Fisheries Committee on Nov. 26th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

I call the meeting to order, and I welcome our guests.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study on the operation and maintenance of small craft harbours.

We are pleased today to welcome as our witnesses James Boland, regional director of strategic initiatives, Pacific region--welcome, Mr. Boland--and Jackey Richard, acting regional director of small craft harbours, Maritimes and gulf region.

Just to inform our witnesses, we give the opportunity for a 10-minute opening statement or presentation by you, and then we open the floor for questions from our members.

So if one of you would like to start, you now have the opportunity to do so.

[Jackey Richard, Acting Regional Director, Small Craft Harbours, Maritimes and Gulf Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you. I'll begin.

My name is Jackey Richard, and I'm the acting regional director of the small craft harbours program for both the Maritimes and the gulf regions. My jurisdiction covers all three maritime provinces. I'll just take a few minutes to basically give you a snapshot of the program within the region, starting with our asset base.

Historically, we managed 557 harbours across the entire region. Through a strong divestiture push in the mid-nineties we reduced that inventory to today's harbour base of 322 harbours. Of these, we consider 284 to be core. One hundred percent of these harbours are managed by harbour authorities. I think you might have received a handout that shows you visually the distribution of harbours.

As far as our harbour authority base is concerned, we have 242 harbour authorities that oversee the day-to-day operations and management of our facilities. We rely on the work of over 2,000 volunteer board members who support our programs. We have many harbour authorities that have been around for some time. Some date back 20 years, but the bulk of the harbour authority groups have been in operation for about 10 years.

As far as the industry the Maritimes and gulf represents, as we all know, harbours are an important link between the land and the sea and are the heart of many coastal communities. In the Maritimes and gulf regions, many of our harbours are diversified and support an expanded client base. Regional harbours provide access and basic services for the commercial fishery. They integrate increased participation of aboriginal communities and are making a place for aquaculture business that relies on our facilities.

The small craft harbours Maritimes and gulf infrastructure supports a significant commercial fishery, with landings valued at more than $1 billion. Aquaculture has also evolved, recording a value of about $300 million in landings.

Touching on our resources, money, and workforce, our average funding per annum is about $38 million for the entire region. During any fiscal year, we manage, on average, about 80 major projects.

From an organizational standpoint, considering that we cover all three maritime provinces, we are decentralized. Our organizational culture promotes working with the people, being resourceful, and ensuring the best value, in money and results, overall in delivering our program.

You've heard from previous small craft harbour witnesses that we face significant pressures. We face the same pressures already identified, which I'll recap. We are dealing with significant infrastructure safety and capacity issues, life-cycle management issues, funding shortfalls, and harbour authority vulnerabilities. Also, we still have some harbour authorities that we consider to be non-core and that we therefore need to divest.

In addition, we have program delivery challenges. We are dealing with increased complexities in getting our work done, increased project costs, and international competition for human material resources to deliver on our programs. Something that is not unique to small craft harbours is that we have a rapid workforce transition occurring within the small craft harbours program, not just regionally but nationally.

This ends my overview, and I'll turn it over to my counterpart, James.

[James Boland, Regional Director, Strategic Initiatives, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you, Jackey.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

B.C. has 27,000 kilometres of coastline. As the little handout demonstrates, we have a total of 157 scheduled sites, of which 78 of those are harbours, core harbours. We have 54 harbour authorities who manage those 78 core sites. Jackey alluded to our volunteer workforce of between 550 and 600 people, which includes our harbour directors and those volunteers from the community who assist in harbour operations. All but two of our harbours have paid staff to support their initiatives.

The fishing industry in British Columbia has approximately 3,000 commercial fishing vessels, and in 2005, the landed value of B.C. commercial fishing was in the neighbourhood of $365 million. The aquaculture industry generates another $340 million, so the commercial fishing industry and aquaculture are over $700 million annually.

We have a solid partnership with harbour authorities. Our major concerns are enhancing their viability skills so they can raise enough revenues to keep themselves going, to keep themselves independent.

A second issue is that we find a growing pressure on our waterfront. A lot of people want to move to British Columbia. The communities that support the harbours want to look at waterfront land as a better tax base, so they're looking at different kinds of opportunities on the waterfront. And one of the big pushes, from our perspective, is to get our harbour authorities more involved in community integrated planning to generate better strategic planning over time, so they don't get overrun by interests selling land and building condos right next door to a bustling harbour.

We also have first nations issues unique to British Columbia. We're involved with the B.C. treaty process in Indian Affairs to have them consider the 15 harbours that front first nations communities. These communities are not just commercial fishing harbours, they are often the ingress and egress of the community. There are no roads, so the only way in and out is by the harbour. So they particularly want treaties to understand that we don't want to be the last federal department standing by first nations when Indian Affairs settles a treaty with them. We think the harbour is an economic opportunity for first nations, so it should be part of the treaty process.

Jackey alluded to many problems. We'd like to have our people get more involved in how the community is changing around them, so we need design capability, engineering support, that kind of thing.

Climate change is having an impact on our harbours, so we need funding to take a look at how to better design or facilitate the changes of our commercial fishing fleet as they move from fishing for salmon to other species such as tuna, mackerel, sardines, and those types of fisheries that require larger boats.

It's a changing dynamic in British Columbia. We have solid partnerships with our HAs and see our business making them more viable and integrating them better with community aspirations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you to our guests.

I forgot at the beginning, but I now want to apologize for the shifting of schedule last week. I know it was short notice, but we had the national harbour authority people here and we thought it would be a good time to hear from those people. So we certainly thank you for your assistance in agreeing to being moved around.

[James Boland]

It was a long weekend in Ottawa, so it was good. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

As they say in Newfoundland, it's a bad wind that doesn't blow fair for someone.

Mr. Simms is going be our first questioner.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

On the heels of calling it a bad wind, yes, here I am.

Mr. Chair, thank you very much, and I'd also like to thank our guests for coming.

There are several issues I'd like to touch upon, but just very briefly, I'll go directly to your comments.

Madame Richard, I will start with you. We've heard testimony in the past few weeks, and this number keeps being thrown out, about a $475 million shortfall just to keep up what we have in harbour authorities. You said $38 million for your region. Could you give a timeframe to that? Is that $38 million right now in total?

[Jackey Richard]

Actually, the $38 million I referred to is our annual allocation.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Yes.

[Jackey Richard]

So that's what we manage annually as a budget.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Which begs the question, what do you feel is the shortfall in your neck of the woods?

[Jackey Richard]

I believe, going back to previous presentations where we've identified a national gap of $32 million to $35 million, the Maritimes and gulf split of that would be about $18 million.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

So that's per year?

[Jackey Richard]

Per year, yes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

You mentioned divestiture where necessary. Can you explain what constitutes a necessary divestiture in your opinion?

[Jackey Richard]

Historically we had 557 harbours; therefore, we've reduced by 220-some odd to our current portfolio of 330. The difference between the 330 and the 284 is what we consider to be non-required harbours. Some of them are facilities, just pieces of infrastructure that are out there not being used, so it would be a straight removal. Some of them have “not significant” activity, therefore fishers could be adequately serviced at other harbours. Those facilities we consider divestitures.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

We hear this term "core activities" being thrown about. Could you describe those for me in your assessment of all this? What is a core activity when it comes to a harbour authority?

[Jackey Richard]

The reference is to core harbours, and core harbours are harbours that support significant activity and are key to the commercial fishery to support operations locally. Those facilities, to be core, are managed by harbour authority groups, being the not-for-profit groups that are formed to take on the day-to-day management of the facilities on behalf of small craft harbours via a lease.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Revenue generation is always the key word, and I know that's what leads to a lot of volunteer fatigue. I know some of the numbers being thrown out about the number of volunteers. You're talking about 2,000 volunteer board members. I would assume that number is going down instead of up, and most of that, I would assume, would be because of volunteer fatigue. A lot of them are frustrated. A lot of them are at their wit's end, as it were.

What advice would you give them—and I guess you normally do—as to revenue generation? And where do you think these 2,000 volunteers in harbour authorities are falling down when it comes to revenue generation?

[Jackey Richard]

I mentioned that we have many harbour authorities that have been around for some time. Oftentimes what happens is the original board seems to have maintained itself over time, so there's not much renewal, and that causes some fatigue. Harbour authorities are also facing increased fatigue because of the fact that they feel the infrastructure is deteriorating rapidly.

So far as revenue generation goes, what we've asked—and we encourage—from harbour authorities is an effective planning process so they can look at the harbours and the infrastructure to determine what the long-term requirements are, understanding that to be able to work with their client base to look at what services they require at that facility to sustain their businesses.

That being said, they're able to structure a fee system that will allow them to generate adequate revenue to minimally cover their operating costs and put some in the bank to be able to do some of the other critical work. That's what we encourage.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Right now in our province what we have—and I'm sure the chair will agree with me—is that we're getting more activity regarding pleasure craft. We're getting larger boats, spending more money, coming from farther afield.

Would you suggest to a harbour authority that maybe they should tap into that source of revenue as a tourism initiative, or is that something you would steer clear of?

[Jackey Richard]

Well, I think when there's an opportunity for a harbour authority to consider broad community interest and other activities to diversify, it should be encouraged as a means of generating extra revenue. However, most of our facilities in the Maritimes and gulf region are at their capacity, with the expanded client base and whatnot, and there are not that many opportunities to look at diversification unless there's upland that they could use for other ecotourism-type operations or—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I don't have a lot of time.

One of the complaints that a lot of harbour authorities have is they get approached on an ecotourism basis and they feel the opportunity is being diminished, I guess, by DFO or by small craft harbours as something they just don't want to get into. Therefore, in regard to that, there's a lack of funding. In other words, whenever they want to approach the government about getting funding, they're always told not to mention anything about diversifying.

Would you agree with that?

[Jackey Richard]

Well, I understand that the program faces a funding shortfall. We're tapped already to support our priority infrastructure needs; therefore, investing in another commercial endeavour that's not necessarily related to the fishery would not be smart. However, we encourage harbour authorities to seek other funding partners if there is an opportunity to diversify. And if in planning our harbours we can build that into the long-term planning requirement for the facility, in consultation with the harbour authority and the community at large, that's what we try to do.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Boland, you mentioned that the harbour authority should be a part of the treaty process. Did I get this right when you say you're always the last piece of the puzzle, or do you hope you are not the last piece of the puzzle during these treaty negotiations?