Fisheries Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2024

[David Roberts]

Not as I see it. As I see it—and I'm not sure of this—in federal government programs like the one I just described to you, the small craft harbours abandoned and wrecked vessels removal program.... It says here that 75% of the cost would be to the Government of Canada, and 25% of the cost would be borne by indigenous companies like us. It would be 25% our cost, 75% federal money and none to the boat owner. This is what—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

That would be worth finding out with a bit more precision. Obviously, there must be an incentive to simply abandon the boat rather than dispose of it in a responsible manner. The only thing I could think of is that either it's the hassle of doing it or the cost of doing it that would cause somebody to just simply beach the boat or leave it tied up at a dock somewhere.

You were mentioning the release of vehicles from a marine service centre. Who has the authority to release a vessel to you for your disposal?

[David Roberts]

I have to get permission from the owner, if we can find them. The application guide from the vessel removal program for small crafts harbours describes exactly what you need to do. Ideally, you would get a letter from the owner, if we can find them.

If we can't find them, we have to go through another.... I forget the name of the route we go, but there is a route available whereby we can get that done.

The easiest way would be to find the previous owner, get him to sign off on it, and we're ready to go.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

That seems to be a big deal, because vessels are abandoned, and nobody knows who owns them. In our previous session, we were talking about the lack of identification markers on the vessel that could allow us to track who owned it or who gave it up.

What would you suggest then to really make it a lot easier for everybody involved in these transactions to be able to find out who owns the vessel? What's missing here?

[David Roberts]

I know in other areas of the construction in there.... You are required to put a notice in your local paper that you are going to remove this vessel from this particular place. That will give 30 days for anybody in the area to respond. Outside the 30-day notice, we will be allowed to take the vessel if nobody came on board. I would go that route. That's been the route. In other areas—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Yes, but at the same time, the big hang-up, of course, is that you don't know who abandoned the vessel.

The nature of my question is this: What do we need to change so that we can better identify the person who most likely abandoned the vessel at wherever?

[David Roberts]

There is one way you could do it. We are a contractor, and we do contract work to remove the vessels. The contractor itself has the ability to find out more about a vessel than the federal government would, because the contractor doesn't work with the federal government, and we're not bound like an employee working with the federal government is bound by certain things that prevent them from doing much inquiring.

However, in our instance we have been able to find the owners of the vessels, whereas the federal government would not be able to find them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I have to move on now, Mr. Roberts, to Madame Desbiens for five minutes or less, please.

Go ahead, Madame Desbiens.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you.

I will continue by focusing on the situation in Quebec, obviously. As you know, Mr. Roberts, I represent Quebec as a member of the Bloc Québécois. Do you have any contact or communication with other indigenous groups in Quebec about abandoned boats?

[David Roberts]

No, we have taken up several boats in Quebec, but we are always on the lookout for partnerships with indigenous groups anywhere in Canada, especially in Quebec. I've spent some time working in Quebec, and I have a lot of good friends there. That would work really well with us—to partner up with indigenous groups in Quebec.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

During the last meeting, we had representatives from the Canadian Coast Guard tell us they spotted a certain number of boats in the St. Lawrence, but they had no idea what kinds of boats they were or what they contained. When it comes to Newfoundland and Labrador and the maritime provinces, do you have more detailed information? I’m thinking, for example, about boats containing fuel or questionable substances.

[David Roberts]

Yes, we are contractors. We are not restricted to what we can do investigation-wise. In my experience, we get much better results finding out information on the boats with a lot more clarity than is otherwise available today. We have good results there once we can find out where the boats are located.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Why do you have the potential or ability to achieve better results than the Canadian Coast Guard?

[David Roberts]

Our potential is much greater than the Coast Guard's because there are no restrictions on us to do the investigation. We can go into the town, and we can go back and find out who built the boat. We can find a lot of information that public servants would not be able to get to, and we'd be only too glad to help anybody out in that way.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

If I understand correctly, this committee could therefore recommend that the government do more for your organization so you could access funding, which would give you support and the ability to further develop your expertise.

[David Roberts]

Exactly, yes.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Roberts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for, hopefully, five minutes or less, because we have some sound checks to do for the next hour.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Roberts. You've really been in the hot seat for this entire time. Thanks for your willingness to answer all our questions.

Following up on some of the questions you've responded to already, you were talking about how many of the vessels were abandoned in the 1990s as a result of the cod moratorium.

I have a quick side note. As everybody here knows, I'm from Newfoundland originally, and I moved to the west coast as a result of the cod moratorium, so I absolutely understand why we would have seen people who were not sure what to do with their vessel anymore and who were not sure how to best move forward.

My question is, in your experience, at what stage is it easier to clean up the vessel? Is it when the vessel is 20 years old? Is it when the vessel has just been abandoned? What does the cleanup look like, depending on the age of the vessel and how long the vessel has been in the water? What are the impacts around that? Can you tell us a bit more?

[David Roberts]

Yes, I can—the earlier, the better. The earlier, the same day as abandoned, if we can get there.... Every day it's abandoned, there are chances of other things happening, like fuel leaks.

Expect the unexpected. Anything can happen. Get to it as soon as you can. That's what you need to do.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Can you clarify and just expand on that a bit more?

When the vessel is not cleaned up right away, what do you see? Are there any examples you can provide to us of the impacts on the surrounding marine ecosystem, the seafood in the area, the stocks in the area and the coastal communities in the area?

What are those impacts when the vessel isn't cleaned up in a timely manner? For example, there's fuel leaking and there are all the other things that we know can happen.

[David Roberts]

Well, I can give you a good example there.

There was a steel vessel from my hometown, Fogo, that sank. It sank just north of Fogo. It sank about 30 years ago, and it leaked oil for 30 years. In that area, we were finding birds every year contaminated with oil—each year. It was non-stop. It was sickening to see the damage that vessel was causing to the environment in our pristine areas: Fogo and Twillingate and the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

You're a Newfoundlander. It was sickening to see that. That was not stopped until money was allocated to stop the leak.

Yes, if a vessel is not taken up in a timely fashion, you could be asking for major problems for the environment and for everybody.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much, and thank you for providing that example.

I'm going to be running out of time, and I think my last question for you will be around this. We know that the best approach is prevention and avoiding that the vessels are abandoned in the first place, of course, but we also know that there are accountabilities, or there should be accountabilities in place anyway....

It's actually listed in the 2019 act that it is illegal to abandon a vessel. We know that there has been only one fine on the east coast to a vessel owner who has abandoned their vessel. Are you familiar with this fine? Are you seeing any awareness of the fact that it is illegal to abandon one's vessel?

[David Roberts]

Well, I can comment.... I don't know, but I can comment on something that happened three years ago. I came into a harbour on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing: oil on both sides of the boat, three kilometres from the port. When I got in, I reported it to the Coast Guard, and ECRC, the cleanup crew, came out to help clean this up. Ten thousand litres were dumped in the harbour.

I'll never forget what the guy from ECRC said to me. He said: “David, there's nobody accountable—nobody. There are no fines given, nothing. The only fine is that the person who's responsible for the spill is responsible for the cleanup. There's never any fine, even offshore, to the oil rigs.” That's what was told to me three years ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I want to say thank you to Mr. Roberts for providing his knowledge to the committee for the first part of our meeting this afternoon.

Mr. Roberts, you can either stay online and listen to the other witnesses for the next hour, or you can sign off whenever you like. Thank you.