Evidence of meeting #34 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 harbour.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
The interesting question is that you raise cost overruns to complete the vision as you've outlined it--about 100% over what was originally forecasted or anticipated.
Will you still assume ownership after the expenditure of the $15 million if under some circumstances you can't access the other $15 million you suggest you require?
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Belleville
We are committed to assuming ownership regardless. Council made that decision knowing full well what the implications and liabilities were, so they went in with their eyes open, if you want to put it that way.
Council knows there are issues yet to be addressed and is accepting responsibility for some liabilities, if you will, in years to come by virtue of the decision they have made.
As Marjorie explained earlier, we see those issues for us, but the harbour is so important to this city that council felt it was important that they move ahead, regardless of those liabilities. We are just expressing our concern for what those might be and seeking some consideration, if you will, for our future.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Thanks very much.
Mr. Chair, I think my colleague has questions.
Conservative
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I have a comment at the end too, when my time is up, if that's all right.
Ms. Buck, you mentioned some non-capital funding. What type of funding is required in your situation? That's the non-capital funding I'm speaking of.
Director of Recreation and Community Services, City of Belleville
When it comes to the non-capital part, by the city's definition it's the funding to assist in the study that occurred prior to entering into the joint project agreement with the small craft harbours program. The federal government assisted us with the financing of our master plan for the waterfront and some studies. I refer to studies and consultants' reports as non-capital.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I see. Then let me ask you about the commercial activity in this harbour area. What type of commercial activity do you have there?
Director of Recreation and Community Services, City of Belleville
Down at the Meyers Pier operation we have a very small restaurant set up. We have some minor sales of souvenirs, etc. It's very limited. Most of our operation in the harbour is focused on boaters and their needs, such as fuel services. Our harbour is focused more on our transient and seasonal boaters.
We have on occasion had tourist boats that will come and use this as a staging area, but that doesn't happen on a regular basis.
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Belleville
I might point out that the city had commercial activity in years gone by—large freighters. But that ceased many years ago.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I think that's what I was getting at. I'm not sure what kind of industrial activity you're seeing. That's a thing of the past, I would gather. It's not something you're looking for in the near future.
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Belleville
We see the harbour's future as recreational rather than commercial. So the focus in our master planning is more in the recreational area, not in the working commercial area.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
From a jurisdictional point of view, this is completely the City of Belleville. What is Prince Edward County's role in all this?
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Belleville
They're a neighbouring municipality. They are on the opposite side of the bay, so they are an immediate neighbour. On the tourism side of it, which is probably our strongest relationship, we share a common vision—we want to advance our opportunities for tourism growth within Belleville and in Prince Edward County.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
You have full ownership of this and you're going ahead with your master plan. How much of your master plan is complete?
Director of Recreation and Community Services, City of Belleville
In regard to the master plan that was submitted for this study and the commencement of our divestiture, it would be less than one percent. The issue for us is the environmental concerns that have arisen through our studies and the change in direction required to ensure that the property is properly cleaned. Our focus for this coming $12.7 million expenditure—and the contract has been awarded—has more to do with remedial cleanup and infrastructure. Our plans for a commercial facility on the land instead of out on the pier, for a restaurant operation, for a souvenir shop, for the development of a hotel for entertainment—those have been set on the back burner. The focus has to be to get the land clean and safe for the public to use, so that we meet the Ministry of the Environment regulations.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I'm a graduate of Loyalist College. It's a beautiful area, and I commend you, because it's improved vastly over the past 10 to 15 years. It's quite a destination.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Yes, since I left, it's improved greatly.
Just to give you a little connection with hockey, I believe Daniel Cleary is from your riding. Daniel Cleary is a hockey star for Detroit. Before he joined the NHL, he was a proud member of the Belleville Bulls and one of their superstars.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Mr. Blais is a Montreal Canadiens fan, but we won't go there today, will we?
Go ahead, Mr. Blais.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Indeed, if we want to talk about hockey, we'll talk about the Montreal Canadiens. The other teams, that's something else.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being with us. First I would like to ask you whether it is possible to provide us, in writing, with the project as a whole, the business plan, if there is one, as well as the financing plan. You've provided us with figures, timetables and a few details on financing. I'll tell you quite frankly that I'm lost in it. I'd like to see some figures that would give me a better understanding of the whole financial structure that you've managed to prepare or plan.
Also—and this is an easy question—I'd like to know who or what caused the contamination.
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Belleville
The contamination was really through a number of sources. The City of Belleville itself was one of the sources. Some of the lands were used as a landfill. This was back in a time in our collective past in this country where we didn't value waterfronts as we do today. Unfortunately, that was chosen as a landfill site. That was only one source.
Another source was the fact that the federally owned lands were used as a commercial working harbour. There were ships that came in that unloaded coal, that unloaded oil. Some of the federal lands were leased to oil companies that had tank farms on the property. Those activities resulted in contaminants leaching into the soil. So there were a number of different sources of those contaminants.
The fact that the city was part of that problem, if you will, is partly why I believe it's important that the city invest in the cleanup, which is what we have committed to do. It really was a problem caused by a number of different participants and users of the site.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
I also see that the divestiture program may, in principle, be a very good program, but, in practice, that's another matter. First, there is an agreement that must be negotiated. A share of responsibility belongs to one partner. At the same time, there could also be changes over time or, I wouldn't say concealed defects, but amounts of money or an additional budget that would be necessary because the economic situation would have changed or because it has been discovered that the evaluation that was originally conducted has also changed.
So there are a lot of considerations before a win-win agreement is really reached. My big fear is that a divestiture program can be used by the government to get rid of infrastructure that it does not want to maintain properly. You know very well that the Small Craft Harbours Program represents $100 million Canada-wide, but that annual amount is not enough to do the job because the situation across Canada is deteriorating from year to year.
So there is a risk that somewhere we may believe that the divestiture program is being used to reduce the financial responsibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but that someone else, the municipalities, for example, might eventually take it over.
I would also like to hear what you have to say about a partner I'm not hearing about and that doesn't feature in what you've said so far, and that is the provincial government, in the area of financing, and what you call the county. Have steps been taken with regard to potential financing by those two groups, the county, in a way, and the provincial government?
Chief Administrative Officer, City of Belleville
Yes, that's an interesting question about provincial participation.
The provincial government, through the initial years, did not have a role to play in this. It wasn't that we wouldn't have sought their participation. There simply was no program or opportunity for us to pursue to bring them into this particular project. That was the case until fairly recently.
Just last year the provincial government announced a program that Ontario referred to as MIII. The municipal infrastructure investment initiative is the long version of it. That program became available, and it actually linked up very nicely with an issue that had developed through the study process that we had going on. By virtue of the filling in of the federal lands over the many decades that this occurred, it became apparent that it created some problems upland, outside the federal lands, on private lands to the north. That needed to be resolved at the same time as the work for the harbour was being done. Initially it appeared that this was going to have to be an additional cost to the city, the reason being that it was not federal land that was affected, it was an indirect impact on private land.
What we were able to do was make application under the MIII program to obtain provincial funding to assist us with those upland areas. We have now secured $3.7 million from the provincial government to deal with the reconstruction of lands to the north of the federal property, which is now being done as part of the same program. We now do have provincial participation, in a sense, indirectly, but it's all related to basically resolving the problems with the misuse of these lands over the many decades that have led us to the present time. Fortunately, we do now have provincial participation.