Fisheries Committee on Oct. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 124 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Before we proceed, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. Please address all comments through the chair.

Today, we're studying derelict and abandoned vessels. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on February 8, 2024, the committee is resuming its study of derelict and abandoned vessels.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses for the first panel. Today, we have Bonny Brokenshire, environmental professional, and David Mitchell, mayor of Bridgewater.

Thank you for taking the time to appear today. You will each have five minutes or less for your opening statement.

Ms. Brokenshire, you have the floor.

[Bonny Brokenshire, Environmental Professional, As an Individual]

Thank you, honourable Chair, vice-chair and esteemed committee members, for the opportunity to appear before you today. I appreciate your dedication to safeguarding Canada’s marine ecosystems by addressing complex challenges facing our oceans, including derelict and abandoned vessels. I am grateful to contribute today to the conversation.

I have lived on the west coast of Canada all of my life, and I currently reside on Nex̱wlélex̱wm, or Bowen Island, which is about 10 kilometres by boat from downtown Vancouver.

During the past 18 years, I have had the privilege of working on various marine-based projects, including planning and implementing multipronged approaches to restoring socioecological and socio-economic vibrancy in bays located in Átlk'a7tsem, or Howe Sound.

I am an environmental professional with years of experience in local government, focusing primarily on the Átl’ḵa7tsem region of the Salish Sea. Throughout my career, I have been honoured to collaborate with the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, community action groups, marine contractors, provincial government agencies, elected officials like MP Patrick Weiler, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and Transport Canada—all with a common goal aimed at mitigating pollution, ecosystem degradation, social concerns and economic impacts stemming from derelict and abandoned vessels.

Often exhausting the local government tool box on Bowen Island—for example, we've adopted relevant bylaws, obtained a provincial tenure to enable legal management of marine areas and spent our limited budgets—we've looked to higher levels of government for financial and enforcement support. We were successful in establishing strong working relationships with provincial and federal staff, but in my experience their legislated authority, funding and staffing resources were constraining.

I could speak at length about the many facets of derelict and abandoned vessels, but today I would like to focus on one issue I feel is of paramount importance if we are to achieve long-lasting change. Specifically, I'd like to focus on the proliferation of mooring buoys in vulnerable areas like Átlk'a7tsem and other regions of the Salish Sea, and how they relate to the problem of derelict and abandoned vessels.

In my experience, bays that are inundated with mooring buoys are often inundated with derelict and abandoned vessels. Once a mooring buoy is dropped in the ocean, the associated tackle, anchor chain and block remain in place. Around Bowen Island, some have been there for up to 50 years, from anecdotal conversations with locals. The sea floor around the anchoring systems of the buoys is often devoid of life from constant chain scouring.

Federal programs, such as the oceans protection plan, have been positive steps, and I am deeply appreciative of the work done by staff within the DFO and TC to exercise their jurisdictional authorities. However, the number of mooring buoys installed throughout Átlk'a7tsem, and the number of vessels tied to them, will undoubtedly continue to increase if legislation, regulation and funding for enforcement are not strengthened.

If the Canadian Navigable Waters Act and the associated private buoy regulations were to be opened up, there is room for augmentation with respect to mooring buoys, which I consider minor works. Looking at ways to address the proliferation of mooring buoys and, ultimately, the derelict and abandoned vessels tied to these buoys is important if we are to enhance the well-being of all species living near, on and in our oceans.

Thank you once again for your time, your efforts and your consideration of this issue. I look forward to the questions and comments today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Mitchell for five minutes or less, please.

[David Mitchell, Mayor, Town of Bridgewater]

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you for inviting me today to speak to you on the issue of derelict vessels. This is actually my second time addressing the committee. I was here maybe five or six years ago. Since since the last time I was here, much has changed in our community.

First, however, I want to share about the impacts of having these vessels in our community. Almost three decades ago, the federal government of the day was divesting itself of federal wharfs. In the town of Bridgewater, the federal wharf was given to a society called the Artificial Reef Society. The purpose of this group was—self-explanatory in its name—to create artificial reefs in the Atlantic Ocean. Ironically, something you cannot do. It assumed control of the wharf, and shortly thereafter the problems began.

For those not familiar with the town of Bridgewater, we are a town of 9,000 people. We are the economic centre of the south shore of Nova Scotia. Our beautiful town is divided by a tidal river, the LaHave, which leads directly to the Atlantic.

In 1998, the society decided to acquire the HMCS Fraser, the St. Laurent-class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and was declared surplus. The plan was to convert this ship to a floating museum, yet it had no funding secured to do so.

I want to note that I'm not aware if there is currently a policy that would prevent the acquisition of surplus vessels, especially from the military, by organizations, like it was done for the Fraser. Had there been one that set out rules for such acquisitions, such as ensuring funding was even in place for any proposed future use beyond scrap, our story would be much different.

While the Fraser and its proud history sat rotting at our wharf, the society then welcomed the HMCS Cormorant, a Royal Canadian Navy diving support vessel, to the wharf in 2000. To this day, the ownership of that vessel is still in dispute, but what cannot be disputed is the fact that it was the society that allowed it to dock in our town.

This is another ship with an incredible history, and for the record, it was part of the 1994 expedition to recover the ship's bell from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. However, like the Fraser, it sat rotting, eventually listing, sinking, being raised and listing again for 21 years until it was finally removed in 2021.

The Fraser was bought back by the Canadian Forces in 2009 from the Artificial Reef Society for a dollar and taken away to Sheet Harbour for scrap at a cost of potentially millions.

Over the years, the wharf changed ownership from the Artificial Reef Society to the actual chair of the society itself, and nobody knows how that happened. For over 20 years, a number of fishing trawlers were then docked at the wharf, again, to rot like all the others.

The impact on our community was threefold. First, the risk to the environment was always heightened. This was a daily fear across our entire community. These vessels were in constant danger of breach and were known to still contain fuels, oils and lubricants. Remember, this is a tidal river, so any spills would impact dozens of kilometres of river and shoreline, all with homes, parks and community uses. The others were the impact it had on local property values and the community's morale.

While the excitement of the arrival of the Fraser quickly wore off, it was clear there was no viable plan to do anything with the ship. As more and more ships arrived and were simply left there without any purpose or plan, our flagship community park, which was directly across from these ships, was always in the shadow of decay. The homes in the area that faced these ships had depressed valuations, and the wharf itself, left rotting behind the vessels—something we didn't even know until the Cormorant was removed—could never be redeveloped or used for its intended purpose.

The impact these vessels have, regardless of the community they're in, goes beyond just the vessels themselves. It's obviously the space they take up and the environmental risk I mentioned, but I don't want to discount the impact it has on a community itself, knowing it essentially has no tools or ability to get rid of these vessels without the support or lead of a federal organization or the Coast Guard itself.

There is some good news, finally, for our story. Last year, the wharf was sold to new owners, and just a few months ago—less than two months, in fact—the three trawlers that were remaining were dismantled on site. Now we no longer have any vessels at our wharf. The new owner, apparently, has some new exciting plans for the community. I haven't seen those, but I've been told that the community will be very happy.

I cannot express how happy our people are to no longer have to look at these vessels or worry about the chemicals coming out of them and into the water. There are new rules in place that should prevent this from happening here and elsewhere, but I cannot stress enough just how damaging, or impactful, it can be to have any kind of watercraft left to rot.

I thank you for your time today. Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for keeping on time.

We'll now go to our first round of questioning.

We'll go to Mr. Small for six minutes or less, please.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today to take part in this study.

First off, Mr. Mitchell, in what you basically described as a graveyard for vessels in Bridgewater, were all those vessels that you described considered abandoned and derelict, or would they be on the list of the 120 or so vessels in Atlantic Canada? Would they have made that list or not?

[David Mitchell]

My understanding is that they did eventually make the list, but it took some time to get them there as the ownership was in dispute. We had years where someone would claim ownership, and then they would deny ownership. The Cormorant was eventually added to that list, as were the others behind it.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Do you have any suggestions for the committee as to how that process could be streamlined?

[David Mitchell]

That's a great question.

For me, I think we even have to go back to the original point I was trying to make in my opening remarks, which was that none of this would have happened had a divestiture of a federal property gone into the proper hands with a plan. To me, it's not just the ability to abandon a vessel at a wharf. It's who has control of that wharf and can even allow a vessel to come upriver, in our case, and abandon it.

I think now that the process has been tightened, and it is easier to get a vessel on the derelict and abandoned vessel list. Our issue was that when ownership was in dispute, that process could take years. As we know, the court system can just take years and years, and that's what happened to us. It was back and forth.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Regarding the problems you've encountered there in Bridgewater, are you familiar with any other municipalities throughout your region that have had similar problems, or is Bridgewater being targeted for the dropping off of these vessels?

[David Mitchell]

The town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, had the Farley Mowat docked there and sunk for many years. That has also since been corrected, but that was almost a decade of that vessel being parked at the wharf, blocking it from being truly used as the port that it should have been. I know that, when I testified here many years ago, the mayor of the town of Shelburne also spoke to the exact same issue. It's an open port. It's kind of a free-for-all. If it looks like there's dock space, they'll come up and park them there.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

How about the coastline, the beaches and the coastal communities in your part of Nova Scotia? Do you think that the list of abandoned vessels in Atlantic Canada represents the actual number of abandoned vessels, or do you think there might be a few more than are recorded?

[David Mitchell]

I think there are some more. I know certainly up around Cape Breton there are some that are on beaches. I think they're probably discounted because they're small. I know on the west coast it's a lot of small craft that are considered derelict and abandoned. On the east coast, it tends not to be pleasure boats; it tends to be trawlers, scallop draggers and things like that. I do know there are some communities where they've been there for 50 years, so they're kind of off the radar of the list, while the focus is on the newer ones that have been more recently left there.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Yes, because it seems to me that with 935 in British Columbia and only 119 in all of Atlantic Canada's four provinces, there might be quite a few that are not on that list.

[David Mitchell]

Again, my understanding is that, on the west coast, it is mostly smaller pleasure craft that are left. For us, there are fewer, but they're much larger.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mayor Mitchell.

My next question is for Ms. Brokenshire.

Mr. Mitchell just mentioned that the Farley Mowat had been abandoned. I find it odd, from such a champion of the environment and the ocean and all things wonderful, that a ship like the Farley Mowat would be abandoned and that someone who cares so much about the ocean would even have their name on the side of a vessel that's abandoned and polluting. It's shocking.

You mentioned the lack of funds. Has your group reached out to the David Suzuki Foundation or any groups like the ENGOs that work on various causes? Do you think some of these groups should care more about and put more money into helping remove some of these threats to the ocean, such as abandoned vessels and moorings?

[Bonny Brokenshire]

Throughout Átlk'a7tsem, or Howe Sound, we have very strong working relationships with the David Suzuki Foundation and other NGOs, and I find very engaged community members as well. The local municipalities, Bowen Island Municipality in particular, and Squamish and other municipalities around the sound, do have some budgets, and we haven't tapped into asking for funding specifically for abandoned and derelict vessels.

There's a lot of work that has to go on prior to actually removing the vessel, as we know, with finding the owners and going through many sorts of channels that lead to dead ends. Where I would say that the action groups, NGOs, have been extremely successful and very busy is in the aftermath of derelict and abandoned vessels, the cleanup, so being more reactive. I think, in speaking to lots of these folks, it just seems daunting with the legislation and the multi-tiered government legislation. We have the local bylaws and the provincial layer and the federal layer, so potentially it could be a source of funding. However, as I say, currently it's more the reactive aspect where they've been active.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to Mr. Weiler for six minutes or less, please.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank both the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Brokenshire, I want to ask a couple of questions of you.

You mentioned you're seeing that Mannion Bay and other bays that have a lot of mooring buoys are having a lot of damage done to the ocean floor because sometimes you have buoys there for 50 years or more. I know the Bowen Island Municipality took a fairly innovative approach to doing what it could to tackle this issue, both through creating a new bylaw as well as getting tenure to manage these marine areas.

I was hoping you could share with this committee the process you went through or that the municipality went through and what impact that's had over time.

[Bonny Brokenshire]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

It's a long tale that I don't have time to talk about, but when I say it's a multipronged approach, it truly is a multipronged approach.

I want to go back 15 years when the community kids were told by their parents not to go to the shores of Mannion Bay where there were really high E. coli counts. There was junk and and debris all over the shores. In my experience in the Átlk'a7tsem, or Howe Sound, derelict and abandoned vessels occur where there's some place for them to tie up, where there's a safe landing spot and where they're close to amenities. All of these three components are alive and well around Mannion Bay.

The bay was inundated with mooring buoys. There were over 50 mooring buoys in an area that..... If you go by the private buoy regulations and consider the swing distance based on depth of water, I calculated that 16 buoys could be in that bay, yet there were over 50. There were, I would say, upward of 12 to 15 abandoned vessels.

We started trying to establish some tools and working with other levels of government. We obtained a licence of occupation, a tenure from the province. The reason we did this was that it gave us some authority with respect to trespass, but it's a loose tool. We were also able to achieve or instate a bylaw for charging for mooring buoys. We needed the tenure in place first to establish a mooring buoy bylaw, through which we charge a nominal fee for mooring buoys, which then goes back into the ecological restoration of the bay, but that was through tenure.

We have a use of water areas and beach area bylaw that we instated. We also have a voluntary non-anchor zone to protect the eelgrass. We couldn't have a no-anchor zone because it's not a navigable water channel; it's a protected bay. However, we have protected the eelgrass that way. Plus, we just have community involvement and lots of eyes on the bay.

We've definitely, over the last 15 years, decreased the number of abandoned vessels, and there are now no abandoned vessels in the bay. With the mooring buoy bylaw, the owners of the vessels tied to the buoys have to register with the municipality, so there's a lack of anonymity now with those folks in the bay. We have no abandoned vessels, and the mooring buoy sweeps from Transport Canada have been invaluable.

It's very hard to get Transport Canada to come out because it's a lot of staffing resources, but they have been very useful. If I could say one thing, it would be having monies to allow staff to come out and do mooring buoy sweeps. We've reduced the number of mooring buoys down to about 27, and Transport Canada and the federal government paid for the removal of all that tackle. We also impounded the buoys at the time that were abandoned and derelict and tied to those buoys. The federal government also paid for the disposal of those vessels, but since then it's been really tricky to get mooring buoy sweeps conducted in the bays that need them.

That would be my take-away, if I could say one thing today.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you very much for that.

One of the other comments you mentioned was that the legislative authority was constraining and that if the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act was opened up, there would be some room for augmentation.

I was hoping you might be able to share with the committee what some of your ideas might be for that augmentation.

[Bonny Brokenshire]

Yes.

Speaking to the correlation of mooring buoys and abandoned and derelict vessels, if the Canadian Navigable Waters Act was opened up, I think it would be beneficial to see more enforcement of provisions related to mooring buoys. Right now, as long as a mooring buoy conforms to the above-water aesthetics, it can be plunked down wherever.

Once a buoy is in place, we go out and take GPS coordinates of all the mooring buoys around Bowen Island so we know which ones have been put in. We do that every six months, but even with that database and the GIS layer that we welcomely share, we still can't get the action to come and remove those buoys. Enforcement is really key, and I would really like to see some sort of maybe regulation associated with private buoys as that seems to be the issue in Átlk'a7tsem, or Howe Sound.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

We now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

I represent a Quebec riding, but I'll ask the witnesses from the west coast the same question I've asked a number of witnesses: Do you communicate with environmentalists?

Earlier, Ms. Brokenshire talked about the David Suzuki Foundation, which I know very well. It's interested in the St. Lawrence River, among other things. Do you communicate with various Quebec representatives about the ghost ships in the gulf of the St. Lawrence, or is your expertise focused mainly on the west coast?