My name is Ben Mabberley. I'm a commercial fisherman from Galiano Island in British Columbia. I was before this committee when it came out to B.C., and it's a pleasure to appear before you again.
We have a lot of varying issues in the Pacific region. You talk about dredging derelict vessels, issues like that, but what it really comes down to right across the country is the volunteers. We have 5,000 volunteers running over $3 billion worth of assets for the federal government. These are numbers that come out of your interim report, but there is something in your interim report on which we have done our research since then. If you look at the revenues that have been generated by harbour authorities over the last ten years, ten years ago harbour authorities generated $11 million in revenues toward the program. Today that number is $24 million. That does not include the man-hours that we put in, and that is 135,000 man-hours on top of the $24 million in revenue.
In that time the increase in our A-base budget has been around $10 million, so while all of these volunteers running government properties have increased their revenues by 250%, the government's increase has been less than 10%. When it comes right down to it, when, as they say, the rubber hits the road, it's all about A-base funding. If the government kept pace with the harbour authorities, and if you looked at the success of this harbour authority program—you only have to go around the country and look at these harbours and talk to the people and see the pride and see the state of these harbours since this program was instituted—you would understand what I'm talking about.
It's appropriate for the government to step up to the plate and increase the A-base funding to small craft harbours. I'm not saying that it has to be 250%, but they have to try to keep up with those people who are running the harbours for them. These are volunteers running your facilities for the benefit of all Canadians. If you look at the numbers, it's about 700-and-some-odd communities. These are big numbers. There are a lot of people putting in a lot of effort.
I look forward to answering any questions that you have today.
Thank you very much.