Evidence of meeting #127 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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Richard Welsford  President, Port of Bridgewater Incorporated
Ian Winn  Director, Átl'ḵa7tsem Howe Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region
Leonard Lee  Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District
Joshua Charleson  Executive Director, Coastal Restoration Society
Marie-Christine Lessard  Executive Director, Québec Subaquatique
Clément Drolet  Diving Instructor, Québec Subaquatique

5:25 p.m.

Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District

Leonard Lee

The biggest pollution problem is when the boat sinks. Some boats have batteries in them with pumps. They leak heavily, and they regularly pump the bilge water out into the ocean. As long as the owner has some way of keeping the battery charged, it just continues to do that. It's a source of pollution, but it's not as bad as when the boat sinks.

The biggest source of pollution in our harbours are the live-aboards that don't have holding tanks. They just plain dump the sewage overboard. They live there for years and years, sitting on an anchor and polluting the water. That's the thing that actually causes the seafood and the shellfish that our first nations would like to harvest to not be harvestable, because these boats are typically in closed harbours, where they can actually sit at anchor without blowing away. Also, the bays don't flush. For instance, it takes about five days for the water to flush in our harbour.

Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC

Thank you.

The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Thank you, Ms. Barron. Your time is up.

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

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My time is short, but I'm going to split it with Mr. Perkins after I get through a couple of questions.

Mr. Lee, I'll just ask you, if you could, to submit in writing to the committee what you feel need to be the changes in regulations and enforcement, so we won't tie up a lot of committee time. Can you make that fairly clear in a written submission to the committee, as soon as possible, so that we can consider that in any recommendations we might have on this?

You also just mentioned live-aboards with no waste disposal and so on. Can you indicate why there are people living aboard vessels that are basically almost derelict or possibly derelict?

5:25 p.m.

Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District

Leonard Lee

We have a housing shortage and affordable housing is quite a problem here. People can get these boats essentially for free because the owner doesn't want to pay to dispose of them, so they'll give them to someone.

In a couple of instances that we have in Porpoise Bay, which is near Sechelt—Chief Joe was talking about at the last hearing—that bay essentially does not flush.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Basically, the cost of living and the housing crisis have contributed to the extent of some of the pollution issues that you're experiencing. Is that correct?

November 6th, 2024 / 5:25 p.m.

Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District

Leonard Lee

The answer to that is yes. There are some mental health issues as well associated with it, but the primary reason is the housing crisis.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Thank you very much.

I want to move on now to Mr. Welsford, if I could.

Mr. Welsford, I hope that we have no nefarious characters listening or watching this FOPO meeting today, because what I'm going to say could be used possibly to the detriment of our harbours and so on. However, it appears to me, from what I'm hearing, that the ownership and the responsibility of that ownership are being sloughed off.

From what it looks like to me, someone could set up a limited company, could buy a vessel, could dissolve that company.... If someone were to do that, what would happen to the title of that vessel if it were registered to the company?

5:25 p.m.

President, Port of Bridgewater Incorporated

Richard Welsford

That's a very interesting question, because you're talking to a biologist and not a lawyer, but I'm learning a lot, quickly...or over 20 years perhaps.

There's a process called escheatment, and it's usually provincial legislation. It's almost equivalent in British Columbia to as it is in Nova Scotia. If a company has an asset, whether it's property or otherwise, and if that company fails somehow, then that asset escheats to the provincial Crown.

In the case of British Columbia, the ship-source oil pollution fund, with the Coast Guard as a partner, pursued the Province of British Columbia to enforce this law of escheatment and to have it assume ownership of vessels in that situation. The province lost. It was appealed, and the province lost.

I'm sure if you look into the province's budgets these days, it has a budget for the disposal of abandoned vessels. In Nova Scotia, it didn't pursue that route.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Thank you.

I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Perkins.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

What happened when the Coast Guard stole the vessel off the wharf? I think Bernadette Jordan, the fisheries minister, was standing there waving at it at the time, in a little photo op.

Were there assets on there that were yours and that, because of this ownership process, they didn't pay you for?

5:30 p.m.

President, Port of Bridgewater Incorporated

Richard Welsford

Remember that part of our agreement was to provide $400,000—guaranteed—to them. We used our asset of the property to guarantee that a payment would be made. That $400,000 wasn't picked out of the sky. We had customers who we were sure would provide approximately that amount. Plus, there were assets on the vessel: generators and a submersible with, actually, historical value. That had all disappeared.

We've never had any accounting for it, except that there is now a document that we have in our possession where the minister of the day, Bernadette Jordan, offered to donate that submarine or submersible.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Can you table that?

5:30 p.m.

President, Port of Bridgewater Incorporated

Richard Welsford

Of course. I will provide that.

The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald

Thank you, Mr. Perkins. You're right on time.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

You should ask me if there shouldn't be criminal charges on these things.

The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for five minutes or less, please, to finish up this first hour.

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the testimony we've had so far.

I don't know where to start, but we'll start with you, Mr. Winn.

Are there changes that can be made to accelerate, basically, the deeming of a vessel to be abandoned and to not leave anybody with any obligations to try to track down owners, etc.?

I know you've said that you're a biologist and not a lawyer, but I guess you're learning both pieces of this in an awful hurry here. Would you like to see something like that?

5:30 p.m.

Director, Átl'ḵa7tsem Howe Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region

Ian Winn

Thank you.

That wasn't me who is the biologist and not a lawyer, but anyway, yes, I think there need to be ways to assess.

I think that's your question: How do we assess it quickly as to the risk? It shouldn't be left up to communities to do their own assessment of a vessel when it's on a beach. If it's a clear and present danger to the community infrastructure or the community property owners, it shouldn't be left to them.

We need to have a better and streamlined way to assess and figure out who is responsible for making the assessment and at which level of government—it can vary tremendously here—and then be able to act. It's not only to observe, record and report. We need action—

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Okay. If I may, I am rather short of time here.

The Dead Boats Disposal Society was mentioning that those inland waters between Vancouver Island and the mainland are basically all in the provincial domain. The provinces ceded some authorities to the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is worried about navigation hazards and, I suppose, to some extent, pollution, but the nuisance factor seems to fall off the board. As well, municipalities do have the authority to put in place bylaws, etc., that would allow them to take action. When we're cooking up our recommendations, we wouldn't mind hearing something from you, perhaps in a written form, to say, “This is what would make life easier for us in addressing this problem.”

I'd like now to go to Mr. Lee. Happy birthday again, sir.

Let's look at the future. What can we start to do now that will eliminate this problem when the next cycle of boats coming to the end of their life happens? What would you recommend?

5:35 p.m.

Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District

Leonard Lee

There are two things that could occur.

One is more public moorage, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards. The federal government is divesting itself of public moorage as fast as it can, so it's left up to the private sector to provide moorage, and they do it at market value plus profit. You have to have a lot of means to be able to leave a boat in the water tied up and useful, so that's a big problem. I wish one of the levels of government would subsidize more moorage. Our harbour authority does have relatively inexpensive moorage, but it's full. There's something like a five-year waiting list to try to get a spot.

The most important thing we could do.... You mentioned the municipal ability to manage a harbour. Regional districts don't have that authority, and that's where the problem is. It's with the province, unless it's an issue with navigation, and that's finger pointing in both directions. Somehow we have to regulate the cause of the derelict boats, which are basically being abandoned at anchor and left there for years until they become derelict and abandoned.

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Basically, what you're saying is that there has to be a faster intervention when it's very clear that a boat is unloved and unwanted and has just been abandoned. Is that right?

5:35 p.m.

Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District

Leonard Lee

Yes, that's absolutely what we need. We have a very similar problem with abandoned vehicles around the roads as well.

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Vehicles have vehicle identification numbers and you have ICBC, of course, that would at least know who the last official owner was. Perhaps something like that for boats could also be brought in. What do you think?

5:35 p.m.

Board Chair and Director, Area A - Egmont and Pender Harbour, Sunshine Coast Regional District

Leonard Lee

That's a suggestion I hear quite often, and that is an additional licensing cost to just look after the boats that are abandoned and need to be taken care of right away.