Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to address this committee.
I am the acting director for central and Arctic region. Although I am acting at this time, I have worked in the program for 18 years. I had a lead role in the development of the “Nunavut Small Craft Harbours Report”.
The region consists of four provinces and two territories. In 1995, the central and Arctic region had 516 harbours. Today, we have 218. Of those, 165 are recreational or non-core and 57 are commercial fishing harbours.
Our challenges can be grouped into four primary areas. Firstly, our fishing harbours are located across a large geographical area, in often remote, aboriginal communities . Due to the travel distances and timing to fly into some of these communities and shortage of staff, the small craft harbours program has a limited capacity to provide adequate service to the harbour authorities and the consistent level of service that others expect. This is a major contributor to the fatigue of harbour authorities in the central and Arctic region.
Secondly, less than half of the commercial fishers in the region are supported by small craft harbours' facilities. Consequently, many of these fishers are required to use unsafe infrastructure. Small craft harbours has identified approximately 16 sites where there would be at least 25 or more fishers who could use a harbour facility.
Thirdly, and this has been on the agenda for more than 15 years, there's an existing significant commercial shrimp fishery in Nunavut and there's a very significant emerging turbot fishery. Nunavut has asked the small craft harbours program to construct harbours in seven communities. These harbours would provide the people in Nunavut with the opportunity to pursue a commercial fishing business, their fisheries, and other economic opportunities. An independent study concluded there would be significant socio-economic benefits if these harbours were constructed. Very importantly, this would provide the boaters in Nunavut safety for their vessels and for their lives.
Fourthly, the region has a large number of non-core harbours to divest, primarily in Ontario. Many of these harbours are large. They're located in waterfront communities. As a consequence, they're often the focus of the community and they provide the only or the primary access to the waterfront. The costs are increasing because many of these facilities have not received any repairs since the early 1990s and many of the facilities, and by that I mean the floating docks or some wharfs, are at the end or nearing the end of their useful life. Costs are increasing as municipalities are also concerned with the long-term affordability of these harbours.
In addition, the remaining harbours to be divested are a little more complex because there are some property issues that we haven't dealt with or are difficult to deal with. Increasing consultation with first nations community interests as a result of Supreme Court decisions is making it a little more time-consuming. Some of these harbours are former industrial harbours and they have some contamination and liabilities with it.
Thank you very much for letting me give you this brief introduction.