Evidence of meeting #124 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 vessels.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
There you go.
Sir, I'll have to interrupt again because my time is limited, and I don't want to be chastised.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Yes, well, it's the fear of God.
All right. We have the problem now. Between the two of you....
We'll start with you, Mr. Peart. I'm sorry I cut you off earlier.
What is the eventual solution that makes all of this go away?
Chair, Friends of Shoal Harbour Society
My understanding is that the best solution is to return to how it was before 2004 and have the Coast Guard be responsible for private mooring buoys.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
With respect, sir, that doesn't get to the root of the problem with people abandoning boats.
Mr. Dahli, I would like to hear your comments, please.
Chair, Cadboro Bay Dead Boats Society
People from every jurisdiction should sit down—like my schoolteacher said, “Sit down and play nice”—and figure out your jurisdictions. Until we get it done, we will continue to do these things. We have to look at what Washington state did. I got all the papers on Norway. They run a good show, and I'm not saying that because I'm Norwegian.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
You're allowed.
When it comes to recommendations, we're brimming with them here. The reflections we had earlier indicated that we could treat vessels much the same as we treat motor vehicles, requiring vehicle identification numbers or vessel identification numbers, including some hidden on the hull, so that we could actually identify who owned the thing.
Also, we could have very active harbourmaster activities to ensure that anybody coming in and mooring to the dock or mooring to a private buoy, or a public one, if there is such a thing, has to register with the harbourmaster. If they don't, the boat gets towed.
These are the sorts of things we need to be talking about, rather than squabbling over the jurisdictions we have with the current conditions. Let's eliminate the current conditions entirely.
Chair, Friends of Shoal Harbour Society
In many of our harbours and bays, there are no harbourmasters, so that makes it really awkward.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Hardie.
We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll say to the witnesses that the topic is truly interesting. I support this logic. Every province has a motor vehicle registration agency, which keeps records of each vehicle and its owner. Unless proven otherwise, each owner is responsible for their vehicle, and the owner can be traced with the vehicle serial number.
As a rule, there are fewer boats than motor vehicles. Couldn't each province set up a boat registration system for boats bought on its territory to make it easier to locate them on waterways? Could the solution used for motor vehicles be adapted to boats, which would then be similarly managed?
Let me know if this is already the case. If boats are registered, do records exist?
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Of course you can answer. You're both experts.
Chair, Friends of Shoal Harbour Society
I don't understand the constitutional authority here. There is some federal responsibility. If the province, like British Columbia, could have a system such as that, some kind of registration system is really needed. Whether it's provincial, federal or a combination of both, I don't understand how that would work. However, some kind of registration system similar to what's happening in Washington state, that's what is really needed.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
It would be a registration system that links the boat to a clearly defined owner who has an address; a real person, in other words.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
That would make it easier to trace owners and naturally remind them of their obligations if ever their boat disappears.
Chair, Friends of Shoal Harbour Society
That's correct. Right now, my understanding is that, for many of the vessels that are being abandoned, it's next to impossible to trace the ownership. You can't go to Mr. Jones and say, “Please take your vessel out”, because it's so confusing as to who actually owns the abandoned vessel.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Once a boat has sunk to the bottom, is the history still required? Is it necessary to know if the boat is at the bottom, or if the wreck is moored to a buoy? Is it harder to spot on the bottom? What about sonar? Even sailboats usually have some type of locating system. Could the focus be on some type of emitter that could trace the boat?
Chair, Friends of Shoal Harbour Society
Yes. There really needs to be a system such as what you're saying, whether it's provincial or federal or some kind of authority. We need to be able to trace the owner of the boat, whether it's attached to a buoy or a dock, or whether the boat actually is sunk on the bottom. Right now, it's really very difficult to trace who actually owns most of these abandoned and derelict boats.
Eric, do you want to add anything?
Chair, Cadboro Bay Dead Boats Society
No, thank you. Whatever Bob says, I totally agree with.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
What about Norway or even the state of Washington? Is that how things work? Are we further ahead technologically at locating boats, even if they're at the bottom?
Chair, Friends of Shoal Harbour Society
Again, I don't know what's going on globally, but I would say the system Canada has right now is quite inadequate. There is no registration system. Transport Canada says that there will be one coming, and we've been waiting and waiting and nothing seems to be coming. I understand even recently there was some kind of bill passed in the House of Commons about some kind of registration fee, but we're holding our breath. We haven't seen any progress on the registration side of it at all. Along with the transfer of ownership of the private mooring buoys, those two things together are really key to why we have such a problem out here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Madame Desbiens.
We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Welcome to our witnesses here today.
The first question I have today is going to go to Mr. Dahli.
First of all, you mentioned the papers on what's happening in Norway. I would love for that to be submitted to the committee for us to review. It's always important for us to be able to look at examples, not just within Canada but internationally, so I would love to be able to see those.
My question to you, Mr. Dahli, is about how in the notes that were provided to us here, on the second page, you say, “We therefore need”, and you talk about the requirement for “succinct criteria for evaluating and rating the safety and environmental risks of listed and reported pending derelict vessels, and a provision to alter its listings and response plans accordingly as so warranted.”
This really resonates with what I'm hearing from within the community, where people are expressing their concern that the bar is too low for the environmental impact that needs to be assessed before the boat can be pulled out and all the problems that go along with that. There are strict criteria. The bar is too high, so then they wait to get them pulled out and then they're sinking. Then they're bringing them back up to float again, and then they're sinking again. It's just this ongoing problem. I'm wondering if you can speak about how important these criteria are to seeing the necessary action being taken in a timely manner.
Chair, Cadboro Bay Dead Boats Society
When a vessel comes into Cadboro Bay, when the ship hits the sand, so to speak, we immediately get a hold of the Coast Guard. We immediately call upon our group of volunteers, and we go and quickly evaluate the boat. Then we relay that back to the Coast Guard with pictures of what is happening. Sadly, unless there is an oil leak or a gas leak, it gets on a back file. Nothing happens immediately.
We've had a couple of occasions where there have been some hypodermic needles wash ashore when the boat washed ashore. That gets the attention of the local police, but without a hydrocarbon spill, the boat can languish on the beach until the pirates come along and strip it of all the shiny bits. Then the kids come and play on it. It very quickly becomes a derelict and something not worth doing anything with, except begging and pleading and borrowing to get the damn thing off the beach.