Evidence of meeting #119 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
You have 20 seconds if you can get in a question and an answer.
Labrador, Lib.
The only other question I was going to ask is about how there hasn't been a northern division for small craft harbours. Labrador, as you said, is one of the regions that has been left behind for a long time, but if you do an assessment across the northern regions of Canada, all of them have been left behind when it comes to small craft harbour investment. Do you have any recommendations around that particular piece? I'll leave it there.
President, NunatuKavut Community Council
I think saying to the committee to make a recommendation around looking at investments through a northern and indigenous lens would be a step. Of course, doing that through reconciliation and in partnership and collaboration with indigenous governments is also an important consideration.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you.
Now we'll go back to the Conservative side.
Mr. Arnold, please, you have five minutes or less.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Alex, Todd and Robert, if I can call you by your first names, for being here.
We are all here on this earth for a short time and in fact we are here in Parliament for an even shorter time in terms of making long-term changes, legislation or recommendations that will span much more than our lifetime, hopefully, so we need to make those changes correctly.
The rate of change in Labrador and northern communities is exponential, I believe, from multiple sources, but basically, rural development is one of them. Can we sustain the systems, the cultures and so on in light of those rapidly developing changes?
President, NunatuKavut Community Council
Could you clarify the question a little bit?
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
It's been interesting to hear some of the comments.
It sounds like there were harbours.... You mentioned that there were some harbours existing that have only just been taken over by the small craft harbours program in the last 10 years. How were those harbours being maintained or built in the past?
Because of the changes that we're seeing, it sounds like that wasn't sustainable anymore. Can this current change be sustainable?
President, NunatuKavut Community Council
I suppose in some sense it gets back to what sustainability means.
Does sustainability mean that you have enough revenue coming in to make sure that everything's maintained and operated? Is that the only model of sustainability that one has? Some would say that's a financial model of sustainability.
I think the other thing is that, when you look at it as part of the community or the region's infrastructure and how that fits in, you might get a different way of looking at sustainability. If you just say, “Here's a dock. Here's a wharf. Do you have enough users and revenue to keep it going?”, if that's the approach, we're probably going to say that there are a lot of places that aren't sustainable.
Conservative
President, NunatuKavut Community Council
If you get into the fact that this is about healthy communities, healthy resource development, public safety—all of these values—and that's brought into the model of sustainability, I think you're going to arrive at a different conclusion: that it is sustainable for the Government of Canada to continue to invest taxpayers' dollars into these public facilities that are important to industry and to community well-being.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
If I can, I'd like to carry on. No impoliteness is meant here.
You also mentioned that you're moving towards self-government. As a legislator, my responsibility to all of Canadians is to ask this: During the process of moving to self-government, when do assets and liabilities go with that, or do they go with that?
President, NunatuKavut Community Council
Certainly, they could form part of the conversation that we would have with the Government of Canada—and, in some instances, with the government of a particular province or territory—about how self-government manifests itself.
Do we, as an indigenous organization, want to have a conversation with small craft harbours about divestiture or about actually taking over all of these small craft harbours? Then, of course, there will have to be some intense talk about liabilities and assets, and maintaining them going forward—those types of considerations.
That could form part of our talks and negotiations with the Government of Canada. That is possible. Certainly, again, we would have to talk about sustainability, at least from our vantage point, from an indigenous government vantage point.
Those things are possible, I think. Maybe there are other ways, in terms of partnerships over time or in terms of governance and ownership, that we can also address.
Conservative
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay.
Mr. Patterson, do you see a change in the use of your facility? Did it used to be more commercial-oriented? Are you seeing more recreational use, different funding sources or a different financial model?
Director, Community Services and Tourism, Municipality of Wawa
Yes. If you look historically, it was originally a commercial-use facility. That really died off with the devastation of the Lake Superior fishery. There's a very clear line in the sand there. Since then, it's been primarily recreational.
We're seeing a resurgence of tourism in our community. As people are going further and further north for their recreational activities, we're seeing some recreational events that had died down actually increase over the last couple of years. As a trend goes, I think we're going to see that continue as the population moves further and further north for those particular recreational activities.
For us, we're trying to get ahead of the ball to make sure that we have those facilities available and to create that regional link to ensure that we can take advantage of some of that tourism development to diversify our local economy.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Arnold. Thank you, Mr. Patterson.
Now for the remaining time, we'll have Mr. Fraser, please.
