Fisheries Committee on May 29th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

I want to call the meeting to order and welcome everybody here.

We are the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for the Parliament of Canada, and we are in the process of conducting a study on the small craft harbours program. We have travelled to the eastern part of Canada, and we're delighted to be in the western part of Canada at the present time.

We had a great day here yesterday, visiting some harbours. As I said, we've heard from people throughout Canada. While we have many differences, there are also a lot of similarities as we travel.

We're hoping to have our report presented to the House of Commons sometime this fall.

I am certainly delighted that the two Davids have taken the time to be here today. We didn't necessarily put you up with a post between you; it just happened that way, so don't worry about that.

We have representation here from all the political parties. However, due to a situation beyond our control, the two members from the Bloc had to return to Ottawa yesterday, so they couldn't join us today. But we have representatives here from the Conservative Party, from the Liberal Party, and our sole survivor of the New Democratic Party, who we bring along just for moral support.

The process is very straightforward. We give you an opportunity to make some opening remarks and then we have a question and answer period around the table. This gives us an opportunity to dig into some of the things you may have raised and some of the information that our members may be looking for.

I'd like you to introduce yourselves first and the organizations you represent, and then I think Mr. Tomasson is going to begin with his opening remarks. But if both of you could introduce yourselves first for the record, we'd be delighted.

[David Tomasson, Director, Freshwater Harbour Authority Advisory Council]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen.

My name is David Tomasson. I am presently a commercial fish harvester on Lake Winnipeg, and I'm here representing the Freshwater Harbour Authority Advisory Council. That is what we call our Freshwater HAAC, and I'm representing the central and Arctic region for our small craft harbours. You're all familiar with that region; it's a very big region.

Bruce Benson, who's the chair of our council, was going to be here. He cannot make it today. He sends his apologies.

I have a formal presentation I'd like to make, but I'll wait until you're ready, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Tomasson.

[David Olson, Director and Member, Gimli Harbour Authority]

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, fellow colleagues, and ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for coming to Gimli. My name is David Olson. I'm a member of the Gimli Harbour Authority, and I just want to take a little bit of time to speak to you all about the national presence in Gimli and the feeling we have towards it, which has always been very good and we want to continue with that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Olson.

Committee members, we added Mr. Olson to the itinerary due to a conversation we had yesterday.

Welcome.

Mr. Tomasson, would you like to begin? The floor is yours, sir.

[David Tomasson]

I have a formal presentation and I'd like to read it out, and then maybe we will have time for questions and answers.

Good morning, committee members. Thank you for allowing us to appear before you to make this presentation on behalf of the Freshwater Harbour Authority Advisory Council, what we call the FHAAC.

As I indicated earlier, Bruce Benson was going to be here with me today, but he sends his regrets. Hopefully I can do an adequate job for our association. We are both commercial fish harvesters on Lake Winnipeg.

As you may be aware, the FHAAC represents all the harbour authorities in the central and Arctic region, which encompasses Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and, soon, Nunavut. In fact, if the central and Arctic region was a country on its own, it would be the fifth largest country in the world.

If we may present a little bit of history, the harbour authority program is run almost entirely by volunteers. This came about because the small craft harbours branch of Fisheries and Oceans decided to get out of the harbour management business and turn harbour management over to fish harvesters. Basically, we were told that if we wanted to keep our harbour, we must form and incorporate a harbour authority to manage day-to-day activities, or they would divest of said harbour. In most cases, fish harvesters, such as my colleague and I, did just that, and the program has been, in our opinion, very successful.

We discussed this presentation at the Central and Arctic Region Harbour Authority Annual Conference in Winnipeg in April 2008. It was made abundantly clear to us that all harbour authority members there wanted us to convey to this committee an appreciation for the work the small craft harbours branch has provided to our region and for the guidance of this committee.

We know that the facilities we have at many harbours are a vast improvement over what was there a generation ago. However, that does not mean we do not have many challenges and concerns, which we wish to make you cognizant of today.

The small craft harbours program divides Canada into five regions: Pacific, central and Arctic, Quebec, maritime gulf, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Each region has its own issues specific to that region, and the central and Arctic region certainly has its own share.

First, only 30% to 40% of fish harvesters in our region have access to small craft harbour facilities, whereas the other regions have a figure closer to 90%. This disparity is due, in our opinion, to historic underfunding of our region. This problem is also perpetuated by the current funding formula, which bases 50% of funding on the replacement of existing assets.

The small craft harbours branch was somewhat unaware of the fisheries in the prairies, and I'm willing to bet most of the committee members would be surprised to discover that there are over 1,000 commercial fish harvesters making a living from the body of water just outside this room. As the small craft harbours branch was unaware of these fisheries, they built few harbours as a result. Because that resulted in few assets in our region, the formula was skewed in favour of other regions. Basically, because they gave us little, we had little to replace, so we received little.

Small craft harbours headquarters in Ottawa has acknowledged this historical underfunding problem, and at one time was looking at changing the formula. However, quite naturally, the other regions did not want to see a reduction in their funding in favour of an increase in ours. We certainly understand their position. It was then decided that any increase to the central and Arctic region would have to come from new funds, thereby avoiding disputes between the regions.

Therefore, we are here asking for new funding for the central and Arctic region. This request, we believe, is easily justified by the low number of fish harvesters utilizing small craft harbours facilities in our region compared to others. There are many areas in our region where fish harvesters are forced to use unsafe facilities because they are all that exist in their fishing grounds. It all goes back to the historical underfunding to our region.

Currently, the small craft harbours branch is proposing to build seven new harbours in Nunavut, at a cost of some $50 million. We applaud this new initiative. This would, of course, come from new funding because the budget for the central and Arctic region would never facilitate anything close to that magnitude. However, the small craft harbours branch has also identified approximately 16 places in the region where new harbours could be built or old harbours refurbished to safe operating conditions for approximately $3.2 million. This works out to approximately $200,000 per harbour.

In addition, moneys for overcrowding, aquaculture, and rust-out can easily contribute to funding some of these harbours. These are harbours with more than 25 fish harvesters per harbour. This is a very economical way to provide facilities for so many fish harvesters.

If we take Lake Winnipeg, for example, the eleventh-largest lake in the world, it's really a freshwater ocean. It's 400 kilometres long and 80 kilometres wide at the widest portion. It is known as a treacherous body of water. The lake can go from dead calm to deadly in 20 minutes, and the only hope for survival is to get to a safe harbour. In fact, we have lost on average two fish harvesters a year for the last 100 years. This is our main concern: the lives of men and women who work the waters in our region.

One of the problems in getting the small craft harbours branch to spend money on some of these harbours to make them safe is the policy that the small craft harbours branch will not do anything unless the crown owns the harbour. For instance, one harbour, Goodman's Landing, is used primarily by first nations fish harvesters, and the argument is that Indian Affairs should look after that harbour, a sort of passing of the buck. However, here in the central and Arctic region we do not differentiate between a first nations fish harvester and another harvester. A fish harvester is a fish harvester, and he or she needs, and we contend deserves, a safe harbour to work from.

The gist of our presentation to you today, honourable members of the committee, is that we are here to request fair and equitable treatment under the small craft harbours program. The small craft harbours program should have a policy flexible enough to deal with the issue of new harbours. New harbours should be built where there are adequate fish harvesters with no harbour and a viable business plan. We believe this can be attained by working to provide facilities in traditional and non-traditional ways for more of the fish harvesters in our region. We would like to see the number of fish harvesters using small craft harbour facilities to be raised to, or at least close to, the levels of the four other regions in Canada. We believe this will save lives and improve the quality of life for the hardworking men and women in the central and Arctic region.

We would like to thank the committee members for allowing us the opportunity to make this presentation to you today. We trust you will take our concerns into consideration when making your final report to Parliament.

We had our annual meeting for our region, right from the Northwest Territories down to Ontario, this spring in Winnipeg. At that meeting, there was no date set, but we knew the potential for the standing committee to come here was sure, so we drafted up a presentation that we gave to all our members, and they approved this presentation. So I want you to know that this presentation is on behalf of the entire region and not just us here at Lake Winnipeg. But Lake Winnipeg is the area that I'm most familiar with.

Again, we want to thank the committee for allowing us to do this, and hopefully we can answer any questions, or I can. David is here, and there are other people in the room who I know are making presentations, and I think we all have the same interests at heart.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Tomasson.

Mr. Olson.

[David Olson]

Thank you.

The purpose of my visit here this morning is just to restate the intention in Gimli to continue with the federal harbour. We've had a very nice program here for well over a century. There are lots of fishermen here. It's probably the premier fishing port in western Canada.

The concept of “divestiture” to us is foreign because of the long-term friendship, I guess you could say, we've had with our federal government. We don't really want to see anything change. The basics here in Gimli haven't changed. We're still fishermen, we still have a port, we still bring with us our European flavour of the Scandinavian culture of Iceland. Any changes, to us, would be really devastating, in the sense that we need good facilities at a reasonable price to conduct business, to bring the income tax to the table to help fund the programs we have. I think we have a significant fishery here in Gimli.

That's really the message here this morning, gentlemen. And I know I squeaked onto the agenda ahead of time here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Olson.

We will go to our questions.

Mr. MacAulay is going to be first off the mark this morning.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much. Thank you for coming and making this presentation. We arrived here yesterday evening in Gimli. The port here is beautiful indeed. It's a wonderful facility.

How old did you say it was, Mr. Olson?

[David Olson]

The first dock, the harbour? I think the first harbour in front of the hotel here was built in 1900, five years in advance of the railway coming to Gimli.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It would have helped develop this community over time.

[David Olson]

I would say it's been a significant presence. I would think it makes Gimli completely different from most western Canadian opportunities you might visit.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I would agree with you, and Mr. Tomasson too, that people don't realize in fact what a major impact you have on the economy and what a major fishery you do have.

Mr. Tomasson, you mentioned that 30% to 40% of your people have access to small craft harbours. I'd like you to expand on that. There is an indication by the federal government that they're going to establish more harbours. Would you like to expand on that issue? I know it's an important issue to you.

[David Tomasson]

As I mentioned, in our entire region.... I'm not familiar with all of the locations of the 16, but I know on Lake Winnipeg here there's a number of areas where there are communities that work out of their community, but there's no real, formal, existing harbour facilities under a harbour program. They will dock in rivers.

A number of communities have aboriginal status; they are first nations communities on the lake. They're good fishers, good fishermen, and they really don't have access under the policy to harbours. For example, whether it's Berens River, or Bloodvein, or Hollow Water, those are three big communities right off the hop. Jackhead will be talked about today.

Those communities are fishing out of rivers and makeshift harbour facilities on their own. Yet they do produce, and they will transport their fish to a local central gathering point. That's how their production goes and moves down the lake, either by boat or right to where the road ends, where they can get the fish to reefers and brought in to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.

I want to expand on what you mentioned. A lot of people don't realize--and I said it in the presentation--it's about the eleventh-largest freshwater lake in the world. There are over 1,000 fishermen directly employed. I would say you could multiply that economically, most likely by about three. There are most likely about 3,000 people who in one way or another depend and rely on the commercial fishery and their harbours to make a living.

In Lake Winnipeg alone we're running record productions now of over 10 million pounds, generally, a year off that lake. Fishermen are getting a good price for pickerel; Americans call them walleye. It's a species that's in demand. This lake here is a goldmine, if it's run properly and we manage it properly and have harbours.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You mentioned, too, that you lose on average--did I understand correctly?--two per year.

[David Tomasson]

Yes, that's based on statistics for the last 100 years.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So in the last 100 years you lost about 200 fishermen?

[David Tomasson]

That's right, one way or the other.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

That is substantial.

Now, on the harbour here, what do you charge for tie-up fees?

[David Tomasson]

David can most likely speak to Gimli, but I can tell you that in our harbour back home, we basically charge.... You can either charge by the foot or by the season. We do it by the season for our fisheries.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

What I'm getting at is, with what you charge, do you have any trouble collecting your fees? Do you feel you have the proper authority? Do you think that things need to change in the system so that you do have authority?

We've heard a lot of different things across this country as we've been travelling. Some harbour authorities had vessels left, tied up, fees not paid--just a lot of different problems. I'm just giving you the opportunity to expand on that area.

[David Tomasson]

Well, I'll let David speak for Gimli, but I can tell you I've been a member of our harbour authority, and in our region, the central and Arctic region, I have not really heard about a major problem with fees collected and/or fee structures.

Now, I'm not saying that no harbour will have a little bit of a problem here or there, but generally, I would say it has not been an issue brought forward in the central and Arctic region.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

The thing is, you have a.... We're used to dealing with lack of funding and difficulties, but when you take a walk across the wharf out here and have a look at it, you can see it's not lacking very much. It's quite an experience to come into this town and see what you would expect was developed from that harbour and what has developed here. But of course this is not your harbour.

Is there anything else you'd like to add to the committee?

Bill, did you want to ask a question?

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our guests.

Mr. Olson, I'd like you to tell the committee how you got this wonderful harbour, the history of the funding, because it's quite a sight.