Thanks, Ken.
I can tell you one thing; I'm very disappointed. They called me at 15 minutes after 12 this morning and told me my flight was cancelled.
Anyway, I'm going to get right into it. I'm throwing away the notes here.
Fiona devastated us in P.E.I. It's just as simple as that.
We have massive coastal erosion. We have huge tracts of land where the trees have just disappeared. With our increasing winds, as winter comes, some of these trees that weren't blown over continue to blow over. We've had to mobilize shore cleanup crews. I'm thinking right now of Hebrides, where actual buildings, houses and cottages were taken right across salt marshes into coastal areas. We have wharves that have been devastated.
The federal government announced $300 million over two years. My estimate to our harbours and wharves alone is $150 million, just to get the infrastructure back up to a usable condition for next year, and I don't think that's going to happen. I think we're going to have to work with DFO, with which we have a great relationship regionally, to have some harbours and some vessels relocated to neighbouring ports so that our fishing season will continue.
Fiona caused our shellfish harvest areas to be closed through CFIA regulations and how we work with them in terms of a safe product being delivered to the economy.
We lost holding of lobster. We lost holding of oysters and mussels. We have spat on the seed side that have been devastated. We're probably looking at least at a two- to three-year recovery on that. With that alone, our losses—probably uninsurable—are somewhere in the area of $75 million, give or take, plus or minus. That was a huge impact.
Right now we've contracted barges to come in. They're off our coast working to get gear out of the water, mussel gear, mussel socks and ropes. I will have to say that this is ghost gear, in retrospect, but we're having a hard time convincing some people that this is really ghost gear.
We're already talking about climate change, but I think we also have to talk about whale remediation. I can't take the chance of fishing gear floating off our coast and having a whale or some kind of mammal get tangled up in it.
The minister and I have been very.... Joyce and I have talked about this. She's very supportive of what I'm saying, but this type of action is going to happen more and more. We must make sure that we have the resources in place to adapt and to help our industries when this type of stuff comes.
I will talk about gaps. We have gaps in programs that have been rolled out. The federal government announced $300 million, which we appreciate, in recovery or help assistance across the Atlantic region; however, that is not going to cover what we're going to need across Atlantic Canada.
Right now I'm talking as the chair of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and also Quebec. Aquaculture and fisheries to our region is one of the most important industries there is. Aquaculture and fisheries is the primary resource besides potatoes, our crop in agriculture, to our province. We must make sure that we have the supports in place for that.
Presently, with some of the programs that are available, P.E.I. is left out, because it does not cover companies that have over $200 million or over 20 employees. That's a great concern to us.
We are surveying right now. We're finding right now that, as I said, we have around $75 million in uninsurable losses across our total province when it comes to aquaculture and fisheries. I must put this in comparison to a farm. In the aquaculture industry or the fishing industry, we plant that stuff or we grow the species to a market. It's no different than corn in a field, potatoes in New Brunswick or bees. You just can't take these products out of the water, put them on a shelf and hold them until a storm goes by, the exact same way as corn in a field. You can't cover corn up. You have to deal with what happens when a storm hits.
The federal government, in conjunction with the provincial governments, must look at aquaculture and fisheries the same way they look at agriculture. In agriculture, we have programs available that help with crop loss. In the fisheries, we don't.
I've had this conversation with Minister Murray. Joyce and I have agreed that we need to look at this. Our department right now is looking at the AgriRecovery program to see if we can adapt it to the aquaculture and the fishery, which will be circulated to the Atlantic ministers, including Quebec. Then we will be presenting that to the federal government.
Climate change is real. I think it was a year and a half or two years ago that we came up with the Atlantic Canada plan. It was $750 million over five years. That was specifically to help our infrastructure, whether it be harbours or wharves, to make sure it supports a blue economy. I totally support a blue economy. I've been saying that if we do not have the infrastructure available that supports a blue economy and that is also prepared to deal with climate change and surges, we're not going to have a blue economy.
The federal government was very generous in the last budget. They gave us $300 million over two years, but that was divided over three coasts.
I am again sounding the alarm and saying that Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland are subject to climate change, in most cases more than other areas. We saw that—