I think you're quite right in saying that there is no long-term plan by government for issues such as dredging and derelict vessels. It needs to be noted that both of these things are really outside the guidelines for the small craft harbours program, so we're looking at the rest of government to pick up the ball with this. What you're seeing in B.C., in my understanding, was that when Transport Canada decided to remove the dredging program across Canada, they were depending on industry to pick up that ball and go ahead, but because we are still dependent on government for our funding, we don't have the dollars that it's going to require to come in and dredge out the channels leading to our harbours. We don't have the money within the budget to dredge out the harbours. Again, everything that is affecting that is the increased climate change, weather patterns, and flooding on the Fraser. All of these things have an effect.
One thing we do know is that if the dredging situation is not looked at, then we are not going to have usable harbours in many of our areas. I can speak for one of my harbours, which is dependent on the channel leading up to it. If nothing changes, we're certainly going to lose that harbour as an effective portion of our network within probably the next five years because of siltation.
Derelict vessels is also another one that has never been looked at. It's not just the problem with fishing vessels, but it's a problem with other vessels as well. Not long ago in B.C. we had refugee boats from China being dumped on us. Again, there's just no venue for anybody to plan around the removal of these things. They're extremely costly. Off the top of my head, to destroy the average 35-foot fishing vessel because of the contaminated waste and everything else on board, you're probably looking at $10,000 a vessel. And we have many of these in our harbours.
While our larger harbours are fairly effective because we have staff in moving these vessels along, they wind up in areas such as the north, in Lutz's harbour or Ben's harbour, where they don't have the staff to be on the dock saying, “Wait a minute. You can't bring that boat in here.”
These are the areas I would certainly like to see government focusing on, as well as our funding issues within our program, but certainly multi-government committees perhaps, to address those two issues.