Thank you, Chair.
I can't overstate how high the expectation is from the local government side in British Columbia in particular. They've been waiting a really long time to have federal leadership on this matter. When the first funding round was announced, $300,000 this year and $260,000 a year for the small craft harbour segment out of the oceans protection plan, there was quite a bit of disappointment, because many of these communities have been waiting a long time and they don't have the authority, let alone the budget, to deal with it, so now we're starting to get feedback. The District of Oak Bay, the District of Sechelt, and the District of Lunenburg all decided not to proceed with applying for the program, even though they had such a backlog. They were concerned about their own budgets, about liability and legal concerns, and about how they couldn't put the money up front.
When I talked to Bill Veenhof, who is the chair of the Regional District of Nanaimo where I am elected, he said it was just too costly, although the abandoned vessels in his area threaten aquaculture jobs and are really a huge concern.
I just heard from John Roe from the Veins of Life Watershed Society, also known as the Dead Boat Society. They've been doing hands-on removals through all these communities. He said they would have had to fill out 140 pages of application forms to deal with the 20 abandoned vessels they had identified, and he said it was going to cost half a million dollars. He can't afford to pay the 25%.
Given the numbers you have given us today, the take-up has been really tiny. We've had numbers as high as thousands of abandoned vessels across the country, but there were applications for only three removals and four assessments from this very high-profile offer, so can you tell me what you've done to evaluate the barriers to participation and what you can do to make it easier for coastal communities to work with the feds to get these dangerous boats gone?