Fisheries Committee on April 3rd, 2008

[David Bradley]

It would not for the current operators, I wouldn't think, not for the lighthouses that have already been divested and, I wouldn't imagine, for the ones that are on a long-term lease. It may have some implications for new private operators who come forward and want to take over lighthouses in future.

I think the legislation says that if they are to be divested or transferred, they would be transferred for a public purpose. It's not clear to me how you would define public purpose.

Overall, I think this is certainly a step forward. For those not-for-profit groups—and there are many more of those that have taken on the task of trying to restore or redevelop lighthouses—there isn't a clear process in place whereby they can move forward and work with the federal government to do that. I think this legislation would clarify that process and make it much more straightforward.

As you know, what would happen with a lot of the non-profit groups is that they would seek funds from other sources as well, to speak to the earlier issue on funding.

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

That's where I'm going with this. Mr. Noreau pointed out that there are various public-private partnerships that can evolve to actually facilitate the preservation.

On the public purpose, for example, let's step back in time and say a bed and breakfast operator wanted to take over Quirpon Lighthouse. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in fixing that structure up and brought it back to good historic and structural integrity. This bill would forbid that because it's not for a public purpose. It's for a private commercial purpose with obvious public advantages, but not for a public purpose.

This bill does not allow for a public-private partnership where ownership is transferred to a private sector operator as opposed to a not-for-profit corporation. Clearly a not-for-profit corporation, but not a private sector operator, could take over a lighthouse. Would I be correct in that conclusion?

[Barry MacDonald]

I don't think that was the intent of the bill. I'm not a legal expert, and correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of this will be defined when criteria and some of the specifics are written up for the bill.

We have one example in Nova Scotia, which is an excellent one. This lighthouse at Cape d'Or at the head of the Bay of Fundy has not been transferred yet from the coast guard. There's a lease in place with Cumberland County, which leases the lighthouse from the coast guard, and they in turn have leased it to a private entrepreneur who runs it as a bed and breakfast.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see anything in this bill that would prevent a transfer of that property. I think that's what you're getting at. Regarding a direct transfer of that property from DFO, if it were considered for the bill, I don't see any problem.

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

That's a question I think we're going to have to investigate further.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

You'll be able to get back to that in the next round.

Mr. Blais.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I will probably pick up where Gerry left off.

The aim of the bill is to designate certain structures as heritage lighthouses. However, no indication is given that additional funding will be made available. Once these structures have received their heritage designation, once petitions have been filed and the process has followed its course, hopefully we will not be left with an empty shell, meaning that hopefully we will not have created a phenomenon where ultimately, in terms of managing these structures, we are no better off than we were before.

Despite these concerns and the fact that the bill does not provide for any funding, you are fully in favour of the proposed legislation. I'm trying to understand why that is. It's always possible to improve upon or amend a bill, but I sense that as far as you are concerned, the bill as it now stands is perfect. On that score, I disagree with you.

I am not saying that heritage lighthouses are not worth spending our energy on. Quite the contrary, in fact. The riding that I represent had to fight to have some heritage lighthouses repatriated. I'm thinking here about the Pointe-à-la-Renommée lighthouse which was once located in the Quebec City area but now is back home in the Gaspé region. If memory serves me correctly, this year the community marked this structure's 150th anniversary. Through sheer will and effort, members of the community manage, year after year, with the help of volunteers and a non-profit organization, to ensure that this lighthouse remains a part of our heritage. The lighthouse has become a major tourist attraction. This is where I'm coming from as I try to understand your comments.

[Barry MacDonald]

The issue of funding is one I really can speak to. I join my colleague Mr. Noreau in saying we'd like to have a wheelbarrow full of money for every lighthouse in the Maritimes. We realize that's not going to happen right away. My understanding is that this bill will put in place a process whereby maybe there will be some funding down the road.

The only thing I can speak to from experience is twofold. Number one is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I don't know what pot it has come out of, but recently there's been some work done, at least in the Maritimes and in Ontario, for some lighthouse properties that have been passed over. There's been a real concern for environmental contamination in some of these properties. I'm sure you're aware in Quebec that you have quite a lot of mercury-based lights down there.

There's been a process in place to take so many lighthouses per year over the past couple of years and do an environmental check and to clean up--remediation on the site. We have a couple in Nova Scotia, for instance. They've gone in and done proper environmental remediation where lead paint is concerned. They've gone in and checked for hydrocarbons. Kerosene was the only thing that was ever used in some of the smaller lights.

There has been some money spent in preparation for passing over a lighthouse to a community group. In other words, DFO have recognized the fact that there's a community group very interested in taking over the lighthouse. It's not really fair to pass a lighthouse over—which was the case with Cape Forchu, as I mentioned in my presentation--and saddle them with a huge bill right off the bat. There's been an effort made, and I'm assuming it will continue. I don't know, as I said, what pot that comes out of. The environmental.... I think it comes out of something called a green fund. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As well, the other point I wanted to make is that with the passage of this bill and with more lighthouses being passed over to community groups, you then harness a huge volunteer workforce across the country, which has to count for something. These people go out and do all this work, from painting lighthouses, to manning them in the summertime, to running them as museums, and so on. We've had discussions for the last couple of years whereby we never had a vision, once this lighthouse act is passed, that huge amounts of money would be spent at one time. A process would be in place whereby it would be done in steps.

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

Excuse me for interrupting you, but would it be more accurate to say that the status quo is unacceptable? That's one angle, but departmental officials who testified yesterday, Tuesday, talked about costs in the neighbourhood of $65 million associated with this bill. As I recall, the figures quoted were in the tens of millions of dollars. They indicated that the funds would have to be found elsewhere, not actually from supplementary estimates. In essence, this bill creates additional commitments.

The status quo is unacceptable, but the bill as it is now worded will not rectify the problem. We have a similar aim, namely to rectify the situation. We cannot allow these heritage lighthouses to further deteriorate with every passing year without taking steps to allow well-meaning people like yourself to work toward preserving these structures.

[Natalie Bull]

I would like to comment that the bill doesn't include a requirement to restore, to invest over and above reasonable maintenance. In fact, the requirement for reasonable maintenance of government property exists already; it shouldn't be tied to legislation that is about protecting heritage character and recognizing a special class of structures within the federal inventory.

I think it's important to be clear that any property owner has an obligation to maintain property to a reasonable standard. If it's a case of property that the federal government no longer has a use for and needs to move out of the federal inventory, there are people who Barry and others have mentioned who are interested in becoming the custodians of those sites.

We really need to emphasize that this legislation is not just about holding.... It's certainly not about imposing a higher level of care on federal property. It's about ensuring reasonable maintenance, and it accomplishes a number of other benefits for heritage lighthouses. It's really not just about the maintenance side of the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Blais.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all very much for coming today. I know you've passed along congratulations to senators and MPs, but it's really we who thank you for your efforts. We have the easy part: we just do the legislative framework to get it through. You're the ones who are in the trenches doing the work.

Peter, I'm an old “orange tail” myself. I retired from the red team in 1997, after the amalgamation. It's good to see a fellow airline person.

But $270,000 of your own money probably doesn't even include your time. Mr. MacDonald is absolutely correct: there's a deep...more than just love and affection. It's in your soul, when you see these things; it's part of your heritage. And Peter, when you and I are long gone, that lighthouse will be there for other children and their children to see, so congratulations to you for that effort.

I just got a copy of Bill S-220, which is the Heritage Railway Station Act. I noticed there was no funding attached to that bill, such as my colleagues have asked for as well.

Natalie, you indicated the importance of getting this bill through. I think if we attached x number of dollars to a particular bill—which wasn't done in the case of the railway act, by the way—it would probably hinder what the government's response may or may not be. If we say x number of dollars, it may not be that high. Or it may need more, and then we're handcuffed in that regard.

I think, as Mr. Keddy said in our previous meetings, that it's important to get the process through. Then, once the criteria and the dollars are set in—and of course groups like yours will have access to funding as well from various other sources in order to maintain the integrity and protection of this act....

I'd like your comments on that.

Also, my understanding, when Mr. Byrne asked a valid question about the public partnership—about a private owner buying an island with a lighthouse on it, which may restrict the public access to it.... I guess that's one of the concerns the government has: that if a group takes over a lighthouse—we'll say the Cape Forchu lighthouse—the public still have some form of access to the area.

I think that is a major criterion for this: if an individual buys it on their own—I don't want to denigrate these folks, but if a rich American buys an island with a lighthouse on it and then restricts everybody else from getting on it—that I think would not be a good thing. I'd like your comments on that as well.

Again, congratulations to all of you for the work that you've done.

[Barry MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Noreau]

Thank you.

I can answer that. In my case, I put my money in. I did the work myself. I paid for everything.

From a tourist point of view, just to give you the example of my lighthouse, it's up now even to the big cruise ships that come into Quebec City. They go by the lighthouse at one, two, or three knots, and you see all kinds of people taking pictures, and so on. That's one point. That doesn't give me a nickel. They see the lighthouse in immaculate condition. Everything is perfect down there where I am.

I'm jumping from one issue to the other.

Coming back to what this gentleman was saying a few minutes ago, from an environmental point of view, that's the only little bit of help that I got from the federal government, and I can recognize that. When I first took over the lighthouse, there were two big reservoirs that were leaking diesel fuel because they had rusted out at the bottom. That was all going into the ocean, where the whales are, and you name it. Did I ever holler.

I can admit that I got help from a couple of good human beings from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Quebec City. In particular, I want to name one person, Mr. Donald Moffet, who is an employee there, who is so devoted to the project of the lighthouses, even on his own time. What a super individual to work with.

So we do have a little bit of help like that. We organized with Environment Canada, and when they saw it, everybody said, well, that's it. We got everybody together, and we finally got that resorbed.

You were talking about the mercury issue. In my case, the lighthouse was cleaned up. Why? Because I'm very isolated, but I do have quite a few people who come down. I don't restrict anything. They're more than welcome to come down. It's a good walk, and a good walk back. You climb for 4.4 kilometres. I have quite a few people.

Then I have people who come down in these small boats, kayaks. I'm involved with the blue route, because I'm in the marine park of the St. Lawrence River. We have all these committees working together, and people come in, in kayaks, and they use the facilities, the toilets that I restored entirely. They have picnics on the grounds. There's only one thing that I ask: that people not light a campfire, because if it gets away from them in the wind or something like that, there are huge mountains on the site that will lose all their value. So those are just the small criteria.

I'm jumping between issues just to make a general picture for you of what has happened in my case, and basically, the other lighthouses on the St. Lawrence that we're trying to save work roughly like that.

So I'm coming back to what I said before. The law project is an excellent issue. It gives you guidelines.

Once the job is done on one lighthouse, a real estate person could come in and make a fortune on that. I'm totally against that.

No matter whether you want to give it to a corporation like mine, or sell it, or whatever...but if somebody would come in, no matter whether it's for political reasons or for real estate reasons, and take over my lighthouse, I can tell you, knowing my character, I'd be in court the next morning and things would happen.

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

Never mess with an Irish Quebecker.

[Peter Noreau]

That's what they say.

I want to thank you kindly. It touches us deeply, what you said before, thanking us for what we've done. I worked my buns off on that, and I'm sure these guys did the same.

Away you go. That's very well appreciated.

Thanks again for this project. I'm totally in favour of it. Let's get some guidelines, make things legal, and then afterwards, if there's an amendment or whatever that has to be issued, I think we can come back to this table and talk about it another time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Keddy, for ten minutes.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our witnesses here this morning.

It's a bit of déjà vu, I think, for all of us. But at least we're at the committee stage, and I really feel quite positive that we have an opportunity here to pass this piece of legislation. I've talked to my colleagues opposite about this bill several times, and in a former incarnation, but I don't think we should underestimate a couple of issues. Maybe before I do that, I would echo Mr. Stoffer's comments on the great work that you folks have all done on the ground in pushing this and promoting it through its various incarnations, and of course the work of past Senators Mike Forestall, Carney, Murray, and others.

But I would implore my colleagues opposite not to miss this opportunity to get this bill in. To begin with, it's not as simple as saying it's a DFO responsibility because, quite frankly, when this goes to heritage status it will go through Environment Canada for any remediation and then it will become Parks Canada's responsibility. And, of all the lights, I expect some of the lights would stay under DFO responsibility after they get heritage status. Hopefully, some of them would be maintained as working light stations. Therefore, it will be incumbent upon the federal government to keep those up to heritage standards.

You had a very good point, Mr. Byrne, about public–private, but the idea of private is not excluded in this legislation. If there are no adjacent groups or community groups who are willing to take over a heritage light, it is divested and it is on the divestiture list. It can go to private individuals. And, quite frankly, that would be better than losing the light entirely. It's not a matter of just being able to cherry-pick. There are a number of issues here about which we do have to be reasonable and practical. We've got a great example of a private individual at the table, who has a lighthouse and has spent a lot of private money on it to keep it up to heritage standard.

I'd like to talk a bit more. I know there's a concern about no dollars being designated, and I think Mr. Stoffer had a good comparison there on the fact that the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act went through without dollars designated. But we also have a fair amount of time.

I'd like a comment from our witnesses. We don't know exactly how many lights are going to be designated at this time. We have a petition process that will be put into place. It's a minimum of two years before we're going to have any lights designated, and it could be a maximum of five to seven years before we're actually through this process—or four years.

So I'd like some comments on that process and how many lights you think there may be in total, from your points of view.

[Barry MacDonald]

There's been an inventory done over the past couple of years by DFO, to come up with the number of possible candidates under this bill. While I don't have the exact figure, it's somewhere in the vicinity of 250 lighthouses that would be possible candidates. Someone came up with the figure—and I think Natalie can back me up on this—that with the railroad station act it was 60% of possible candidates that were actually selected at the end of the day. So if we use that 60% for the lighthouses—this is all arbitrary—at the end of the day we could come up with, say, 180 lighthouses that could be possible candidates under this bill.

You make a very good point. At the end of the day, we would like to see as many of these light stations transfer to community groups as there are community groups to accept them. But we fully realize that we aren't going to be able to save them all, for sure.

We had the discussion quite a number of years ago with the Canada Lands Company. The divestiture system was first tried in the maritime region, and Canada Lands took exception and said that these are expensive coastal properties and we should be getting fair market value back into federal coffers for these properties. We made the argument at that time that you can't treat lighthouses like filing cabinets or something owned in crown assets, and we won the argument. But we had to realize as well that if there aren't any community groups to take these as part of the divestiture process, which is very fair, then they are sold at market value at the end of the day.

[Peter Noreau]

One small comment. If you're referring to the railroad stations, don't use that too much as an example. In my area the railroad stations are in the middle of the city. Lighthouses in my area are extremely isolated, and I know of some in Newfoundland that are. So that may bring down the percentages. Instead of using the word 60%, maybe it's down to 40%.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

And I wouldn't disagree with that. Because of the remoteness, I actually think there will be some of these lights that will be difficult to divest, in all honesty. So the private aspect of this may be very important at the end of the day.

A couple of other comments. Unfortunately Mr. Miller, who is sponsoring this bill, couldn't be here today, and I know he sends his regrets that he was unable to be here to greet the witnesses. We quite often think of this as a coastal Canada thing—the east coast and the west coast. I have to admit, Larry sat behind me in the House for a while, and when we were talking about this bill coming to the House of Commons, and I knew I wouldn't be able to have carriage of it, he said he'd love to do that. I asked him why the devil he would want that. I think he has eleven lighthouses in Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, or there are seven in his riding and eleven around him—a remarkable number of these beautiful stone lighthouses. They are quite incredible buildings. So it is something that cuts across Canada from coast to coast. There's a lot of public support out there.

Senator Carney presented some pictures that I think came from Barry. We don't want the Mosher Islands of this world, where the lighthouse is simply torn down and burnt—tipped over and set on fire. Had this bill been in existence earlier.... Cape Forchu is a relatively new light. It's a cement light. It's the apple-core style of light, and the wooden light there was torn down. It's a very historic light station area, but the light itself is from the 1980s. It may be a bit older than that.

Anyway, I'm just going to open up the floor, if I have any time left to our witnesses, if they have any other comments they want to make.

[David Bradley]

Perhaps I could make one comment about the question of isolated lighthouses. I think that will be the most difficult issue to deal with, there's no question about that. Many of them are so remote that it's virtually impossible for most people to get to them.

The thing about this legislation, as we said earlier, is it's not ideal, in the sense that it's not going to provide absolute protection for all of these structures. We know that. The government knows that. But it's a good first step. It's a solid move forward. It's something that I think is desperately needed. To go back to Mr. Blais' comments about the money situation, that's something we'll all try to deal with once we have some legislation that provides a decent process for moving forward. I think we do need to get on with this, no question about it.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Yes.

[Barry MacDonald]

I didn't think about this in my closing remarks. You have to realize that it's been told to me many, many times over the past 12 years that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is in the marine safety business, not in the heritage business.

To go back to your earlier comments about tearing down Mosher Island and then burning it, those are photos that the coast guard has come to hate. In all fairness to the coast guard, particularly over the past five years, since a lot of people within the department are starting to really take this legislation seriously, we've gotten really good cooperation from DFO.

For a long time, for me and my colleagues in Nova Scotia, it was strictly on a provincial level, but since we've moved up to the national level--this being a national act we're trying to get passed here--we've also been dealing first-hand with folks here in Ottawa. I can't say enough for the positive cooperation that I've gotten. I want to go on record as thanking these folks. David Burton, director of divestiture, and all his department--Patricia Kell, Doug Tapley--have all given us excellent cooperation. They've done a lot of work behind the scenes, and I think they deserve a good debt of gratitude here as well.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Keddy.

We're going to go to our second round of questioning now. It's going to be for five minutes duration per party.

We're going to start with Mr. Russell, please.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to each of you.

My colleague Scott Simms sends his regrets, as he's recuperating.

It's very timely that I'm here. One of our cultural landmarks in Labrador, the Point Amour lighthouse, which Skipper Noreau may be familiar with, celebrated 150 years of its first lighting on April 1. The community organizations down there, in conjunction with various levels of government, have done a fantastic job in preserving that particular structure and the surrounding buildings. I have a picture here, from Labrador Life, commemorating this particular icon along the coast of Labrador. And there are others, certainly.

In principle, this is good legislation, and from what I'm hearing, technically it seems to be good legislation. But I have a couple of questions.

You talk about divestiture. The federal government already has a divestiture policy. I'm not totally familiar with it, but usually, if you have a federally owned building or some asset, it would go to the province first, or it may be to the municipality, then down to a non-profit organization, and last but not least maybe to an individual.

Does this at all affect that policy? Does it strengthen that particular policy? What does this do differently from what already exists?

So we have a divestiture policy. Now, when it comes to other types of crown assets, at times, such as in the case of certain ports or harbour infrastructure, the government will put in place specific divestiture dollars. In the last budget, for instance, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced, I believe, $10 million to remediate or bring certain pieces of infrastructure up to par before they divested them. Would something like that be contemplated, out of this legislation?

Thirdly, you say that the government already has, for federally owned buildings and assets, an obligation to maintain them, to keep them at a certain level. That's the argument I've heard some witnesses make.

How does this differ, in terms of the obligations the federal government has? I'm thinking that while we can talk about statutory legal protection that would institute certain standards, even in saying that there must be some costs involved. While we advocate for this bill, we have to advocate for additional dollars, because there is some fear that you will take already-existing infrastructure dollars and stretch them or put them somewhere else. That's a concern.

If we're going to put all of our cards on the table, if we're going to pass this bill, we need to have some commitment from the government that it comes with some money. It has to come with some money, and we need to see some identified.

I'll just leave that open to you people.