Evidence of meeting #25 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was boats.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
The reason I ask is that, as you know, governments, previous and current, look for partnerships with the provinces or the regional municipalities, or in some cases with the larger cities. Have there been any discussions that you know of at the provincial level in terms of their getting involved in some way?
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
On the piece that we're doing with tourism, the province's finance department does have someone at the table with us. We took all the groups in community tourism and put them at one table. There are 22 individual businesses and entities there now. I'm there for the harbour authority. Basically through this we have someone at the table from the provincial finance department. They have, on the tourism side of it, helped fund some tourism issues in the way of training and plans for the tourism committee, but not for the harbour authority.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
In closing, I want to say that I admire the four of you and your families and your communities. I remember very well, and everyone at this table remembers, what happened in 1992. Thousands of your neighbours left this province to find so-called greener pastures elsewhere. When you talk to all of them, in Fort McMurray or Ontario or wherever, they have that longing in their eyes to come home. I want to congratulate you gentlemen for sticking it out and making a livelihood out of it. You should be congratulated for your efforts.
Thank you.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming and for the work that you do for small craft harbours. It's certainly appreciated.
I'm from British Columbia. The Fraser River runs through my riding, and I do have three small craft harbours, about 65 fewer, I think, than are in Mr. Manning's riding.
I'm also the parliamentary secretary to the minister, so I'd like to ask you--although I'm reluctant to do so because Mr. Sooley is sitting right behind you--to characterize your relationship with the small craft harbours program and how well you get along, how you rate your cooperation, and so on.
I'd like to hear briefly from all of you on that, please.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
I just want to make a comment. We've fought. We've argued. We go to him like Santa Claus for one thing more than we're going to get. But they're our friends, and we know where they come from, and it's good that we have them there. They're good people to work with. That's from Gary and Bill Goulding on down, whoever we're dealing with. We've had really good relations.
Harbour Authority of St. Brides
That's right. I have to agree with that. The main thing is that there we do our bit of negotiating. We sit at the one table, and sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don't. But we're still holding in there.
Conservative
Harbour Authority of Admirals Beach
Over the last number of years we've always gotten along pretty well with Gary and all the crowd that comes around. Anything we've needed...even last year one time we didn't mount a jib crane and then we decided we needed one, and within two weeks it was on the wharf. Everything seems to be working pretty well. There are never any problems. I think what helps keep all the harbour authorities going is that little meeting they have in the fall of the year, mostly in Gander, for all the harbour authorities to go to. It brings people together, and it keeps them together. They go home and everything is not forgotten about, and by the next year you get more ideas and more help, and everything seems to work pretty smoothly.
Harbour Authority of Port de Grave
We feel the same way in Port de Grave Harbour. We have absolutely no problems with the small craft harbours. We've got a good working relationship. Anything that we need they almost always come to the table with. I'm not saying that we always have everything A-1, but we always work through things, and there are absolutely no problems. It's perfect.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
I have one other question. I'm just curious as to how you set your berthage rates. As my colleague was mentioning to me, those of us who pay for parking in Ottawa, for example, pay more in a month than these ships would pay in a year, in some cases. So I'm just curious. Do they go up regularly? It just seems low to me as an outsider. I realize I don't know what I'm talking about, but I just wonder how you set these rates.
Harbour Authority of St. Brides
As for us in St. Brides, we have debated this a little bit over the years. We keep down our rate for berthage fees a bit because then we benefit more from their landings. We think that if our berthage fee was too high, we might frighten some of those boats away and we wouldn't be getting their landings.
Conservative
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
You are very inventive in what you try to do. The fee you have to charge depends on what service you provide. When our harbour authority was first formed, we had very little service to provide, with the exception of berthage. As we've grown over the years and made reinvestments in fresh water and bathrooms, things have gone up. But as he just mentioned about the price per pound, there are ways of bringing it up that mean berthage is not being paid directly, but still the harvester is paying.
I compare it to a council with a mill rate tax. Mill rate tax is based on the investment in your property and what your property is worth. Our tax on unloading, with the price per pound.... I do lose off what I pay, so they get paid from the plant on this price per pound. But with that alone, because of the value of my enterprise, I'm paying by the revenue I have coming in. I still have my base amount there if I don't unload there. So there is a way of getting a two-pronged approach. You get it for unloading there, and you also get it even if you don't unload.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Wouldn't it make sense then to charge a higher fee to those who don't unload, either pleasure boats or especially tourist boats?
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
Our fee structure applies such that if you are a non-fisher vessel, pleasure or commercial, you pay double the berthage fee of the fish harvester.
Now, other services there, such as using the jib crane, are the same price. You mightn't think that non-fish harvesters use jib cranes, but if you have a tour boat with a 100-passenger life raft, they need to use a jib crane to get it off the boat. So they do pay those fees.
There are different ways of generating the revenue. When it's all broken down, actually the harvester is paying pretty close, because they're availing themselves of more services, and you pay for what you use. Some harbour authorities are even involved in renting cranes and charging it back to the harvester, which we do.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Thank you, Mr. Kamp.
I just want to finish up. Our analyst is just wondering, as members of harbour authorities, have you ever received guidelines on how to set your rates? I know every individual harbour authority can set their own, but are any guidelines forwarded by the department in any way, shape, or form to assist you with that?
Harbour Authority of Admirals Beach
I think at first there were some general guidelines, but actually you could charge whatever you thought you needed to meet your budget for the year.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
It is cost recovery as such. You do try to have a cushion there for a bad year. But it's the same thing; on day one there was a little guideline that came out. We work back and forth in your area. I'll use an example. Over the last few weeks the harbour authorities from Petty Harbour, Flatrock, Torbay, and anything further along--we've all contacted each other to see where we're sitting on rates for this year, to be competitive. We don't want to make one harbour seem too cheap, but I'm going to say we're all in the same ball park on fee structure. Generally speaking, we're all working together. That way we can all benefit and no one gets hurt.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Thank you.
Thank you once again to the witnesses for your conversation here today. It's been very worthwhile, and I think it's one of the better ones we've had in our study thus far, because it's coming right from the grassroots, the people who are on the wharfs and in the boats themselves.
I come from a small fishing community on the cape shore; I have never fished, but I do know how important the wharf and the facilities in the harbour are to the community in every way, shape, and form. It's people like you, who are doing that now on a volunteer basis, who are very important.
So on behalf of the committee, once again I thank you for your presence here today. Certainly if there is anything further you would like to add to our conversation today, feel free to forward it to us while we proceed with finishing up on our report.
Committee members, we're going to take a five- or six-minute break now to get ready for our next panel....
Mr. Drew.
Chair, Harbour Authority of Bay Bulls
I have one quick comment. For the MP from Alberta, if you want to get votes, there are so many of our friends and relatives in Alberta that if you put wharfs in Newfoundland, you'll get votes in Alberta.