Fisheries Committee on May 26th, 2008

[Lutz Budde]

It's similar to those in uniform or whatever—not that I want a uniform or a gun, but we want the people to have an understanding that we have the power of enforcement. It's a matter of education of people. Bringing in the fee collection at the beginning was very difficult for many harbours. People said “Go away. Who are you?” Now we basically have brought that under control. But the other steps, of environmental standards, safety standards, and so on, need to be brought into line for harbours, so that we could educate people and say “Yes, we are the real thing; we have the authority to ask you to comply and act according to legislation.” We don't have that right now.

In most cases you get voluntary compliance, but for those cases in which you don't, you would like to have that kind of power.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Let me just ask one more question, and then I'll defer to my colleague.

How does each of your harbours set berthage rates? Does the Harbour Authority Association of British Columbia provide any help by giving some sort of common approach to doing it, or is it all on an individual basis?

[Elizabeth McLeod]

All of our harbours are autonomous when it comes to fee collection and setting revenues and all of those things. Part of the reason is that it's a supply-and-demand thing. While I'm in an area of hugely high demand, Lutz, for instance, isn't. What we do when we're setting our rates, and I think what most of the harbours do, is survey the harbours around us to see what the market rate is and set our fees based on that.

[Ben Mabberley]

We firmly believe it's the right of every harbour authority to set its own rates. When we formed our harbour authority, we sat down to look at what our minor maintenance costs were going to be and what we needed to charge, and we set the rates accordingly, so that we were able to fulfill our part of the bargain and still put enough money away to be able to contribute to any project that needed to be done at the harbour.

Probably across this country you're going to find, when you start getting onto the topic of fee collection, that it's not one for which we feel there need be any cross-country standards. We would look and have looked, as harbour authorities and as organizations, at other streams of revenue generation. That's where you'll see the harbour authority corporation and some manuals and so on come into play.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you.

Linda.

[Linda Franz]

I'd like to add a little bit to this. An effective tool that small craft harbours directorate in the Pacific region has encouraged harbour authorities to build is a budget, a five-year to ten-year budget. That incorporates all of our pending projects and future projects and in essence eventually helps you set your rates: you know you have to have so much money to commit to your plans.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you.

Is there anyone else?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you.

I want to touch on something that was brought up earlier on: the number of derelict boats. For whatever reason, we have derelict boats. I don't want to dwell on the causes. What percentage of the dock or wharf space, roughly, is being used up? The comment I heard was that there was a shortage of space. I think one of the quickest ways to free up that space would be to get rid of the derelict vessels that are tied up.

How substantial is it? What percentage are we looking at? Is it 20% of wharf space used up by derelict vessels, or 10%, or 5%? What is it?

[Linda Franz]

I think it's linked directly to licence buyback. Of course, after that happens and you give it a few years, those derelict vessels can increase on your wharf, and it's a matter of how long it takes you to manage them and get them out of your harbour. I think there's a direct link.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I understand that. I just want to know, is it 20% of the vessels that are tied up right now, or 20% of the space used up by derelict vessels or those that aren't fishing? What's the number? Can anybody give me a rough estimate?

[Art Childs]

I think it would depend a lot on which harbour, but to give you an example, when I came to False Creek I would guess it was quite easily 10% of the dock space, and we house about 250 boats. So 10% of those spaces were inhabited by non-fishing, non-maintained, non-insured, non-leaving—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Non-berthage-paying—nothing?

[Ben Mabberley]

Well, the problem you run into is that you have derelict vessels that are paying berthage. That's the real problem. They pay berthage, and as a harbour authority, when you take the berthage because they've taken the spot, then that vessel is your problem. We have vessels that sit at our dock, pay berthage, and we keep them afloat. And we have no way to get rid of them, none whatsoever.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

What do you recommend for getting rid of them? I can't believe—

[Ben Mabberley]

I recommend a dark, stormy night, when nobody can see you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

I don't think you're getting legislation for that.

We need to finish as quickly as we can now.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Liz, you looked as if you wanted to talk about this. Is there anything you wanted to say?

[Elizabeth McLeod]

I think it's very difficult to put a percentage on it, because, as I said, in our harbour and in the larger harbours we're looking at maybe 10%. But in the smaller harbours where there's no staff, sometimes 50% of their wharf space is taken up; that severely depletes their ability to raise revenues.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

So you have responsibility to maintain and look after these vessels, with no authority to remove or get rid of them?

[Elizabeth McLeod]

I don't know that it's a responsibility, but the last thing you want is these things sinking at your dock, because once they're down—

[A voice]

We have liability.

[Art Childs]

That's right; there's a liability there. If one of those vessels goes down and causes a spill, sure, the owner is liable, but the harbour authority is left with the cleanup.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Just as a side question—and I don't want you to read between the lines, but I know Mr. Stoffer got some great western hospitality, so I'll ask for just a couple of more minutes here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we're finished.

Thank you very much to our witnesses. We thank you also for the written presentations; they will add greatly to our study. Thank you for your free flow of answers; they will certainly add to our interest.

We're going to break for a few minutes to prepare for our next group.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Welcome back, everybody.

Once again, the process is that we'll have some opening remarks and then we'll have a question and answer period.

I want to thank our guests for their presence here today. I also want to make note--I forgot earlier--that Mr. Robin Richardson, from small craft harbours directorate, DFO, is in the back. I'm sure you're quite familiar with him. He's joining us on our tour this morning and is participating in our meetings here today.

I certainly want to thank all of you for coming together this afternoon. It's a bit different from what we had planned originally, but due to time constraints we have no choice. We do certainly thank you for doing that.

I also want to thank you for our great visit this morning. It was indeed an eye-opener to sail along the harbour. We haven't done that before. We did in Nova Scotia; we went from one side to the other. It was a drop-off. But this morning was very beneficial--and I got a chance to stop at the gift store. I like to throw that in, because everybody else was waiting on the bus. My five-year-old daughter wanted a pink T-shirt from Vancouver, so she's going to get it. And Mr. Blais had to pick up a T-shirt for one of his friends in Quebec too.

I want to ask you to do what we did before: everybody introduce yourselves and the organizations you represent. Then I believe Mr. Hugh Fraser is going to start our presentations this morning. So first of all, could everybody introduce themselves?

We'll start with Mr. Williamson.