Fisheries Committee on Nov. 6th, 2024

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

The issue of ownership was one thing that got in the way. Who was the owner? It seemed to be mysterious.

[Richard Welsford]

Our focus was on getting somebody back in charge of the vessel and getting it out of there with management control or temporary title—doing anything to get what was left of it out of there. The ship-source oil pollution fund blocked that at every hearing we went forward with. Instead, they pursued the issue of trying to establish ownership. This was a bit tricky, because you had American firm after American firm...and it turned out one of them was from Nevada at the end of the day and had dissolved. It was like there was nobody for the ship-source fund to target except the poor volunteer community port in Bridgewater.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You took it upon yourself, as I understand it, with the support of DFO at the time, to seek control and ownership so you could deal with it and get it out of there. Is that correct?

[Richard Welsford]

We asked the Federal Court several times, and eventually the prothonotary who was supervising all our legal steps suggested to both of us that the most efficient way of doing this was to try to come up with some sort of negotiation whereby we get the ship out of there, the ship-source fund eventually gets compensated for some of their out-of-pocket expenses and life goes on.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You eventually got ownership of it in order to do that. Did you have somebody you could sell it to?

[Richard Welsford]

All along, we had people trying to purchase the vessel, and without a title, of course, nobody would take the risk to move it on.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You did get title, though, eventually, and then DFO stepped in. Is that correct?

[Richard Welsford]

As part of our negotiation to get management control, we asked for temporary title for the purposes of that agreement only, so that if we sold it, or when we sold it, we could give the new owner clear title. Of course, our mission was to get it out of there.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

What did DFO do?

[Richard Welsford]

That exercise, the discovery process for getting what we thought was all the information on the table, was at the end of September 2019. Eventually, about November 8, we received a document with a judge's signature and, within hours, DFO came back, seized the vessel and wouldn't let us on it.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

They took it—

[Richard Welsford]

They took it.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

—with a submersible on it that was worth money and sent you a bill.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins. Your time is up for that round of questioning.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

I thank our witnesses for being here in person and joining virtually.

I think it's only appropriate to start by asking questions through Mr. Chair to the birthday boy here, Mr. Lee.

I appreciate how you've been able to walk us through some of the causes of the amount of abandoned and derelicts we're seeing in Pender Harbour, as well as some of the impacts: how that's impacting the marine environment and also the tourism side.

You referenced in your opening remarks some of the ideas you have on how to prevent these boats from sinking in the first place. I was hoping that you might be able to share with the committee some of what your ideas and recommendations might be for how we're able to improve some of the programming that we already have in place now.

[Leonard Lee]

Through the chair, thank you.

The fixed buoy program, where it can actually be licensed and put in correctly, holds a boat in place and does work quite well when there is a landowner who can keep an eye on the boat and look after it. Making a more elaborate program under federal navigation to authorize and license buoys is a good thing to do if you're going to anchor.

The other thing is to not allow anybody to anchor over a couple of days in any one place and to find a way of policing that. There are examples of where that does work—False Creek and Nanaimo Harbour—where there is a body that can monitor it, get people to move on when they stay too long and take care of boats that are basically abandoned at anchor illegally. That involves having an organization that will do it and also giving them the authority to do it, which doesn't happen in the rural areas where most of this stuff is occurring. It would require some changes in regulation if you went that way.

The only other way that would work would be to increase monitoring by the existing official bodies like the Coast Guard and start enforcing those regulations.

I have to say that, when the boat is sunk, we can then do something about it, because the local people will identify where it is. They'll start all the paperwork. At that point, we do pick it up and crunch it up. The problem is solved as long as the boat is small enough that we can handle it.

Our greatest fear right now is if our Pacific Challenger goes down. It's a 160-foot steel boat. The Coast Guard has removed most of the pollutants, but when something like that goes down to the bottom of the ocean, it causes a lot of damage when it hits. You can't find a spot deep enough in a little harbour where it doesn't become a natural reef, let's call it. In fact, it becomes a hazard to navigation. We need to find a way of looking after those bigger boats as well, because the community and our existing program just can't handle that part of it. It has to be a multijurisdictional effort to get together and figure out solutions.

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

Thank you very much for that, Mr. Lee.

I want to ask my next question of Mr. Winn.

Building off of what Mr. Lee mentioned, one of the big challenges that we have, even when boats are removed from the water, is what to do with those boats. I was hoping you might be able to share your thinking on how the federal government might be able to help with the proper disposal of boats and their component parts after they are removed.

[Ian Winn]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler, for the question.

The issue is, whether it's a small boat.... As Mr. Lee stated, they were able to take them out of the water, crunch them up and dispose of them. That's okay if it's a smaller size of vessel, but the challenge comes more when it is larger, such as the larger one he mentioned or in Átl'ḵa7tsem or Howe Sound.

There's a lot of industry that happens with logging activities—log booms, barges and vessels of more significant size than recreational. As I mentioned in my statement too, there are barges, scows and other larger vessels that may be going up to the Squamish terminal. It's a little bit different. We're not that far away from Pender Harbour, but we are in a different part of the sea.

What happens to those larger vessels? This committee has heard of ship-breaking facilities on Vancouver Island and Union Bay that are a bit problematic because of contaminations and pollution.

There's a ship-breaking facility in the Howe Sound area that is trying to get under way, but it's being met with a lot of requirements. Sometimes those requirements are onerous. They need to have environmental assessments done. They need to have an archaeological assessment done, typically by a first nations interest. Then DFO, Transport Canada and others may get involved. It becomes a bit of a long, onerous process.

The federal government could help in this by, first of all, identifying that.... Certainly we want to prevent it from happening, and we don't want them down at the bottom of the ocean. When situations occur and it's a larger vessel, we need ship-breaking facilities.

I would ask the federal government to recognize this and perhaps empower agencies like DFO and Transport Canada to be part of the solution and to really collaborate with all levels of government. As many on this committee have heard, in British Columbia, it is this quagmire of provincial, federal and different authorities that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Winn. We've gone over time on Mr. Weiler's questioning.

We'll 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.

Thank you to the witnesses. I've been enjoying hearing from them.

I was charmed by Mr. Lee's description of where he lives when he suddenly started talking about an island and ferries.

As you know, I represent the Bloc Québécois, so my main concern is the St. Lawrence River. I, too, live on an island where there's a ferry. That really resonated with me.

I thought we could talk about vessels staying at anchor—we use that expression, too—off certain coastlines. In the St. Lawrence, we have more of a problem with wrecks on the riverbed. There's a lot of marine transportation in the St. Lawrence. There are a few bays, a few marinas, a few ports of refuge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Madame Desbiens, could I interrupt, please? I think Mr. Arnold and I are getting some feedback from another mic that may be on.

Go ahead again, Madame Desbiens. We'll see if there's any feedback. Mr. Arnold will let us know.

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

That was a long introduction, but I do have a question.

Mr. Chair, I think I'm getting feedback. It's as if there were two—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're getting both English and French in the earpiece, so I have your time stopped. We'll see if we can resolve what's going on here. We'll suspend for a moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're back. We'll start the clock right from the top for Madame Desbiens because the sound was horrible.

Please start off with your six minutes or less.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the technicians, thank you to the interpreters for their patience, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Lee, I was charmed by your description of your environment, which sounds a lot like mine. You talked about an island, a ferry, lots of tourists and, of course, the abandoned vessels problem.

Things work a little differently in the St. Lawrence. Yes, there are marinas, and boats can be anchored offshore. That said, we deal with abandoned vessels fairly well. As far as I know, they don't stay in the St. Lawrence River for long.

Why do boats remain anchored for years where you live, abandoned by owners who can't be traced? Is there a municipal, provincial or federal plan for that? What is the Canadian Coast Guard's role when it comes to abandoned vessels?