Keep up the good work.
Evidence of meeting #116 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was owner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #116 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was owner.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Small.
We'll now go to Mr. Kelloway for five minutes or less, please.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
During your testimony, you talked about the regulatory changes that are ongoing, and you talked about 800 or so pieces of feedback from a variety of different stakeholders.
I'm wondering if it's possible to give us a sense of what those 800 stakeholders are saying and what themes may be present to you folks as you're reviewing this.
Executive Director, Legislative, Regulatory and International Affairs, Department of Transport
There are several broad themes that emerged from the consultation. Probably the top two or three revolved around the proposed implementation of a fee in the amount of $24 every five years for the renewal of the pleasure craft licence.
The other main issue that we saw was the implementation of this five-year validity period. Over time, the lifetime licences will be converted to five years if there is still a current owner of the vessel, and the holders of 10-year licences will eventually be transitioned over to a shorter, five-year period. As you can imagine, there were a lot of comments on those two main elements.
There was an understanding that there needed to be better information on the owner, but at the same time, that information comes at a cost.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
That's very helpful.
In terms of the regulatory changes, I think we've addressed some of them, but I'm just wondering if you can dive into some of the key items you're proposing as we move forward.
The second piece of that was brought up by one of the witnesses around the graduated enforcement approach. I had that circled in terms of unpacking what it is. You did go over that a bit, but can you go through the step-by-step process of the graduated enforcement approach, just for my purposes? I want to clearly understand it.
Maybe I can go with a follow-up there and then over to you.
Executive Director, Legislative, Regulatory and International Affairs, Department of Transport
Thank you for the question. I'll attempt to be brief.
There were many different changes. One, as I mentioned before, was to establish a five-year validity period for all pleasure craft licences. Specified licence-holders have 30 days to transfer a licence upon the purchase of their pleasure craft. Another was to expand the Ministry of Transport authorities to cancel a pleasure craft licence for reasons of non-compliance. An important one is to expand the scope of the licensing requirement to apply to all wind-powered vessels, or sailboats, that are more than six metres in length. As I mentioned, there's the service fee as well to help recover the cost of operating the program.
In terms of the graduated enforcement process, I'll turn to my colleague Joanne.
Director, Operations and Regulatory Development, Department of Transport
Thank you.
I'll just go through when there is an abandoned vessel. For instance, we will try to identify the owner through vessel registration, speaking to the community and looking to see if, in fact, there is an owner registered to the vessel. If there is not, we do have some opportunities under the act. We have the authority to post a 30-day notice to see if the owner will identify themselves before we take action on the vessel.
Where the owner is known, we would work with the owner. We could either issue an order, or we can issue a warning to let them know that they need to bring their vessel into compliance. If they refuse to do so or do not have the means to do so, then we would think about the next course of action. If they do have the means to pay an administrative monetary penalty, then we would apply an AMP to the owner.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
I have 30 seconds left....
Go ahead. You were going to say something—my apologies.
Director, Operations and Regulatory Development, Department of Transport
In a case where we do take action to remove the vessel, we would be looking to recover the cost of the removal of the vessel.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Right.
You mentioned other measures that could be taken if an individual, for whatever reason, says, “I'm not paying it”, or you can't find someone to pay for it. You mentioned other measures. Can you unpack that a bit as to what other measures are in the tool box?
Director, Operations and Regulatory Development, Department of Transport
Just for clarification, is the question about other measures to bring the owner to compliance?
Director, Operations and Regulatory Development, Department of Transport
In cases where the vessel is not in compliance, we would work to see what kinds of measures they can take to bring the vessel into compliance. We would provide them with education on how they can do that to meet the regulations. In cases where they cannot, we would assess our next steps to take actions to address the vessel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you.
We will now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes or less, please.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let me ask you a quick question.
I was a bit concerned to learn earlier that it couldn't be determined whether any wrecks in the St. Lawrence pose a threat to ecosystems. I find this concerning given that, in 2022, Canada's oceans protection plan received $2 billion in funding over nine years. This funding sought to better manage marine navigation and avoid the risk of marine incidents and to create an inventory of hazardous wrecks.
Why hasn't anything been done in the St. Lawrence yet? Is there at least a plan?
Director, Marine Environmental and Hazards Response, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Maybe to clarify, there have been a number of vessels that the Canadian Coast Guard has responded to in the St. Lawrence River and in the gulf over the history of the Coast Guard. What I was offering, Mr. Chair, was that I was not aware of any specific ongoing cases that were taking attention for remediation at this time.
The number that I have in total for the central region of vessels removed since 2016-17 is 106. I do not have the specific breakdown of which vessels were in the St. Lawrence, but, if it's of interest, we certainly could provide those numbers after the fact.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Did you identify or remove from the water 106 vessels? Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.
Director, Marine Environmental and Hazards Response, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.
One hundred and six vessels have been removed from the environment since 2016-17 in our central region of operations for the Canadian Coast Guard, which includes the St. Lawrence River and the gulf.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
I agree. So that includes the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Do we know whether any of these vessels contained hazardous materials?
Director, Marine Environmental and Hazards Response, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
What I can offer is that, in most of the cases where the Coast Guard intervenes to remove vessels, it is because there has been a determination of hazard, and we would have taken action to deal with that threat.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Madame Desbiens.
We will now go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes or less, please.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was reflecting while we've been talking. First of all, we know that five fines since 2019 is highly inadequate. There are many reasons behind this that I think we could talk about for a long time.
I want to talk about the fact that I talk to and know so many responsible boat and vessel owners who are frustrated about this entire situation. One thing that's very clear is that we don't have a clear process for vessel owners to understand how to navigate these systems for the entire life of their vessels.
One thing in particular where there seems to be a real gap is around the dismantling and recycling of vessels. We touched on this a little bit, but can you clarify whose responsibility it is to develop the systems to appropriately and adequately dismantle and recycle these vessels?
Director, Marine Protection, Environmental Policy, Department of Transport
Thank you for the question.
There is no single authority in Canada that is responsible for vessel recycling. It's a co-operative effort between the federal government, for example, which has certain requirements relating to discharges into the water and environmental protection in that regard.... We also work very closely with our colleagues in the provinces and the municipalities, which are responsible for matters such as local land use planning, when the boats are removed from the water for recycling, labour standards and those kinds of situations. It's more of a co-operative approach.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you.
I'm happy you brought that up because that's actually another example that's come up.
On Vancouver Island, where I'm lucky to live, there's a place called Union Bay. In Union Bay, there has been some dismantling and recycling happening. Interestingly enough, even a U.S. vessel was brought up to be dismantled and recycled at the site, when we haven't even figured out how to dismantle and recycle our own vessels here.
There have been multiple warnings provided to the centre. It's been leaking copper at levels 100 times the legal limit and zinc at 13 times the legal limit. There has been no process to ensure that this is being done in an environmentally sustainable way. We've had the B.C. Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the B.C. Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship call on the federal government to urge it to take more action to regulate the dismantling and recycling of vessels at this site.
I'm wondering if somebody could share today whether they feel that this work is being done in co-operation with provinces to ensure that we have adequate recycling and dismantling centres that actually take into account workers' rights and also the environment that's surrounding these centres.