Fisheries Committee on April 18th, 2008

[Jacques Dufresne]

I think that you are on the right track. I will give you an example that, in my opinion, could work very well. Given what we had seen, L'Anse-à-Valleau, Rivière-au-Renard, L'Anse-au-Griffon and even Gaspé, which is very close, could perhaps, among the four of them, obtain funding for a skeleton staff, because that is something that is important. Doing this work on a volunteer basis is simply asking too much. We need a staff that would be active in all four harbours and a board of directors that would work with them. Then, the volunteers would enjoy working, be more creative and we could submit projects. I know very well, as concerns the harbours, that there is not only streamlining to be done, there are other things as well. However, the way we are organized now, all we can do is damage control rather than sitting down and planning for the future. So I think that would be a good idea.

[Carmelle Mathurin]

I agree that this way of doing things... In my region, there are only two of us. Obviously, if we sat on a committee with several other people, it would be easier to work together and to develop projects or plan things, because we know that we would be looking after a given initiative. However, when there are only two of us, we are responsible for collecting money from the small fishers who come to the wharf. If they do not pay, we must send a registered letter to collect the $100 fee, and then a second letter, and so on.

The harbour authorities told us that we had to go to the Small Claims Court. But I am a volunteer, I am not going to go to court for $50 or $60.

Definitely, if a number of authorities got together, that would be possible. And then, perhaps our wharf would be used more, because we do have a very nice wharf.

[Anita Collin]

I know that the wharves in Saint-Georges and in L'Anse-à-Brillant come under the same harbour authority. At a certain point, the fishers who sit on the board of directors see that the wharves are falling into disrepair. That is what happened with the fishers in Saint-Georges, who no longer want to work with the people in L'Anse-à-Brillant, so they simply give up.

Currently, I am the spokesperson for that wharf, and I am a volunteer. No matter how much time I devote... I am the one the fishers come to see. They do not even want to meet with the chair of the association. That is the way things are. They say that it's no good. That's what they tell me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

I have a couple of quick questions. As chair, I don't often get to involve myself in the questions, but every now and again I do.

Mr. Morissette, did I understand you correctly that you paid $200 a month to tie up to the Transport Canada wharf, and Transport Canada tried to divest of this facility earlier on and didn't get to do that? Did I follow you correctly?

[Stéphane Morissette]

Yes, our rates are the same as for any boat that ties up to a Transport Canada wharf: so many cents per metre. I have boats that are 45 feet long, which equals $200 per month, and I am there eight or nine months per year.

Transport Canada wants to divest of the Carleton wharf because there is no more activity there. There was a project, but the municipality has not yet taken it over. Fisheries and Oceans is very interested in acquiring a portion of the wharf that is used mainly by fishers, whereas the other portion of the wharf was once used for the docking of a ferry, unloading wood, etc. But Transport Canada's policy is to divest of all the wharf or of nothing at all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Okay.

Madame Mathurin, did I follow you correctly that the wharf in your community is owned by small craft harbours directorate, by DFO?

[Carmelle Mathurin]

Yes, by the harbour authority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Yes, but it's small craft harbours property, correct?

[Carmelle Mathurin]

Yes, Fisheries and Oceans.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Did you say that you have no boats, or that boats don't land there? I'm not--

[Carmelle Mathurin]

There are boats, but not many. There are some lobster fishers, but they sell their product elsewhere. There are no landings on our wharf because it is not a designated wharf, but it is in good condition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Okay.

Thank you very much for your testimony here today. We certainly thank you for your time.

We have to clear the table now to get ready for our next set of witnesses. Once again, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Welcome back, committee members, and welcome to our guests.

For translation, English is on channel one and French is on channel two. I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador, so we may need another translation for me. I'll try my best.

We are the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans of the Parliament of Canada. We are in the process of conducting a report on the small craft harbours program of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We began this process last fall. We heard in Ottawa from people involved with the department, the national harbour advisory board, and some others. This week we have travelled to Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and today we're in Quebec.

Part of our process is to hear from people in the communities. We heard from some harbour authorities earlier today, and we're delighted to have representatives of municipalities with us here now. Our process is basically an effort to try to enhance the small craft harbours program. Most of the committee members, including me, represent rural areas of Canada. We have many harbour authorities in our ridings.

As an example, in my riding of Avalon in Newfoundland and Labrador, I have 68 harbour authorities that I deal with. It's the busiest file in my office.

So it's very close to all our hearts that we try to find ways to improve and enhance this program. I certainly want to thank you for taking the time on a beautiful Friday evening to come and state your case before us and give us the opportunity to ask some questions.

The process is very straightforward. We open the floor to the witnesses and give them an opportunity to make their presentations. We then open the floor to questions from committee members.

The committee is made up of the four parties in the House of Commons--the Conservatives, the Liberals, the Bloc, and the NDP. We have a very good committee. As a matter of fact, it's maybe one of the better committees in the House of Commons. I'm not saying that as chair, but we do have a great working relationship. Many interests are common among all the members here, and we try to proceed in that manner.

We have an excellent presentation that was made to us from one of your groups. It is in the French language only. I'll ask, if I could, for the cooperation of the committee members to pass this around to everybody. Julia, our clerk, will have it translated at a later date; it's just to give you an idea.

Is that okay with all committee members?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Julia will have it translated later and we'll present it to you again when we return to Ottawa. It's just to give you an idea. For those who cannot read the second language, we'll have to wait, but it's an excellent presentation.

I think I've covered everything I need to cover at the present time.

Pardon me if I pronounce your name differently from what you've normally called yourself for the past number of years, but I will try my best.

We'll have an opening presentation from Mr. Scantland.

How's that for Newfoundland language?

[Gilbert Scantland, Conférence régionale des élu(e)s Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am the Director General of the Conférence régionale des élu(e)s de la Gaspésie et des Îles-de-la-Madeleine. I would like to introduce the colleagues who are accompanying me here this afternoon. Representatives from the regional conference are here. They are all concerned, as is our umbrella group, by the difficulties that our small craft harbours are experiencing throughout our territory. I was happy to learn that you have 67 harbour authorities in your region. I believe that we have approximately the same number here, a region that also includes the Magdalen Islands. Therefore, we will understand each other.

I would like to introduce Mr. François Roussy, mayor of the city of Gaspé; Mr. Majella Emond, Reeve of the MRC de la Haute-Gaspésie, on the north shore of the Gaspé Peninsula; Mr. Claude Cyr, who is both Reeve of the MRC du Rocher-Percé and mayor of Chandler and finally, Mr. Georges Mamelonet, who is mayor of the municipality of Percé. I will also take this opportunity to introduce two other colleagues: the mayor of Grande-Vallée, Mr. Gabriel Minville, and Ms. Jocelyne Huet, of Grande-Vallée.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for being here today to meet with us. The Conférence régionale des élu(e)s de la Gaspésie et des Îles-de-la-Madeleine is very concerned about the state of its harbour infrastructure throughout its region. These harbour facilities are very important not only for our fishing industry, but also in social and cultural terms for our entire region. Like other maritime communities—it is probably the same thing for you—we developed around our harbours. The harbours have cultural and heritage significance for all of our territory.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Chairman, could we ask Mr. Scantland to come to the front, as he is the spokesperson for this umbrella group? I cannot see him for the moment. If you could take Mr. Lalièvre's place, particularly as he is not here, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Gilbert Scantland]

Now that you know who I am, I will not take my name card with me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

I'm more interested in hearing you than seeing you, but....

We had expected some other guests.

[Gilbert Scantland]

I was saying that the importance of harbours in our area is not only economic, but also has cultural and heritage value. Currently, the underfunding of this program for our region has had significant consequences in all three of these areas. There have been repercussions for our fishing industry. Despite what Fisheries and Oceans says, access to certain wharves is neither adequate nor safe for our fishermen. We had emergency situations last year at the Saint-Georges-de-Malbaie wharf, which is very bad for our industry. Mr. Georges Mamelonet will in fact address that issue later on.

The wharves that have currently fallen into a state of disrepair represent risks for our tourists, who quite rightly want to have access to the sea. They used these wharves in order to see the water. Often, part of the wharf is closed because of a lack of maintenance and the fact that it is not safe. Some wharves are temporarily closed. This creates a particular atmosphere of desolation and does not project a good image of the federal infrastructures in our area, nor of the community that is welcoming these tourists to our region.

The lack of funding for this program also means that some of the fishermen's wharves are not only poorly maintained, but they do not allow for multiple uses. Our region is experiencing significant economic difficulties in relation to the collapse of the fish stocks and the lumber market. We are attempting to diversify our economy through various means. The two themes we have chosen to diversify our economy are tourism and fish farming, or farming products in a marine environment, aquaculture.

In this regard, the wharves are important for the development of this industry. Very often, the lack of maintenance and Fisheries and Oceans Canada's inability to act in these areas deprive us of the possibility of developing this industry. For these reasons, we are in a position to say that currently, the federal government, through Fisheries and Oceans Canada, is not fully playing its role on our territory, which has a negative impact on our entire economy, whether it be tourism or the fishery, fish farming or the development of recreational boating as well. The Gaspé Peninsula and the Magdalen Islands are welcoming more and more recreational boaters who quite rightly come to explore the surrounding waters. Very often, because of the lack of maintenance or the closing of certain sections of a wharf, the boaters find that they have no access to moor their boat.

There are of course marinas that exist in our region, but people do not always plan for enough time, and they are sometimes obliged to berth at a wharf in a different area. I myself had that experience in the Magdalen Islands last year. I was travelling through the Magdalen Islands on a sailboat and we ran into a serious storm. We had to take shelter in a harbour where the infrastructure was inadequate not only to protect our sailboat, but even the fishing boats that were there. We had to protect ourselves as best we could with the buoys that the fishermen lent us. This whole aspect creates an atmosphere of decrepitude of the infrastructure that, in my opinion, projects a very bad image of our region in this regard.

Moreover, I would like to emphasize that our organization works with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in order to try and find solutions for non-core harbours in our area. Core harbours come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They want to maintain them in light of their responsibility with harbour associations, but others are categorized as non-core harbours, and the divestiture program is not adequate to allow for the renovations of these wharves and for them to be handed over to local authorities. We are working in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and we want to put forward a regional divestiture program which would involve changes in use in certain cases. We would like to have their support in this effort, but it is extremely difficult to get information. We have great difficulty getting information on costs, on projects that are already implemented, etc. We would appreciate the cooperation of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in this respect.

Olivier Demers, who is with me here today, is my advisor and my associate. He is the professional in this area that I refer to and at times, in fact quite often, he indicates to me how difficult it is to obtain information from Fisheries and Oceans Canada in order to properly document the files that we are working on.

I have given you a brief overview of the situation. I believe that through the question period, we will be in a better position to respond more specifically to the aspects that concern you and that concern us as well. In conclusion, I must say that wharves are critical in the Gaspé area. They are essential to our economy, and also to our culture and heritage. They are a part of our landscape. In that sense, we must give them all the attention that is required, not only so that they will be functional, but also so that they can contribute to the development of our economy overall, not only to the fishery.

I thank you for your attention. Given that I have a few more minutes, some of my colleagues may add a few words if they wish.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you very much, Mr. Scantland.

We will be doing a series of questions. Anybody will be free to answer any of the questions posed by my colleagues.

Mr. Minville, the floor is now yours.

[Gabriel Minville, Mayor, Town Council, Municipality of Grande-Vallée]

Thank you for having invited us.

The Grande-Vallée fishing harbour, as we already pointed out, is a heritage and cultural property. It is a symbol of the economic activity that brought our village into existence. It is a reflection of our identity and our culture, a witness to the intense economic activity of an era.

Political authorities thus a have duty to ensure the continuation of financial programs designed to safeguard these symbolic infrastructures.

In Grande-Vallée, the first fishermen's cooperative was founded in 1930, three years after the municipality was constituted. Ours is a recreational and tourist harbour. Like a number of communities, we have witnessed a change in the purpose of our small craft harbour, which has been transformed by declining fish stocks and industry mining of the fishery. In any case, this activity remains rooted in our communities and it remains a part of customs and usages of the local population. They were born close to a waterway and their activities remain focused on it.

The harbour has been labelled non-essential, but it remains a nerve centre of tourist activity. These so-called non-essential ports must not be considered unimportant to their communities. Our small craft harbours are decrepit. They are located in the middle of the village, at the nerve centre of tourist and economic development.

We are the ones who distributed the scale drawing. I am sorry that we did not also have an English version of it. As you can see, despite our efforts, this does not project a positive image for those whose names appear on this infrastructure. In the upper left hand corner, you can see the refrigerated warehouse which we are told is the only building of its kind dating back to the 1930s from this period in the Gaspé Peninsula's history that has been developed. You can see that it has been extremely well preserved. It is an important remnant of our way of life. We are currently in the exploratory phase of the Esdras-Minville and Refrigerated Warehouse Area project. This is a $600,000 development project of which $100,000 has already been committed.

On the other side of the river, to the west, the tourist office has been developed at a cost of $300,000, and it will open for the 2008 summer season. Grande-Vallée is a small, single industry municipality seen as having decayed. We are doing our best to offset out-migration of our youth and to try and guarantee some jobs for our people. We believe that this nerve centre, that we would like to develop with you, will be an incubator of socio-economic micro-businesses whose development will make it possible to create both seasonal and permanent jobs. We believe that DFO's lack of action is a brake on Grande- Vallée's development project. However, you will find that we are persistent.

The Divestiture Program is the poor child of the small craft harbours program, which itself suffers from chronic underfunding. However, for communities like Grande-Vallée, it is not merely a matter of infrastructure or esthetics. We really need our harbour in order to develop our tourist sector. It should therefore be possible to get Canada Economic Development financially involved in the divestiture process.

We talk about regional realities, but we would like to talk about specific characteristics and identity. Grande-Vallée is the first village in Quebec to earn the Village-Relais designation from MTQ and to be required to comply with a quality charter. Its small craft harbour is located within the urbanization perimeter. We need its heritage buildings, such as the refrigerated warehouse. If the drawings were more detailed, you would see the covered bridge, which is near the harbour infrastructures. The presence of the small craft harbour ensures adequate river flow and the preservation of the more than one-kilometre sandy beach, as you can see in the drawing.

On a more serious note, apart from the national flag flying in every Canadian locality, fishing harbours are often the only place were the federal government is present in coastal communities. We think we should go on the record as saying that our address has not changed: we still proudly sign ourselves Grande-Vallée, Quebec, Canada.

In conclusion, our recommendations are the following: first of all, to recognize the small craft harbours as heritage and cultural properties; to ensure the survival of fishing small craft harbours as well as recreational small craft harbours; to recognize the small craft harbours as tourist and economic attractions; to ensure that all federal departments concerned by the survival of the small craft harbours are involved; to recognize the specific characteristics of each small craft harbour in order to preserve local identity; and finally, to recognize the importance of the federal presence in coastal communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Minville. That was certainly an interesting presentation.

I'll now open the floor to my colleague Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

I certainly appreciate everybody taking the time to come here, as you are volunteering your time.

As a member of this committee, what I want to try to do is convince government, whatever stripe--none of them have been good enough at it--to put enough money into small craft harbours to make sure that they end up in a better state. That's what we're trying to do.

Mr. Minville, I'm very interested in all the work you described. The building shown here--is this the thing you were talking about?

[Gabriel Minville]

Yes, it is. It is the former cold-storage warehouse that was used to store ice for the fishers' frozen herring, or what we commonly call bait, or "bouette", in French. I don't know if you know that French word. It has stood the test of time. And now it's been given a new vocation. It does have memories associated with it, but I think that it is going to have as interesting a role to play as it had in times gone by.