Thank you very much for having us. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to be consulted.
For those of you who don't know where Wawa is, we're the small town with the big goose on Highway 17 in northern Ontario.
We have some history in our community with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and specifically small craft harbours. Originally, the marina, which is what we're really concerned about today, was built as a partnership between private organizations and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It was originally intended for the commercial fisheries of Lake Superior. After that was devastated from various reasons, mostly with sea lamprey but also overfishing, the marina transferred from a commercial fisheries' marina to a recreational marina.
That's where I think a lot of priorities were dropped because a lot of these commercial facilities come first and our recreational facilities come second. This marina was leased to the municipality several years ago as one of two options: either lease it to the municipality to continue to run it, or stop running it completely.
We've had several issues going forward with the marina specifically related to how this asset is maintained. As it's not a municipal asset, we've had a lot of difficulty in having the resources to maintain this asset, and we also have different contractual obligations with this asset that prevents us from maintaining it. For us, it's a very critical piece of infrastructure in our community, not only for recreation but also for tourism.
If you look at a map of Lake Superior, you see there's one key leg missing in going all around the lake to get fuel and safe berths, and that is Wawa. The whole north shore, except for Wawa, is essentially covered. There is a great deal of boat traffic and potential tourism traffic that we're missing out on. Part of that is because we're lacking the support or the resources to really get our facility running again, but we're not lacking the willingness to do so.
We've undertaken some investment, approximately $150,000 over the past three years, to address specific concerns at the marina. That's the municipality putting municipal tax dollars into a federally owned piece of infrastructure.
What we're essentially looking for in the recommendations we're making here is going to surround how we approach resources like this in the future. I think I speak for a couple of other municipal marinas around Lake Superior and in Ontario when I say these pieces of infrastructure that end up being extremely important to smaller, local communities like ours have essentially been left to rot. As we move forward and realize the importance of tourism to our communities, these pieces of infrastructure get more and more important as we try to diversify our economies.
Looking to the future, specifically in regard to the lease agreement, small craft harbours has actually been extremely helpful to us in pursuing divestiture. But this is where we're looking for a strategy and some funding to ensure that these resources can continue to operate in our communities. Our community, in particular, has decided that this resource is particularly important. We would like to continue to operate it. However, given the state of the resource and the lack of maintenance it has received over the past 10, 15, 20 years, we're in a situation where we cannot afford to take on this asset in its current state.
However, we would like to partner with both provincial and federal organizations to make sure we can continue to have this asset, not only for the betterment of our community but also for the betterment of our regional communities in trying to create that link between some of the northern and southern communities via Lake Superior.
In speaking with a couple of operators, boaters and within the municipality ourselves, we came up with some recommendations to small craft harbours that we would really like to see pursued. We believe that small craft harbours cannot just abandon these assets in their current conditions. So many of these assets are in such a state that no municipality of our size would ever be able to take them over, given how much liability is associated with the disrepair of these assets.
We believe there are really two options for these assets. The first one is that small craft harbours maintain these assets and upgrade them as necessary so the community can continue to use and benefit from them. The second is that small craft harbours provide some funding to these communities to ensure that we don't leave small municipalities with large liabilities.
We certainly appreciate the current process where you have essentially come to us and asked us for some recommendations, our opinion, and given us the ability to present on these topics, but we'd like to see a more developed process where local stakeholders are able to really give their input into small craft harbours when we're deciding the fate of these organizations.
I know that distance is often an issue. It's very difficult to come to all of these communities and talk to all of the people involved, so certainly, there can be a process developed that helps people get their input known and helps decide the future of these assets.
We also believe that municipalities have a role to play. We must also pursue small craft harbours if we want to continue to have these assets in this community, and that's what we've made efforts to do. I would applaud the small craft harbours staff. The ones I've dealt with over the past several years have been extremely sympathetic and helpful, but they're also aware of the resources that they have and they seem to be quite constrained by those resources. For small craft harbours to really do a proper job of off-loading these assets, if they've decided to off-load them, then it's key that, along with those assets comes a little bit of help from municipalities that wish to continue in their operation.
At the end of the day, we're looking for a holistic solution for our particular site that incorporates not only the recreational value of the site but also the understanding that there's a great deal of economic development that can be had, and not just from commercial harbours but from recreational harbours, as well, specifically, looking at tourism development. For our particular facility, we've talked to both provincial and federal partners to try to make sure that we can continue to operate this asset. The primary function that we really run into is the condition of the asset and how much capital investment it needs to really operate properly.
What we're really hoping to see come out of the recommendations of this particular panel is a really good funding model that understands that these assets have been under-maintained for a great deal of time and that needs to change one way or another and that not only the federal government needs to be at the table but the provinces and the local municipalities as well. They need to all come together at the table to make sure we continue to have these particular assets in our communities.
I appreciate your taking the time. We're open to any questions.