Good morning. My name is Samuel Larocque and I am the Secretary Treasurer of the Pigeon-Hill Harbour Authority.
There are 68 coastal fishers at the Pigeon-Hill wharf. In the fall, during the herring harvest, there are an additional 15 boats. Currently, I have seven problems with the wharves. First the problem is with dredging at Le Goulet. We dredge every year, and every year our funding applications are approved. The problem is that we always have to call Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Public Works and Government Services Canada 48 hours in advance to file an application to dredge. And they give us 40 hours of dredging time, and sometimes 30 or even 20 hours. We're asking for a maintenance contract with allocated funding.
We have the Amphibec in the Pigeon-Hill region. And we're lucky from that point of view. The Amphibec can dig a wide enough channel so that if there's a storm or big winds, even if it fills up to a width of 50 feet, it's at least 200 feet wider. So that's the extent of the dredging problem.
Then we have wharf 401 which has been closed for five years. I have a lot of trouble getting money for that wharf. We've got it closed at the moment, but fishers open it and trucks drive through. Whose responsible? The port authority is. And we don't have enough money to repair this wharf.
The third problem is the slip, where vessels enter into the water. I lodged an application three years ago and I'm still waiting for the plans and designs from PWGSC. There are 70 boats which enter the water on the slipway with what we call a float. It's really dangerous. I've also submitted an application in relation to this. We're still waiting for the plans and specifications.
Another problem is that last year, we got $25,000 to carry out a study on future plans. I called Fisheries and Oceans Canada about this, but I didn't hear back. I called PWGSC. I got the same response, they are not aware of the issue. This is what we need to make the wharf bigger. We are still waiting.
The fifth problem is with the iron wharf. My grandfather built the iron wharf 32 years ago. It was inspected and we're going to get money to rebuild it. Fisheries and Oceans has done a lot of work on this, and I'm very pleased with this.
As you can see, there are a lot of problems at Pigeon-Hill.
The sixth problem involves floating docks. Four floating docks have degenerated. They're over 25 years old. We've continued to make requests in this regard, but there's not enough money.
The seventh problem is that Fisheries and Oceans Canada never has any money. We'd like to have a lot more money for small craft harbours. Small wharves must be treated differently to big sea ports. This problem really must be addressed.
When the government handed the sea ports over to the harbour authorities, they were in bad shape. You cannot hand something over to someone else when it's in bad shape. Had the government repaired the wharves immediately, we wouldn't be sitting at this table.
Thank you.