Fisheries Committee on April 14th, 2008

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

Thank you, sir. I'm getting ready for the golfing season.

Sir, you used the word “subsidy”, and I would eradicate that from your vocabulary and use the word “investment”. “Subsidy” scares government people off. I think “investment” is.... It's like “seal hunt”; you change it to “seal harvest” and it sounds much better for those who don't understand what they're talking about.

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. In the downturn of the fishery, we heard, you can't have a fish plant in every harbour. You can't have it in every town. Can you have a feasible working wharf in every harbour?

The reason I say this is that, as you know, without migration, with the downturn of the rural economies in Canada...it's like the old grain elevators in the Prairies and some of the railroad tracks. Can you feasibly have what you're asking for in every single harbour? It's not just what we've seen today; there are many more. Is it possible?

Government, at the end of the day, regardless of which government it is, will have to make decisions based on the harbour authority, on who they are, on the long-term goals of that harbour authority. Will you be there in 10 years yourself? Who will be replacing you? What are the materials of the wharf? What about the fishing industry itself? Will it be sustainable in 10 to 15 years? Will there be enough fish to warrant that type of investment?

With regard to tourism, I've done the Witless Bay tour myself. I never knew a puffin was 12 inches until I actually got here. They look so much bigger on TV.

All of these things have to be taken into consideration--the population of the community, etc.

I know it's a tough question to ask, because some communities will benefit and others won't, but is it feasible to do that?

Go ahead, sir.

[Rom Dalton]

I believe that in our bay regionally you have to look at...because it's not easy to get money for every place all at the one time.

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

Yes, sir.

[Rom Dalton]

So I believe, as you go around with your group, you must also look at the regions. What are the best benefits for each area at the time? Let that be done, and make the best use of the dollars.

As to the best place to put a harbour...and that's not taking into consideration some landing ports. People need landing ports all over. You don't need a great big harbour in every community, but you need enough to sustain the boats that are there and give them time--from anywhere within an hour--to get to a safe harbour.

So the landing ports are important, and the headlands. Any place where it takes millions of dollars to build a real harbour, probably the first storm is going to destroy it.

[Kevin McGrath]

I see a major need to continue with the harbour in St. Brides. We're right on the headlands of Placentia Bay. If you had to steam to another close harbour, it would be roughly three hours away to get to a good harbour.

And we have a lot of fishing activity going on, right on the headlands of Placentia Bay. You often hear the saying, “If there are two fish left around the island of Newfoundland, one of them is at Cape St. Mary's.” That's where we're to, and that's why we need the harbour in St. Brides.

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

Right on.

Sir.

[Donald Drew]

And the other fish is at Renews rock on the southern shore.

I'll add just one thing on that: it already has happened. Around this province there were, it's estimated, over a thousand communities here. Now we're down to a couple of hundred harbour authorities operating. And these are operating for a reason: they've been sustainable.

Anything we do around this table will not really make a big load of difference in how things survive. It's the fish, or crab, or shrimp that will. Port de Grave has a big harbour because of the investment put into the harvesters, into the different species, and because of their proximity to those stocks. Likewise with Bay Bulls and St. Mary's Bay. We are limited, and it's the same thing in St. Brides and that area, and Branch. These areas are there for a reason, because our forefathers went there for fish. These areas have survived for hundreds of years because there's still fish there.

When you go to a place where the amount of fish has gone down, you see fewer people there. I'm a fish harvester in the summertime. I teach MED courses in the wintertime. I'm travelling this whole island, from the top of the northern peninsula to every coast. In a place where there's very little harvesting left, there's no one coming in looking for a big wharf. There might be a couple of little harvesters left in the community, but they're not looking for major infrastructure.

So the stock itself has regulated what is left there now. There are small harbour authorities operating in parts around the coast with four and five boats. And when you go to another community, whether it's 18, 20, 40, 50, or 80 boats, right around this island, the species themselves have regulated it.

We're having a reduction in harbours. If we had a small craft harbours wharf in every location where our grandfathers fished around this island, believe me, in today's dollars, the budget of Canada would not keep that infrastructure in place. The fish themselves have regulated it.

A person fishing at, I'll say, a wharf in St. Mary's Bay cannot come to Trepassey to land if that's where his harvest is to. But he's making a business move for best fuel, services, and everything else, and that is what comes into it.

The fish have done this, and industry has done this. Basically, all we're doing is making those harbours viable. And we're doing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Mr. Petten, do you have something to add?

[Ross Petten]

Yes, I would like to make a comment.

Off-loading ports are different from having a landing port, but we've sort of moved in that direction. That's where the main ports are going to be most of the time now. Some may be allowed to be left here, but most of it is gone, and that has happened through natural causes. Everything has gathered there. So that's really going to happen anyhow, by the way everything is going to all filter down through the system. DFO has off-loading ports now, landing sites, and whatever, so that's going to take away a lot of....

I can remember that at one time in Port De Grave alone we had four wharves, but they're not maintained anymore and we had to let them go by the wayside and just have one big harbour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Petten and Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It certainly is a pleasure to be in your riding. You speak very passionately about the folks you represent, and it's good to see some of them here today.

I certainly welcome our guests who have come to the committee. It's an honour for me, as an Albertan, to be out here and to hear some of the trials and tribulations folks are going through on each of the coasts and throughout our country when it comes to fisheries issues.

Listening to some of your testimony today, I get the feeling that some of the problems we have today are because twenty years ago, when we made those decisions, we didn't know where we were going to be. And if we make decisions today based on our needs today, we're going to have the same problem twenty years from now. At least that's my way of thinking.

From my perspective, it would make sense.... I'd just like to get your feedback on whether or not, given the context of the current vision statement for the small craft harbours program.... Where do you see harbours needing to go? Does it make sense that we have almost a one-to-one ratio of harbour authorities looking after their own harbours? Should there be regional harbour authorities making decisions based more on economic development for a region rather than for one or two communities in a small harbour? Where is the usage coming from?

Traditionally, the harbours have been there for the fishermen. I'm hearing from folks that's there's more and more demand from recreational boaters. Some friends I met here a few years back are casting off and sailing around the world. That seems to be one of these new recreational opportunities that people are doing, whether they're sailing north from the United States, coming over from Europe, or whatever the case may be.

What do you see a small craft harbours program should look like twenty years from now, given the fact that the fishery is changing and the demands are changing as far as the clients coming into the harbours are concerned? Where do you think we need to go insofar as managing these harbour authorities?

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Don.

[Donald Drew]

That's an interesting question.

There's no way to actually be able to target at twenty years. If you asked anyone around this table thirty years ago, with the exception of Kevin, if crab would be your primary species, they would have said, “You're crazy; it's a nuisance fish”--and likewise with shrimp. Those species were not really.... Yes, they were marketed and they were harvested, but not to any great degree. It's hard to target that thirty years down the road.

With the regional side, it could work, in some sense. Up until now there's been a lot of friction against having areas of harbour authorities. Maybe there's a way to actually have them come together at one table for discussion in areas, to try to discuss how to better approach this. But everyone is still going to try to protect their community, their area, or whatever.

There are certain things you do together. In our area, there are three communities that had operating wharves but no longer have them. That has happened, and those fish harvesters have moved to either Bauline or Witless Bay or Bay Bulls to operate their businesses because those other three are no longer there. We're doing it regionally, not by design but out of necessity, and I think that will continue.

You're going to have an awful hard sell to go into any area and say this wharf is going to close. There was something on the news last night about an arena somewhere that is going to be closed up, and the council is going against it, but everyone in the community jumped forward and kept it. The same thing will happen with that wharf.

There are ways we can work together as individual harbour authorities to try to get a volunteer group to take care of a bigger area. I'm on town council and have been for ten years. I'm the mayor of Bay Bulls. You look at a larger area, and the things I do on the town council, the harbour authority--and all of us here are the same way, for your own community--it's awfully hard to do that work. We go down and we put fenders back on the wharf. If the floating docks have been moved or something, we go down and do this. This work is not hired out; we give thousands of hours every year to that facility. To do that for a larger area is going to be pretty hard. You're not going to have the benefit of saving money, because there's staff and everything else, so it could actually have the opposite effect.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

You'll lose the sense of ownership at the local level.

[Donald Drew]

What I see down there is something that I've built. I'm part of it. All of us have the same feeling for the areas we're in. When you see something go in there you think, “I helped do that”. It gives you pride, and you want to see it survive.

We all survived through 1992 and that moratorium. Keeping any harbour authority going during the first three or four years of the moratorium was, I must say, a nightmare. You're on a wing and a prayer to keep the doors open, and we did it. Everyone at this table worked hard to get those harbour authorities to survive. We did it because it was for our community, and it was our future. We still see that work as our future.

To look at a bigger area, there are certain things you do regionally, but that's going to be a hard one.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Keeping that in mind, and I know some others might want to address this, but it was brought up by someone--I don't recall who it was--that harbour authorities are elected. Who gets to vote?

[Donald Drew]

Legally, members. Anyone can be a member of a harbour authority. We have fish harvesters, tour boat operators, fish farmers, and pleasure boat operators who are members of our harbour authority, because they are traditional users. In our own harbour authority, among ourselves, it is a majority of fish harvesters. Right now I have four fish harvesters, including myself, on the board, and I have one retired DFO scientist. At times we've had numerous different people.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Interesting.

Does anybody else want to take a stab at that?

[Rom Dalton]

I believe that in order to keep anything you've got to have the individual local harbour authorities, as Don was saying, to look after the necessary things. Last year some fenders went off the wharf and went down, and some needed to be put on that weren't there before, so we all went down and put them on at no cost.

But on the overall regional thing, it would be great if you had a board to sit down--and everyone's on their own side, because there are only so many dollars to go around--and figure out where's the best place to spend the dollars. I think that would be a major deal. But don't take away--

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

And take that out of the hands of DFO, or simply make a recommendation to DFO?

[Rom Dalton]

Well, it would be making a recommendation, because most of the stuff is probably done, evolved, but make recommendations too. I'm sure if recommendations come from a regional board that we're going to spend money here, even though every harbour authority wants it here, if you make your case I think it can work in any area.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Interesting.

[Kevin McGrath]

I'd like to say that I think the harbours have probably scaled down as far as they'll ever be. At least that's what we see around Avalon. What harbours are there now are the much-needed harbours. I see in our little place up there, we lost one harbour on one side of us, Point Lance--it just closed down, went out of business--and we lost two little harbours on the other side of us. Their fishermen came to our harbour, or we went to their harbours, and it was something like a little combining. And that's it. What harbours are there now are much needed.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

One of the statements that are currently in the vision for the small craft harbours program from DFO.... I'll read you the last statement:

These harbour authorities, representing users and local communities, will assume full responsibility for all activities at their harbours, including the management and conduct of minor maintenance activities, and provide significant financial contributions to funding their harbours.

Other than through the volunteer time, which I think is very significant, obviously as demanded or as needed, I think people would probably pony up materials and supplies if they've got them in order to keep their harbours going.

Can any of you describe to me any other types of economic activities, whether through the berthing fees that you charge...? I think there are two tiers sometimes, depending on whether or not people off-load there, and I'm wondering if you've got tiers based on the type of user, whether a fisherman pays more or less than a recreational user. Are there any other types of economic activities that could or should be undertaken at these harbours to augment the amount of revenue that these harbours can gain as far as the revenue stream is concerned?

[Kevin McGrath]

Yes, we have a fee that is based at so much per pound. We had 3.8 million pounds come in last year, and we took in a bit of money like that. I think it was a quarter cent to a half cent per pound. We also charge per vessel to tie off. That will range from $49 up to $100 for the year, depending on the size of the vessel. Out of this money we have a harbour supervisor hired on who goes around every day and makes sure that everything is kept nice and tidy down around the harbour.