Yes, but I'd first like to thank the committee for inviting me here to talk about the report we produced in 1999 for the small craft harbours program. I think you were given a summary. It's entitled Small Craft Harbours in Foreign Countries.
At the time we did the study I was both fortunately the lead consultant and a partner with a firm called Sypher:Mueller. We had done some other port work and maritime-related work over the previous 20 years, so we were successful in winning the proposal. Our firm at that time, Sypher, was more concentrated on airports and aviation, and since that time we probably have even focused more on airports and aviation. Our firm has been purchased by a very large U.S. organization called Jacobs, and therefore you see a name change from the original report.
In the consulting business we produce a lot of reports, and unfortunately many of them end up on shelves and gather some dust, so it was a very pleasant surprise that I received a call and was asked to be a witness here. I hope today I can be of some assistance to the members of the committee.
It was suggested that I give a brief summary of our report, and I'll try to do that.
The objectives of the report were threefold. One was to compare small craft harbours in Canada with those in foreign countries, and we ended up with I think nine foreign countries and three U.S. states. When we said “comparison”, we meant what was the importance of the small craft harbours to the economy of that country; a profile of the small craft harbours in terms of size and number; ownership; who was conducting or responsible for management, operations, and repairs; fees and charges; and of course, very important to any small craft harbour, capital budgeting and funding.
The second objective was to determine the importance of government support to all these harbours.
And then the third objective was to discover or identify some of the new ideas for the small craft harbours program from what we learned from doing this review.
We conducted the review through a collection and a review of relevant documentation either provided by the department or that we found on sources like the Internet, etc. Then we contacted various transportation departments and fisheries departments in the countries concerned and made a lot of phone calls until we found the right people, and we had long interviews by telephone with them.
So those were the objectives and that's how we conducted the study. In our report we identified a number of themes that emerged, and I'll quickly discuss those themes.
The first one is that ownership of small fishing harbours is at the local level. That came through in all of the countries, I think, except for perhaps one, which was Australia. So local ownership was the first theme.
The second theme was that central governments continue to fund small but strategically significant harbours. That's a lot of language in one sentence. Small fishing harbours in other countries are, by Canadian standards, relatively large, much larger than the average size of 45 boats per fishing harbour in Canada. By “strategically” we meant that the governments were supporting, fostering, funding ports and harbours that not only had fishing, but also they wanted to promote export and trade, whether that was in oil or goods. They wanted to support tourism, for example, in Maine. So that was a second theme: central governments continue to fund small but strategically significant harbours.
Then a third theme: central governments are not involved in small harbours. In many cases, after pressing very hard, the people we talked to might not even know how many small craft harbours there were in a country. They just weren't that concerned with them, and that was true for Norway, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia, which was a bit surprising.
Getting back to this theme, the fourth point is that the small but strategically significant harbours are much larger. They're fewer in number, and they're much more multi-purpose than small craft harbours in Canada.
The fifth theme is that local governments and authorities have a high degree of self-reliance to operate and manage their facilities. They're at least expected to cover operating repair costs and contribute to or pay for all of the capital developments.
Sixth, where central governments do get involved with harbours they work in a number of partnership arrangements with local governments and authorities. It could be dredging, for instance, in the United States; capital planning and development systems, and Iceland stands out there as a very good one; revolving funds, which I think were in Maine; collection of taxes; and of course grant funds.
Those were the themes.
On my last notes, we were asked to look at lessons learned or ideas for DFO. We concluded that there was no single approach or right answer to funding and management. We looked across the spectrum of the countries. They all have a different history, a different geography, different demographics, definitely a different culture. There is also a difference in the relative importance of the harbours to their economy and in the role of the central government in their economy.
Some approaches clearly won't work in Canada, such as privatization, which we saw in Australia and I believe New Zealand. We suggested a third point here that you need long-term assurance for third-party investors. So that would be long-term leases as compared to the small craft harbour programs, where they had very short-term leases. I think it was five years at the time; it may have changed.
We suggested that DFO consider some innovative financing, direct loans, loan guarantees, revolving funds. We also thought, based on a model of airports--we were very familiar with small airports and large airports--that we would encourage local municipalities if they're not already doing so to provide administration and operational support services.
The sixth point is not a very large one, but it was true in the U.K. There should be a mechanism to ensure the board of directors is openly accountable and effective in providing management.
That concludes my summary. I hope I can answer any questions you might have.
