Thank you, Mr. Finnigan. That's very kind of you, and I appreciate it.
I want to welcome President Russell, Mr. Coombs and Mr. Patterson to the committee. Thank you for your presentations.
I have a couple of questions. I'm going to start with you, President Russell, because I think your area is very much representative of many northern areas across Canada where we've seen a lack of designation of small craft harbours. In your territory alone, of the eight small craft harbours, five have been designated in the last 10 years, and of those five, I think four have been designated just in the last few years. For the three outstanding, I reviewed them and the first investment in one of them was just last year.
I think that represents what we're seeing across the north, where many ports in many communities were not designated. Whether they didn't have the right number of fishers or didn't have the landing value, that should not have changed the fact that they were engaged in a commercial fishery in Canada and they should have been designated.
I have three questions for you, and you can answer them all together.
One, how should the Government of Canada be treating northern and indigenous regions that have been left behind in small craft harbour designations in the past?
Two, in areas where there are abandoned properties—and your area is one of those areas—I have noticed that the Government of Canada is contracting large amounts of money to dismantle certain properties. Should there also be other models whereby local groups can take those over and receive the funding to repurpose some of those facilities? That's just an option. I'm wondering what your opinion is on that.
Last, I know that in your region the landed value for communities is about $23 million annually. One would think it would be easy to generate revenue from that, but a lot of communities are isolated. It's very costly to operate those ports. What model could work in those communities to help support the small craft harbour committees and boards?