very busy file in my office, and we get great cooperation there. I guess it's like everything else, there's never enough money to deal with the situations you have out there.

If I could, I'd just like to ask this. In 2007-08, the report from the department on plans and priorities listed things such as fisheries renewal, international governance, aquaculture governance, oceans action plan, science renewal, Canadian Coast Guard rejuvenation, and environmental process modernization. It doesn't appear small craft harbours fits into any of these program priorities, so I'm wondering if you could elaborate for us why small craft harbours has not been identified as a stand-alone program priority.

[Cal Hegge]

Thank you very much for the question.

As our deputy expressed the last time we were here, he was open to considering the addition of small craft harbours to this list, so the point I would want to emphasize is it's not that small craft harbours isn't considered an essential program.

One thing I would add is that during the 2006-07 fiscal year, the last fiscal year, when we developed our list of priorities that are going to be reflected in our individual performance accords, one of the departmental priorities was to put small craft harbours on a more solid footing. That was contained in the deputy minister's performance accord and in my own and Mr. Bergeron's, etc., so it is a program that receives a lot of attention. It is a high priority. You're right, it's not listed in the report on plans and priorities along with those other priorities. It is, however, indirectly referenced.

We have another priority called departmental renewal, and it's more on the management side. The internal work we're doing with respect to the effective and efficient delivery of the program is part of the departmental renewal. The functional review that's under way, the work we're doing with Public Works to reduce costs, that is all part of the broader departmental renewal priority, so it's being picked up in that regard as well.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

When we look to Treasury Board for increased funding, the fact that it's not listed as a priority as such, does that not help the case? It seems as if it's a struggle all the time to try to get the message to Treasury Board, and I'm just wondering, would that be part of that?

[Cal Hegge]

I think any effort to raise the visibility of a program in this context would be a good thing, but to be honest, I don't think listing it as a priority would influence Treasury Board beyond how they're already influenced. They know this program is underfunded in many respects, and having it listed as a departmental priority, we still would have to go through the normal process for acquiring new funds, and the fact that it's highlighted in the report on plans and priorities would not be a major factor in their consideration.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

One of the issues you raised in your opening remarks, and as a matter of fact it's on the list for our committee to have a look at, is harbour authority fatigue and the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, we deal with 68 harbour authorities in my riding. Tremendous volunteers are providing the service. It seems as if the fatigue comes from trying to address the concerns of the fishermen and having the communities in relation to the wharfs and so on and so forth.

One thing I would say that would alleviate some of that fatigue would be extra money to assist them so we could address more of their concerns. I'm just wondering, in the harbour authority organization itself, what efforts have been made within the department to address over and above that? I know there are some other issues there too, with regard to harbour authorities themselves. They provide an invaluable service to the people in my riding.

[Cal Hegge]

As I said, they're absolutely essential, the volunteers we depend on to run the harbours. That's a question you may want to get into, as well, when the regional directors are here, because they can speak more effectively than I can with respect to their individual regional situations.

What we do, given our funding constraints—I alluded earlier to the conferences we have—is constantly work with them and provide additional training or provide manuals, whether that be on environmental issues they need to be sensitive to or on contracting procedures and so on. We continue to do that. We work very closely with each of the harbour authority associations in the regions as well as with the executive committee you met with. We do what we can.

Having said all that, we also acknowledge, however, that this is another area, although it doesn't stack up in terms of the size of funding required to breathe a little bit more life into the harbour authority program. Again, if and when we get some additional funding, we would certainly earmark, probably, somewhere in the range of $2 million to $3 million in support of the harbour authorities.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

That's just for training or whatever they want.

[Cal Hegge]

Exactly.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

On the divestiture side of things, would I be correct in saying that there is no set amount in dollars in the budget for divestiture? Is that correct? I know that you take some from here, but we don't have a line item saying “for divestiture”.

[Cal Hegge]

We do have it within how we break down our budget, but I don't think you would necessarily find that in main estimates, for example.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

You take from your core budget, and you have to take the divestiture from that.

Have efforts been made in relation to this? We've had a serious problem in Newfoundland and Labrador, as an example, with divestiture. We have a tremendous amount of harbour infrastructure that has fallen into the water, and in a lot of cases, there is a safety issue. You go down to the wharfs and there are blockades, and it's a liability.

I'm just wondering. We're looking for more dollars to go into the budget. Is part of that a request to have an amount specified for divestiture, or would you still want to lump that in and decide among yourselves? I'm just trying to get to the point of how to deal with divestiture, because it seems to be creeping up on us more and more.

[Cal Hegge]

As the deck indicates, we have roughly over 350 that we still need to divest. And you're quite right. In terms of priority, obviously, we would argue that the maintenance of the core harbours is critical, because as you know, we're slipping behind in that regard. However, we cannot ignore the number of harbours to divest. So we carve out, on an annual basis, roughly $1.5 million.

As an aside, you may know that we had some special Treasury Board funding back in about 2000-01 to help with that. Our estimate is that we still need this $82 million to divest of these harbours.

I think we have a pretty good priority system that we use to evaluate which harbours need to be divested in terms of a number of criteria we apply. But if you have 350 and are only able to do 15 to 20 or 25 a year, it becomes a bit of a juggling game. We don't do it on an ad hoc basis. We actually look at those harbours that are most in need of divestiture, if I can put it that way. We have to divest of these harbours. The longer we have them in the inventory, if you will, the more we have to invest some of our limited maintenance funding to keep them in reasonably safe condition. We are conscious of that.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Under your present allocation formula.... I notice with any formula that's been put in place and used for the past number of years, there are strengths and there are weaknesses. I'm more concerned about the weaknesses, as you would see them. Would you want to elaborate on those? Would that not be fair to put that to you today, in regard to some of the weaknesses you perceive in the present allocation? In order for us to address them, it would be nice to know from you people exactly some of the things you may see as concerns.

[Cal Hegge]

I'll ask Mr. Bergeron to say something about that.

[Robert Bergeron]

There are two key criticisms that we heard on the formula. This is why I was a little bit surprised by the earlier comment.

The first criticism is the fact that the formula does not recognize the need to maintain the non-core harbours that we want to divest, pending their divestiture. If you look at the formula right now, there is nothing in that formula that really recognizes that some regions have a large number of these non-core harbours to maintain, pending their divestiture. So they get nothing for that, and this is an issue for those regions.

Actually, the two smaller regions that we have, Central and Arctic and Quebec, are the two most affected by this. This is where they would require an in-flow, an additional budget, in order to maintain these non-core harbours. This is the first criticism that we've had about the formula.

The second one is the fact that it does not recognize recurring dredging. As you know, each year in the spring we do have to redredge several harbours in order to provide access to the harbour. The formula, as it stands right now, does not recognize this need for additional dredging. In fact, one of the regions that is probably the most affected by this, because of the need to redredge annually in proportion to the budget, is Quebec. The formula does not recognize that need.

So these are the two main criticisms that we've had over the years with respect to the formula.

The third criticism is more technical. We're using five criteria right now, and all of these five criteria are correlated with one another. If you have a large number of core harbours, you also have a large number of harbour authorities, and you also have a large number of harbours in total. It's quite likely that the size of the fishing fleet in your area is also very high. Therefore, if you have one region, a big region, that scores high on one variable, it also scores high on all of the others. Therefore, the formula tends to advantage the larger regions to the detriment of the smaller regions.

These are the three key criticisms that we've heard about the formula so far.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

Before I go to Mr. Matthews, I will remind my colleagues, again, if we use our Blackberrys in the room, it's very annoying—and I'm being polite—to the interpreters. I realize that turning them off probably is not an option, but if you're getting a message on your BlackBerry and you want to return that message, I ask members to leave the room to do that.

Until we change the electronics to adapt to the new technology, it's all picked up on the mike. What happens to the interpreters is that they're getting a constant beeping in their ears and it's very difficult for them to hear properly.

I'm attempting to save people's lives here, at the end of the day. The interpretation will revolt and it will be very difficult.

[An hon. member]

Duly noted, Mr. Chair.