Evidence of meeting #47 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was region.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Member, Central and Arctic, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
Actually, it was Dave Thomas.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Was it Dave? Fair enough.
Anyway, I can die a happy man now—
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
That's all it took.
I would like to welcome everybody here. I feel as though I've been flailing away as an Albertan—as the only prairie boy on this committee—for a couple of years and am going to waste all my time in joy, rather than getting to these questions.
But let me get to the point.
I want to talk about the funding for the central and Arctic region. When the bureaucrats come before us, the funding we hear about for the central and Arctic is considerably less than that for the other regions. That goes without saying.
In your testimony, Mr. Linington, you've indicated that there are all kinds of issues around landing of fish, not having the proper authorities, and fish getting basically put in the bush because it doesn't store like grain on the prairies, as you well know.
In previous testimony, we also heard from fishermen, when we were in Manitoba talking about this issue in the first round of testimony, that the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act is something else that particularly separates the freshwater fishery from the saltwater fisheries. Could you give this committee any advice on how the lack of harbours impacts upon the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation on how the corporation affects your fishery, and on what we should be looking at as a committee to make recommendations to the government?
This committee will be tasked with doing something different once this report is over, and it would be my desire to have the committee take a look at the relevance of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act and the corporation to see whether they still make sense for freshwater fishermen.
Member, Central and Arctic, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
Right now the only solution we have is to talk about getting rid of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act and the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. It's something you'd have to prepare for years in advance. Our plants would all have to upgrade first and you'd have to start to develop markets well in advance of even thinking about such a change. I know at times it seems that they're not serving us very well. The prices aren't as high as we'd like, but that's something we need to plan with a view to the future, probably ten years down the road.
I was talking earlier about the lack of harbours in our area. There are many opportunities for commercial fisheries in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and right across. There's a lot of water out there and a lot of potential to produce fish. We're probably under-producing in the freshwater area by six or seven million pounds a year. That would be a conservative estimate. If we were to start to use some of the species that we're throwing away, it would probably be three or four times that. A lot of these fisheries are not accessible right now, because the infrastructure isn't in place to access those fisheries. These are some of the things that fishers in our area would like to see addressed. The budget doesn't allow for it right now, but we hope that one day down the road it will.
Because the program has been geared towards the upkeep of the harbours we have right now, the percentage of money going to the central Arctic is small. We've always had fewer harbours, and our harbours are smaller and easier to maintain. Our percentage is small, and the chances of getting those harbours in the other places doesn't seem likely in the near future, except when there's a political push as there was for the Pangnirtung project. That's millions of dollars, and it's not counted in the budgets we talked about today.
There has to be a lot of political pressure to get a new harbour built. We're trying to maintain the old harbours, but for the new ones there needs to be political pressure and funds have to be set aside. That would have to be outside the core funding that we're talking about now.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Let's get on to the Arctic area. There's been a study commissioned about economic viability, and it's been proposed that seven harbours would work for the Arctic fisheries. One of them is Pangnirtung, which our government has already committed funding to.
How do you see that playing out? You have an interesting stake there. You're the only area that would have a competing interest within your own region for a saltwater fishery versus the freshwater fisheries. If it should come down to funding issues, what would your recommendation be? Would you proceed with the freshwater fisheries or the Arctic fisheries?
Member, Central and Arctic, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
We've always said that all fishermen deserve a safe place to land their fish. They're fishermen like we are. They've been left out of the loop forever. It's their time to get some money spent up there. There has been a fishery up on Baker Lake and other areas in what is now Nunavut for years, but there has been no money spent on that fishery. It's their time. We'd like to see our time come somewhere along the road. We'll be patient for a little while longer and we hope it'll come, but it is their time right now, and they need to have that investment.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
First, thanks for coming. I'll pass on my compliments as well for the work that all of you do.
I had a question about derelict vessels. I thank you for answering the question. I discovered the size of the issue and how complicated it was a little over a year ago when we travelled to British Columbia, only to come back to Newfoundland and Labrador to find much of the same thing happening there. That too is starting to multiply.
One of the big messages we got out of it was that the boats are not getting any smaller—they're getting much bigger and this is becoming a problem. When you formulate some of this stuff, it seems like a lot of it is based on the amount of harvesters within each wharf, but they don't take into account the size of the vessels. Someone brought up the change in rules for the bigger vessels.
My question pertains to funding. As Mr. MacAulay pointed out earlier, you are the ones who walk on the wharves. Sometimes you're expected to walk on water, and that's not easy to do. Outside the government funding, the A-base budgeting, how has it changed in the past few years with respect to revenue and the fees you charge? That's a difference, too. Some provinces charge more and some charge much less. It depends on the market. How is it that the model you have right now is not working? Of course, I include not just recreation, but primarily landings and that sort of thing.
Member, Pacific, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
I love this question.
Harbour authorities are independent organizations. We have within that structure the ability to set our rates. I would really question the fact that it's not working. Our revenues were $11 million ten years ago. Today, a conservative estimate puts them at $24 million. We believe that number is much higher. We've asked small craft harbours to do a study on what that number is, because we believe it to be significantly higher. The fact is that in those ten years we have done our job. We've found different sources of revenue. We've managed to raise our revenue base to the small craft harbours program by 250%, so I would question that we need to look for new sources.
We're getting to a point now where all our structures are full, so at some point you're going to see a levelling off of what we can do outside of raising rates. But you have to remember, if you look in the Pacific region, that the average crew share for a fisherman is less than $20,000. That's poverty level. You can't expect people to pay.... The expression right across the coast is that it all comes out of the caught end. It doesn't matter if you raise the rates. It is either coming out of one pocket or it's coming out of the other pocket. These are fishermen. If you look at those 5,000 volunteers, they are fishermen. There are fishermen on these boards of harbour authorities. They are running these harbour authorities. The fact that in ten years these fishermen, these harbour authorities, have been able to raise their revenues by 250% suggests to me that we've done our job. We are doing our job.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I'll expand. I'll let you answer, but just to add to that point, of that extra money you are getting, in my opinion, from what I hear, a lot of it goes toward the operation of the outfit itself. Now you are looking for capital investment. What of that revenue covers off only operating expense?
I am not aware of what the situation is in Quebec. I do not know whether it is the same.
Member, Quebec, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
With regard to the Quebec region, I find it a bit strange that you are talking about increasing revenues. We have done our share. By way of example, when I started out, vessels paid an average of $200, and sometimes as much as $500 or $600. You have to remember what fishermen earn, and bear in mind that it was a disastrous year for lobster fishers.
A reference was made earlier to the difficulty of collecting money. Fishermen are increasingly struggling to pay their berthing charges. Like it or not, we are going to see more and more cases brought before the small claims court in Quebec. You can increase the charges, but it does not mean that people would be able to afford to pay more. I think that, as Ben said, in true Canadian style, we should say to the government that we have done our bit. It is now time for the Canadian government to see what can be done to help the industry, port authorities and fishermen.
Liberal
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
I had better let you comment on this, because some other people didn't have a chance.
Member, Maritimes and Gulf, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
One quick comment I could make is that harbour authorities have a lease with the federal government on the federal facility, and in that lease it states quite clearly that, as volunteers, we are responsible for operating costs. That's the sum total right there. When you look at economic viability, if we have a harbour with ten vessels or six vessels and they're generating $2,000 or $3,000 and they're covering their operating costs, they've met the basic commitment in what they are trying to do as volunteers, in my opinion. But in the vast majority of cases, you have these harbour authorities that are well in excess of that and they are contributing and it would be on a project-by-project basis how many dollars. It doesn't all just go into operating. Moneys go from harbour authorities into projects. In our region, there are some that have put in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of them may have put in $2,000, but it's just as important to that harbour and far and above what the requirement is or what's required in the lease.
And we are continually looking for money. We personally made a presentation to our municipality, which we had never done before. We got $100,000 over five years to contribute. That's $100,000 we can now put somewhere else in the small craft harbours program, from another source. So that benefits everybody. We are continually striving to find these dollars.
I really hope the message around the table is that we have more than done our job. What we need is A-base funding. We need $50 million annually in A-base funding. Let's give it to the small craft harbours. Emergency funds and pots of money like we just saw are good. We were starved to death for years. Thank you very much. I think Lawrence mentioned $40 million more earlier. That would be great. We'd take it. But if we want to do the right job for everybody's benefit and for the taxpayers of Canada, we need consistent funding over a longer period of time to plan properly and spend wisely. Pots of money are great, but don't starve us for five years or ten years and then give us a pot of money. It just doesn't work. With anything, you need to know what you have coming so you can plan.
Conservative
Member, Central and Arctic, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
I can't speak to every other harbour, I can only speak to my own harbour. When we started our harbour authority some years back, we took over a facility that you wouldn't have gotten anything for if you were to try to sell it to the private sector. You would have had to pay to get rid of it. Over the years small craft harbours directorate has probably invested somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100,000 in our harbour. We've invested in our harbour an additional $300,000 to $400,000 of our own money, not counting our time and effort. We turned that facility into something today that's worth millions of dollars. That value goes to you guys. We don't retain any of the value from all of our efforts on that project. Now, for people to say that maybe we're not getting good bang for the buck, that's not the case. It may be the case sometimes, and I can't speak to every harbour, but if you look across the country from the time those harbours were turned over to the harbour authorities, and the actual difference between the value of them then and the value of them today, I think you'd find you have a lot more money there now than what you've invested in those harbours over the years.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If I may, in the next few minutes, we could talk about the renewal problem and volunteers in general. The last time we saw one another, I heard a clear message, that is a lot of frustration, exhaustion and fatigue. I sense today as I did last time, that you remain focused and are not discouraged despite all this. At the same time, the renewal is a problem.
People see what you are doing, and at some point, they think that it's not necessarily interesting to have to scratch the bottom of the barrel and more to ensure that users can get their money's worth. You are also subject to their frustrations. We must not forget that. I know that people will not forget it, particularly the committee members. This is part of the problem.
The volunteers of yesterday, today and tomorrow need new blood. I'd like to hear you talk about the level of burnout, irritation and frustration that you're experiencing. Is it still there now?
Member, Quebec, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
The answer is yes. However, I can tell you that the $200 million was extremely useful. However, without further funding, the same thing could happen again in two years' time. If the pot bubbles over the lid will blow off.
I have been a member of the harbour authority for the past 14 years as well as a member of the regional and national advisory boards for the past ten. We have met with many people. I am convinced that if the government had not given $200 million this year, Quebec would no longer be on the port authority map, I can guarantee you that. I had some 30 motions by port authorities that were prepared to quit the Harbour Authority Program. Let me tell you why. I am not in the business of politics but I want to remain true to myself.
We are tired of being told to be patient. In life, we need to be able to set deadlines. That's where it matters. For the past 14 years, we've been told that it's coming. It finally came after 14 years. It took a very long time. Starting today, the best thing that needs to be done is to stop selling dreams. We need to look at reality head-on. We can or we can't. We will be able to turn around and react or take action in order to reach solutions that will help us. If we are told to be patient because it's coming, we're going to wait. We have to stop that right now.
If our governments aren't able to invest, they should tell us that and then we'll see what we can do. There is not much more we can do.
Member, Maritimes and Gulf, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
To add to Luc's comments and Morris's wheelbarrow or two of money, if we have the dollars, we can go a long way on fatigue. Yes, we're challenged, no different from any other volunteer group across the country in recruiting people and getting them in there. When you get the volunteers in, typically it's the same faces in the community at ten different locations. God forbid you would call a meeting of all the volunteer groups the same night. It would be a tough situation.
There are challenges, and we'll always have the challenges, and we have to try to work on recruiting volunteers. But the biggest issue we come back to, when you talk many times with boards of directors, is the frustration level, whether their wharf's barricaded, whether they need dredging. Sure, we'll have all those challenges. I think we always will. We're going to have it in many groups. We'll have to continually work on that, and we are with small craft harbours staff.
We have funds for training and are trying to get orientation packages together and recruit people. Once we get them in the program or volunteering, usually they're not going to leave. They're usually committed, and they're in there. They're usually lifers. We got them there; we only need to get a few more.
But overall it comes back.... Once again, dollars can carry us a long a way if we have decent facilities. We can concentrate on recruiting volunteers when we have our facilities in conditions that are safe.
To add one more comment, our wharves are no different from anybody else's, or your workplace here. If you had a workplace to go to that was barricaded, deteriorating, the deck falling off, the roof falling in, occupational health and safety people would probably close it down and something would have to be done. Well, for our fishermen and these fish harvesters, these are their workplaces, other than their vessels. They need a safe workplace to come to and to come home to at night. That's what needs to be addressed.
Member, Newfoundland and Labrador, National Harbour Authority Advisory Committee
Fatigue, to me, I don't know what it means. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But what I get frustrated with is the people, the fishermen. In my community, we're supposed to have this breakwater and we've been working on this the last three or four years. Yes, we're going to get the breakwater; we're going to get it this year, we're going to get it next year. Well, hopefully, I'm going to get it next year. But that is the problem. If you tell someone, “We're going to get the money this year, we're going to get the money”, they're coming back, “How come we never got the money? Where's the money? We never got the money.” I mean, that's what gets you down a bit, but fatigue, nah, there's no such thing as fatigue.
