Fisheries Committee on April 8th, 2008

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

It would be just fine.

[Robert Square]

It would be absolutely fantastic. We could do everything we wanted to do right away at Cove Island. But that's not the reality of the situation, and we realize that. Those are the constraints and the environment in which non-profits work. We are very aware of that.

Monsieur Blais has stepped out, but one further thing that I would add to my comments to him is that there are currently discussions under way on divestiture of the property at Cove Island from Fisheries and Oceans to Parks Canada. So there is a chance that the property will become part of Fathom Five National Marine Park.

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

Fantastic.

[Robert Square]

That would open up further avenues for us as far as the preservation of Cove Island Lightstation is concerned. Fisheries and Oceans have been great; they've been great people to work with, but they have constraints to what they can do.

We just work within the existing framework; and with a sound business plan, we'll be successful.

[Everdina Toxopéus]

Some of the lighthouses from Bruce Coast have been taken over by the municipalities they're in—such as Kincardine, and Chantry Island—and are being rebuilt. Lion's Head has its own lighthouse. It was burnt down and kids rebuilt it.

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

If I could interject for a second, to me this process—and I agree with Mr. Square that there is probably no perfect process—allows us to preserve our heritage lights on both the east and west coasts, and the Great Lakes, certainly. At the end of the day, it also allows for divestiture to a community group to save a light that may not have wonderful historical significance but is important as a tourist attraction to that community, or has other value. Once that happens, then they can fundraise. And these buildings will be turned over in reasonable condition—that's the other thing—so the community groups can fundraise to shingle the roof, or paint them, or replace windows or fix the sills in them.

But without that ability to fundraise and make some money, I see these buildings continuing to fall by the wayside—

[Everdina Toxopéus]

And being lost forever.

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

—until they reach the point where government are unable to maintain them any longer, or fix them up. The expense will just be too great. And community groups will not have any significant reason.... Besides the fact that they would like to have the light, they would never be able to afford to take over and maintain it.

[Everdina Toxopéus]

Right.

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

Is that what you're seeing as well?

[Rick Goodacre]

If I could speak to that very briefly, in general I do not see this as a money bill. I do not see this as a big spending bill. I think this is a process bill, and it's a process that's going to set the minimum standards here. It's just going to say officially that we recognize that historic lighthouses have meaning in Canada. This bill is going to set a process to recognize that. It's also going to create a process whereby these light stations will move through an evolution, which they've been doing since their inception 250 years ago.

I would say, furthermore, that any organization that will take on an individual lighthouse and responsibility for it is not going to be opening up the tap in Ottawa for money to flow to it. They're going to be doing quite the opposite; they're going to be taking on a significant responsibility in which the federal government needs to be some kind of partner.

But I see the local organization taking on by far the lion's share of the burden here, and ultimately everything will come back to them, because they will be taking on that day-to-day responsibility, and the final responsibility, to make sure these places don't fall apart. They will be there on site. They will be there looking at these places day by day and will be taking on board, in a philosophical way, a commitment to not seeing these places deteriorate. So if there's a squeeze, they are going to be in that squeeze more than anyone.

So in fact it's a good deal for the government to do this.

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

I have one more point, if I have time. That's the fact that we have a number of lights in southwest Nova Scotia, some of which, quite frankly, have been moved two and three times in their lifetimes. Prevailing winds on the Atlantic have simply eroded the shoreline, especially for a number of them on islands, which are exposed to some pretty severe weather conditions. Quite frankly, those lights are going to be lost anyway, because eventually some of the islands they're on will be lost. That's another factor here. So we're not going to get a community group to take over those lights.

We did a cost assessment on Coffin Island a few years ago. I think some $450,000 worth of amour stone was put around the light. This was three or four hurricanes ago—quite a while ago—when the armour stone was gone. Because there was a light there, DFO had to make the decision of replacing it with a 20-foot fibreglass tower, which is not nearly as majestic as the old light. But we lose some lights due to conditions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Keddy.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

There's always one in the broth. Mr. Cullen was singing our praises a few minutes ago, but we always have one bad apple.

I believe we're going to go to Mr. Lévesque next.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think there are several lighthouses in the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron area. If there were too many heritage lighthouses, could people eventually lose interest? Too much is like too little. If you had to protect lighthouses located at a reasonable distance from each other to avoid competition both in Ontario and in British Columbia, how many would get the priority in your view?

I will give Mr. Square the chance to repeat to Mr. Blais what he wanted to say earlier.

I will also ask Mr. Goodacre to tell us how it works in British Columbia and how many lighthouses are necessary in his view.

[Robert Square]

First, Monsieur Blais, while you were out of the room, regarding part of your comments and my response, the thought came to me that I forgot--part of getting older, I guess--that Fisheries and Oceans are in talks with Parks Canada to divest themselves of Cove Island and transfer it over to Parks Canada to be part of Fathom Five National Marine Park. So that will open up other areas of cooperation and opportunities for us as part of the heritage preservation of Cove Island.

If I were to preserve one light in Ontario rather than having a perfect world in which all of them would be preserved, I would be selfish and say it's Cove Island, only because it is the most completely intact light station facility I can think of. Everything is there. You step off a boat onto the property, and it's like stepping back into history. It's what you see a light station being.

[Rick Goodacre]

In terms of making those choices, the Schindler's list of heritage, first of all, the proposed legislation states that the minister must “establish criteria to be taken into account in considering whether a lighthouse should be designated as a heritage lighthouse”. The minister must also establish an advisory committee.

There will be a process. This kind of discussion is always part of a process. In fact, if you made a list today, 25 years from now you might look at that list again and say you think the list is incorrect, because there's always a question of ongoing, shifting values.

If a community has a heritage register, they should revisit that every so many years to decide whether the list is still correct. At one point, the national historic sites in Canada all seemed to be battlefields. If you go to the national Historic Sites and Monuments Board now as ask them what their priorities are, those are very different from what they were in 1919. So it's an ongoing discussion.

There's also the question, as I said before, of money. You can talk about needing funds, that we need to fund these sites. There will always be a lid on the amount of money available. There will usually be a lid on the number of sites that are allowed into any given register, because when you add another property, that becomes another job to do.

Again, in terms of a municipal heritage register, I've seen cases where, enthusiastically, the city adopted a register that's really far beyond their means to deal with. Then they ended up having to backtrack and say, “Well, we really can't cope with this large a register.” So they want to bring it down to size. It's an ongoing push and pull.

So there have to be decisions about how many resources you want to dedicate to this particular program, and then when you're making those decisions about what gets in and what gets left out, you're looking at not only whether that site is a historic place, but also how big is the global picture; how many sites are we going to allow into this program? And then you start making your decisions.

There will certainly be places where you'll say, “Well, whatever the decision, this place has to be on that list.” There will be some stellar sites that simply are beyond dispute. But then you get into your secondary list and say, “Okay, we have the first five; what are the next 10?” And you'll have to work your way down.

So there's no way to protect yourself and say, “I know what that list is.” You are embarking upon a process, and that means there will be some indeterminate outcomes. But the principle involved is that you need to say, “We will recognize that we have historic lighthouses; we are willing to make those decisions as leaders”—because that's what you are, representing Canadian people. “We will make such a list and we will go out and find out what the truth is, find out how many historic places there are, and then deal with the facts as they come forward.”

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To stay on this topic for a moment, the importance is the list. The importance is who sits on this committee that's advising the government as to where the priorities should go.

Is there any advice that you would offer, if you had the minister in front of you now, in terms of how to construct the group of people who would make those final recommendations, and whether there are any critical criteria that might be perhaps counterintuitive? We know national historical importance and those types of things, but are there any criteria that you think might be important, and all historical applications would have to pass through this lens? In the bill itself, I can't read any detail that really directs the government one way or another as to how to make that advisory committee, and what, if any, criteria that committee should use.

So if you were to offer advice to the government, what would it be?

[Rick Goodacre]

I'll go first.

The Government of Canada, under the historic places initiative, which has been under way for about seven or eight years now, has brought in a new concept called “statement of significance”. This has become pretty much commonplace across the country. In British Columbia, we're seeing cities throughout the province starting to adopt this process of writing a statement of significance.

The point about the statement of significance is that it writes a very fundamental statement about what are the values of the place, and I think that's how it should be approached. Each one of the sites for consideration would have a statement of significance, and it would come back to the ideal: what are the values here? You can never be sure why any place is important. You can't predetermine that.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So you'd resist any type of point system or—

[Rick Goodacre]

I would. It's a mistake.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

This is always subjective.

[Rick Goodacre]

You have to look at each on its own merits. You write that statement and you have the people who know that place well, but also there's a certain expertise in doing that. I would say that's the approach to take, to look at it that way.

In terms of the question about who would be on that committee, what you really want is balance. You want a lot of different points of view and different ways of thinking. You don't want to load it up with just a lot of, if I may say so, historical experts, because they will have their points of view. You need to have that balance.

What the minister needs is really good advice, understanding what the real intent of this bill is. I think that's what I would do if I were advising the minister. And then you can put forward lots of names of candidates to be on that. There are lots of people in this country who have the skills to do this.