Fisheries Committee on Nov. 26th, 2007

[Jackey Richard]

As far as the divestitures I referred to, those are the harbours that right now are not harbour authority managed. They're harbours that are pretty well known locally. But I will follow up and see if I can make a list available.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Do you have a ballpark figure of how many the DFO is looking at for further divestiture?

[Jackey Richard]

Well, to complete what we view as reducing to a core, we have thirty; so there are thirty harbours that are not managed by harbour authorities, that are either just pieces of infrastructure that have to be removed or have such low activity that we'll look at transfer options or removal.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Kamp.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming. I appreciate your testimony.

I will try to be brief and leave some time, if I can, for Mr. Allen, and maybe even Mr. Calkins.

I want to return briefly, if I can, to the whole issue of revenue generation. The reason I'm curious is a conversation I had with an employee of a harbour authority from B.C. He indicated that of all the revenue generation that goes on in small craft harbours across Canada—and I don't know if this is true—80% of that revenue comes from B.C., despite it having only 78 core harbours, as opposed to hundreds elsewhere.

So my first question is, do you track all of that? I guess you would know how much each core harbour, or harbour authority, under your jurisdiction generates in other activities. Does it tend to be true that some regions are better than others in getting revenues besides what they get from the small craft harbours program?

[James Boland]

I can't tell you specifically what other regions do, but I know from a study we've just done on our own that they've raised close to $9.2 million. I think that's very significant. I don't know if it's 80%, but it might be in the neighbourhood of 50% or 55% of the national total. So it's a very significant amount of money they've raised to support their initiatives on the harbour.

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

Jackey, do you know the number in your region?

[Jackey Richard]

The numbers a couple of years ago suggested it was about $4.5 million to $5 million.

I think what we have to take into account with the fee structures established by harbour authorities is that we encourage them to charge market fees. I guess not all opportunities are equal from one location to the next, insofar as some of our harbours have processing plants or subleases from which they can pick up more money, versus other harbour authorities who might be more dependent on berthage, versus other harbour authorities who might have a restaurant business on their upland. So all locations are somewhat different.

To go back to answering your question, it was about $4.5 million to $5 million a couple of years back.

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

Mr. Boland, do you think B.C. harbours are doing more creative things to have doubled their revenue-generating capacity, versus, say, this other region with about one-quarter of the harbours?

[James Boland]

My personal thought is that they're more entrepreneurial.

As you know, Randy, the B.C. spirit is such that if the government isn't going to do it, we'll try to do it as much as we can ourselves.

They have been very creative in developing other resource revenue operations--building washrooms, laundry facilities, parking lots, and those kinds of things, for which they charge in order to increase their revenues and the services of their clients at the same time. They're very creative in raising funds to pour back into the maintenance of the harbours.

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

Does the small craft harbours program provide any training or ideas to these harbour authorities on how they might do this?

[James Boland]

We provide engineering expertise to help them with their buildings. We've done some environmental work on special parking lots so that those are environmentally sound. We do assist them in a variety of ways. That's what I meant in my earlier remarks, that we encourage entrepreneurship. We provide training courses in marketing and those types of things, so the folks at least have an understanding of how to go about seeking different funds from different institutions or agencies, or in trying to raise money themselves.

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

I just have one other question.

Both of you are well experienced. Have you given any thought to whether there would be some value in becoming a special operating agency for the small craft harbours program? If there were some value to that, what might it be?

[James Boland]

It's my understanding that it was looked at briefly when the coast guard was going through a similar process a number of years ago. I wasn't with the program at the time, but when you look at the rationale for SOAs, it seems to have a good application to small craft harbours.

[Jackey Richard]

As James said, it was something that was considered a few years back. I think the concept behind special operating agencies is to give more flexibility and authority in operations in general, but at the time, it was viewed as not being opportune for small craft harbours; therefore, it was just parked.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of quick questions. The first one is, in the previous incarnation of the committee there was about $400 million that was put out as a requirement for the infrastructure side. There have been a lot of discussions on aquaculture, and we had a big meeting with the aquaculture people here last week. Whether it's $400 million, $500 million, whatever it is, has anticipated growth in aquaculture been factored into those numbers in the future?

The second thing is, we heard—I think it was last week—that Quebec was spending around 60% of their budget on dredging. Has that ramping up of dredging been reflected in the numbers you're looking for from a budget? I'd like it if both of you could comment on that.

[Jackey Richard]

I believe the $400 million you refer to comes from the long-term list of projects that would very well take into account the dredging requirement. Whether they added requirements to accommodate an expanded client base, I can't really speak to, because I wasn't part of coming up with those numbers.

[James Boland]

I'll mention two things. The numbers reflected a point in time and they're evolutionary. No one expected we were going to have a better rate on the U.S. dollar when those numbers were being done two or three years ago. So things change economically. To me, it's like a number up in the air; it's an aspiration. It's a need today.

The dredging situation I think is included. I think dredging is a conundrum for the program because we can only dredge within our own water lots. But a lot of our harbours are within other channels or other jurisdictions. So our harbour might be fine, but getting to it is quite difficult. We're not talking about numbers that are our responsibility. For instance, in British Columbia, I could spend about $2 million a year on dredging; I can afford to spend about $400,000. It gives you an idea of the risk we take just to maintain what we have.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Two minutes and 22 seconds.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

This is my last question. You commented, Ms. Richard, on the HR issues and going forward. What are some of the challenges realistically, considering the HR challenges and all the infrastructure work we're trying to get done across Canada and everything else in all the different areas? How practical is it? Do we face HR challenges to even be able to get the work done in a timely fashion? How reasonable is it? Should we be planning this workload? How many years out?

[Jackey Richard]

HR is a challenge. I think insofar as our project delivery, we look at tapping into a mix of resources. In the Maritimes, we don't have an engineering base as the Pacific does. But we do have a strong relationship with Public Works in that we depend on their marine engineering expertise. We also look to the private sector and to harbour authorities that do have built-up capacity to contribute to project delivery. We try to get the best resource mix for getting the work done, to allow the work to get done in the most cost-effective and timely manner. That's one point.

Insofar as planning out our work, I think we're apt to get better delivery and cost-effective work if it's planned out over a longer period of time. So when we can go beyond those fiscal boundaries and try to extend the construction season, we can stimulate the market and increase the bidding for our work. So we're not trying to get it done by jamming it all into the same period. I think those are two means of trying to get our work done and completed in the most timely and cost-effective manner.