Fisheries Committee on Feb. 5th, 2008

[Harry Earle]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Very briefly, most communities have a breakwater. In other words, it's there to protect the boats from the bad weather. But there's no wharf. There's no wooden piling where you can actually tie the boats up. And that's where your problem is.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much.

We're going to go to our next round of questioning now. I'm going to ask colleagues and guests to try to keep their questions and answers to the point, please.

For the last round we're going to Mr. Byrne, for five minutes, please.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll follow up on my previous question, which basically relates to the true needs of the communities for harbour infrastructure and the realities the north is facing today as a result of climate change.

Several guests have pointed out that there are changing ice conditions. From an engineering point of view, the destruction of a wharf in these kinds of climates is based on loose ice. When you have shorefast ice--quick freeze, quick thaw--from a structural point of view, that's the best thing you can have. Frequent thaws and loose ice in the ocean that is drifting through currents and tides causes the most amount of damage to a wharf structure.

Could you comment on the true needs of your communities in terms of a multi-use wharf? Again, that's for inshore fishing, inshore hunting, offshore fishing through the use of factory freezer trawlers and other things, the supply of goods and services, and industrial services as well. Could you provide some comment about the effects of climate change and the precise impact on engineering to these structures? Would you be able to give the committee some insight about these things?

[Lootie Toomasie]

Thank you, Chairman.

I have been talking about the deepwater port while participating with you. Just to make it clear, in the old days climate change was still not realistic. Sometimes in the middle of the summer, loose pack ice just stayed in the harbour. So during the sealing season they could not barge the supplies, so the ship itself had to land right at the shore. There was no choice. That happened twice, two seasons in a row, way back in the old days in my community, even though there was no port. That's the same location we have been looking at. If the deepwater port happens to be built, we have the right spot. We have a good spot. We have the right location. The landscape is very good. It's the right location.

So for these kinds of trawlers, this is what would fit, if that answers your question.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Maybe some other witnesses who are on the line as well could comment on what the true needs of your community are in terms of a multi-use wharf.

Basically, what I'm trying to explore is whether a small wharf that accommodates 30-foot vessels, which is really what Fisheries and Oceans' small craft harbours program would be primarily interested in supplying, is what your community needs. Or is something more significant, something with a broader use, required, such as a wharf that would be able to accommodate a 100-foot vessel or a 125-foot vessel or oil barges or small tankers that service the oil needs of the community, and so on? Is that what the community is looking for? Because that's very important for this committee to determine. It's very important for you so that we get this right the first time. If a wharf is built in a community at, say, a cost of $3 million, but at the end of the day you still need another wharf to accommodate a larger vessel for off-loading fuel oil and to accommodate offshore vessels, then we have not met the full needs of the community.

What I think every member of this committee wants to do is get this right with you the first time.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Go ahead.

[Jaypetee Akeeagok]

Thank you very much for your straight-to-the-point question.

One of my colleagues earlier mentioned that most of the communities have shelters for small boats. Unfortunately for this community of Grise Fiord, which is 90% harvesters and utilizes the short hunting season, we don't even have a shelter for our boats. As I indicated earlier, it's what this community's immediate needs and requests are. As we mentioned earlier, some studies have been done that were conducted by DFO. A portion of our shoreline was approved. And what we kept getting stuck on was the funding to provide that small shelter, which I believe could easily fall under the small watercraft wharf we're referring to.

Especially for this community, because of the longer boating season and the weirder weather we are having during summers, with stronger winds--on the weekend we had over 100 kilometre per hour winds, and that was the minimum, and that happens in the summer sometimes--it would help our sealers as well as our people who use boats.

We have nothing up here. So what this community would request for its funding is to at least start off with the approved location to make it sturdier for our inshore boating.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much.

We have to move now to Mr. Blais.

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

My question is for one of the individuals who is currently on line or who is here in Ottawa.

I'd like you to talk to us about climate change. Is it your impression, when you are in Resolute Bay, Arctic Bay or elsewhere, that these changes are having an impact on your region? If so, what are they?

Mr. Kilabuk.

[Tommy Kilabuk]

I don't know if Isaac answered, but if he hasn't answered I can answer. This is Tommy from Arctic Bay. Thank you.

Yes, we have really felt the climate change in our community. As I mentioned earlier, before this the sea ice would start freezing towards the end of August, and by the beginning of September it would freeze and it would stay frozen until towards the end of July. There were times in our community when the ice didn't even go; it broke up, but it never moved out.

For the past 20 years I've noticed that the ice conditions are getting thinner now, and it is getting more dangerous now for us to do our hunting in the fall and in the springtime. We have really felt the difference. The time that it's taking to freeze now and the way it's breaking up now in the springtime, it's so thin that we have really noticed. In the short 20 years that I've been living here in Arctic Bay, yes, we are feeling the impact of global warming in our community.

Thank you.

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

Monsieur Kalluk.

[Isaac Kalluk]

It's Isaac Kalluk from Resolute Bay. Yes, we noticed that too, a lot in a couple of years. The ice goes out in July, then it's ice free for two months; I mean no ice at all. Before this, we never used to go out boating from island to island, but for a couple of years now it's been completely ice free. We start travelling more on boats from island to island, and it's because of that warming.

I think the land is rising because the permafrost is melting more. In the shoreline, we start seeing what we never used to see, that it becomes little islands because the land is rising dramatically, more so than before.

The main thing is that in the summer it's completely ice free, and it never used to be like that.

That's about all I have. Thank you.

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

Monsieur Akeeagok.

[Jaypetee Akeeagok]

Yes, we have seen the climate change up here since the 1960s. What we are seeing more is that there's a lot more runoff from glaciers. The weather is more unpredictable. As well, more large multi-year ice is floating from the Kane Basin, from the North Pole, from the Arctic Ocean. It seems to be coming down more regularly rather than coming down in the fall, as it used to be.

For direct heat, if you're directly to the sun you can feel the heat more, but as soon as you go into a little bit of shade it doesn't make a huge difference. It's just that the direct sunlight has made the heat feel a lot warmer.

Also, there are a number of species, animals and birds, that we never used to see, that are coming up here.

So those are the different things we have seen here. Personally, I cannot indicate that it's global warming; it might be climate change.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much, Jaypetee.

We'll now have to go to Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you very much again, everybody.

Have you had an opportunity over the past year to address some of these concerns with the minister responsible for aboriginal affairs and northern development, Mr. Strahl? I would assume that the department may have a role to play in some of the development opportunities in the Far North.

Have any of your organizations had a chance to speak to him or his department on some of your issues?

[Tommy Kilabuk]

Can I respond to that? I'm Tommy from Arctic Bay.

Thank you, Peter. It's hard for me to really answer that, because we're elected to the hunters and trappers' organization for a term of two years each, which makes it hard to relate back to a few years that have gone by. So I wouldn't really be able to answer that question, because I was elected last year and wasn't there before.

So I'm sorry about that, Peter.

[Lootie Toomasie]

No, we haven't had any dealings with the minister of DIAND.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Okay. One suggestion I would make, knowing the minister, is that he may be amenable to a meeting in the future just to address some of these issues.

One of the other concerns, of course, is that the previous and current government have emphasized, at least publicly, their concerns about Arctic sovereignty in the Far North. There are debates with the United States and other countries about the Parry Channel or Lancaster Sound, the entrance to the Northwest Passage—and of course, you folks are already there. We've been talking about moving an army base, or at least a 100-man contingent, to Resolute, and everything else. But when I was visiting with you, Tommy, I think you had said that if you had opportunities with infrastructure or economic opportunities, more people would stay in your communities.

I'm just wondering, Isaac, or Tommy, how long you have lived in those communities. How much would it cost your three communities--Arctic Bay, Resolute Bay, and Grise Fjord--working together as an Arctic fisheries alliance, to set up the infrastructure you're looking for in order to facilitate any fishing opportunities? I'd like just a ballpark figure. Have you done a study on that at all?

Harry?

[Harry Earle]

I don't think we have any studies on this.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Then perhaps I may phrase my question this way. When the federal government worked with the Nunavut government and picked the seven communities that got the small craft harbours, were all three of your communities involved in the discussion, and if not, why not?

[Tommy Kilabuk]

To my understanding, we were not informed of that by our government, so I would not really be able to answer that question, Peter. I'm sorry.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Isaac or Jaypetee?

[Jaypetee Akeeagok]

I will be honest in saying that when those papers were faxed to me—and I have been chairman of the IHTO for the last six years—it was the first time we had seen the communities being proposed for wharves. So in the short term, no, these proposals have never been mentioned to us or we have never been asked about them.

[Isaac Kalluk]

We've been to all sorts of government bodies to get this thing going and we've even been talking to our MLA for so many years now. He took pictures and looked at it and said it's okay, but we never got any feedback from them. I wish they were trying. That's all we ever heard from them, that they'd look into it. We are still waiting.

Thank you.