Fisheries Committee on Nov. 19th, 2007

[Cal Hegge]

Central and Arctic.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Out of all the money that's spent here on small craft harbours, about how much of it is spent in the central region? Because that's obviously the main bulk of the freshwater commercial fisheries that we have across Canada. I'm wondering what's going to be taken away. Is it going to be money taken out of other regions to pursue these, or is it money that's going to be reallocated within the central region? From a budgeting perspective, I'd be curious to know how that works.

[Cal Hegge]

To be clear, our position on the Nunavut harbours is that while we support the requirement, we simply do not have the resources. So we're not looking at taking money out of anywhere to advance that. We actually need new funding to be able to construct those harbours.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

That's good to know.

As a farm boy from Alberta, and of course representing a lot of farmers, I was interested to talk about volunteer fatigue, because most farmers in non-profit years would certainly say they're volunteering and they're quite fatigued, so I was wondering if it's any different. It simply seems to be the way it is, whether you're in the fishing industry or the agricultural industry: when you're not making any money you're volunteering your time.

I was curious as to whether you have any numbers for us on what the value of that volunteer effort is in the small craft harbours. I notice in the arrangements that you have here, there are some local fishermen, I guess, who donate money or put time and effort and materials and supplies into their own harbours. Is there anybody in the department who keeps track of what the value of that is?

[Cal Hegge]

First of all, I have not had a good opportunity to meet with many of the harbour authorities. I've been to some of their conferences, etc., and they are a very dedicated group, and when I've been out to visit some of the small craft harbours they show off their harbours with great pride. I think the fatigue is more related to some of the frustrations we all have with respect to the resource shortfalls. I want to make that point clear.

We have estimated some of the value of their contribution. We feel, for example, that the existence of the harbour authorities and the volunteers—the 5,000 I mentioned—probably contribute about 70 full-time equivalents. If we didn't have them and were going to deliver and administer the program like they do, we'd have to add about 70 people. It's about a $25 million contribution that they're making toward the....

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

That's quite substantial.

[Cal Hegge]

Yes, it is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

Welcome.

Referring to Gerald Keddy's questions on the spending formula, has there been discussion in the department on changing that formula or doing anything with that formula? He did ask, if the $475 million happened to appear, how it would be divvied out. I would have expected the answer to be that the formula would be used, but that's not what you answered.

[Cal Hegge]

No. Other than agreeing that we should look at the formula, we haven't done any detailed analysis of the existing formula.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So there's been no discussion in the department as to recommendations for what should take place with the spending formula.

[Cal Hegge]

We get lots of input from our regions, who argue that we need to change the formula so their region gets more, but beyond that, we haven't had any substantive—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

That's the point I'm interested in.

We had the harbour authorities here. First of all, I'd like to ask what the largest expenditure was for small craft harbours in a year, in the last two or three years.

[Cal Hegge]

In the last two or three years, it's probably a little over $100 million, not much more.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Just over $100 million, and next year it will be $94 million, $93-point-some million.

[Cal Hegge]

As things now stand, yes.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

As things now stand. It's an important point, because in fact we're going the other way instead of going ahead, if we're not careful.

You tell us you have a good relationship with the harbour authorities, but we also had the harbour authorities here, and they tell us that they certainly use the word “fatigue” pretty often, because it's very difficult for them to be able to continue having, in fact, not more funding but less funding.

For example, take your divestiture fund. In fact what you requested for divestiture in two years went up $20 million, instead of staying where it was. So the $475 million, I would expect, in a year or two would be probably about $600 million. Am I right or wrong?

[Cal Hegge]

No, I don't think you'd be right. Do you mean, if we don't divest the harbours we're going to have to continue to spend?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

No, I'm talking about the total small craft harbour repair compared with divestiture. It's obvious that the figure went up substantially in two years.

[Cal Hegge]

Again, we've presented this before the committee previously, but the figure is $82 million over five years. We feel that with $82 over five years we could divest the remaining 340 or so harbours. So we're not spending a lot of money on those harbours that we're going to divest, other than for any urgent health and safety issues.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Have you presented or has the minister presented any of these requirements for small craft harbour repairs to Treasury Board? Have there been any submissions?

[Cal Hegge]

No, not formal submissions.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's not a priority issue with government...? I think they had six priority areas. This is not one of the priority areas?

[Cal Hegge]

Not directly, no.

Let me back up just a bit, because when I said no, we did have to make a submission—as you are probably aware—to retain the $20 million that was to have sunsetted. In that submission, we alluded to some of the other pressures of the program. So in that regard, the central agencies have been sensitized to the funding requirements of this program.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Over the last number of years, there must have been some environmental cleanups that had to come into the total figure too. So how much would those have been?