Transport Committee on Feb. 7th, 2018

[Patricia Heintzman]

Absolutely, and Pam Goldsmith-Jones can obviously speak to this, too.

Bowen Island has done a lot of work and we work collaboratively with them. We're currently doing a marine strategy that's very inclusive of other communities in the area, and we're obviously very open to sharing any learning or any bylaws that we come up with through this process. There is quite a collaborative atmosphere among coastal communities, particularly if you're near each other.

Right now, we all know that we have a problem, so how can we get some legislation that helps us work on the problem? Absolutely we work with each other.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

At this point, you've done it on your own dime and on your own time amongst the municipalities.

[Patricia Heintzman]

Predominantly, yes. The provincial government doesn't weigh in too heavily on the marine-related side of things. They're just not interested and I guess they don't really see it as part of their problem. It's generally local governments, because they're in our communities, and the federal realm.

Most of what we're doing has been on our own dime in terms of the analysis and the investigation and communication. We have staff who are dedicated to this type of thing.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Right.

In the sense of trying to get a value number, how much would you suggest municipalities are spending on a yearly basis doing this?

[Patricia Heintzman]

It really depends on the municipality and how big their marine environment is and if they simply have the capacity on their staff. We're a staff of 170 people, not a huge number of staff.

Our real estate manager deals with marine environment types of things. We also have a planner, and a quarter or half of her job is dedicated to the marine strategy and marine environment. On average, in our fairly minimal budget, probably $70,000 to $80,000 a year is spent on this issue.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

If this legislation is implemented, do you see some of this stuff being downloaded to you to handle?

[Patricia Heintzman]

That's always a concern for local governments, just because of where we are in the continuum of most of these things. I think that's where some of our trepidation is in terms of enforcement, and who is going to pay at the end is still something that we're keeping our eye on. Ultimately, they're our communities, so we have to deal with these situations. They do cost us money. They cost our volunteer groups money.

We often waive all the fees for what's going into our landfill when these things are pulled out. I think last year it was $25,000 or $30,000 of waived fees for disposing of these wrecks in our landfills, because, for example, we can't do anything with fibreglass. It's cumulative costs, for sure.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Yes, it comes down to the property taxpayer who pays for other people's legislation—

[Patricia Heintzman]

Yes, it does.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

—which is a challenge.

Thank you.

Ms. Legars, I know you had those five points and you responded briefly to a couple of them. If you had two of those things, out of the five, which two would you say are most significant?

[Anne Legars]

It would probably be things on the registration of vessels. It would help greatly. That would be number one for me.

Number two would be to find a way to have some mandatory insurance for ships that are below 300 tonnes, because if we don't have an insurer, liability is virtual.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I think that crosses with what you were saying, that it's the registration piece.

[Andrew Kendrick]

We have to be very careful about terminology, because registration under the Canada Shipping Act is very different from licensing under the Canada Shipping Act.

Registration captures about 40,000 vessels; licensing should cover several million. We need to consider the different parts of the problem separately.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Iacono, I can give you two minutes.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I'm going to forward it to my colleague, Pamela.

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Building on the questions about responsibility, this is actually a great example of levels of government working together.

I am very interested in your comments, Mr. Kendrick, about how, in our community, the yacht clubs and marinas are working with municipalities, trying to connect those dots and truly trying to pull together. What's been your experience, and how can we keep this as simple and effective as possible?

[Andrew Kendrick]

There are a lot of moving parts. While in general the provinces are not on the front line, they can play a very useful role in some cases. For example, in Ontario the OPP basically has the responsibility for regulating water safety on the bulk of the inland waterways. They are the people who check people's operating certificates. They are the people who could do the checks on vessel licensing, in most cases. There really are a lot of stakeholders in here, and a lot of people who have potential roles to play.

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Perhaps you could also comment on the adequacy of the initial funding round, because on the west coast it's been vastly oversubscribed. I'd love it if the committee could come up with a realistic figure for what this will cost.

[Andrew Kendrick]

There's a lot of backlog. Unfortunately we're starting from a bad place. Either you have to consider this to be front-end loaded, or you have to accept that it's going to take a long time to remediate.

It's interesting that the sums from the Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund are $1 million or $1.5 million a year. In Washington state, which is one of the most advanced jurisdictions in the U.S., their funding level is about $2.5 million a year. That deals with about 50 vessels a year, the average cost being $50,000 a vessel. That's what it takes to remediate the big problems.

The other key element is early intervention. If it doesn't sink, you can dispose of it for a few hundred dollars. If it does, it will cost you $50,000.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much to our witnesses. Again, it was a very informative panel. Thank you for your contribution.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Chair, just so this isn't left hanging, we got a report on Monday from the transport minister that said only $180,000 was applied for in the program to date. This was submitted, but I just don't want anybody to walk out of here thinking that the program was oversubscribed. In fact, it was much undersubscribed, compared to what we thought.

I'm very glad that the Transport staff, in response to the parliamentary secretary's comment, where I misread the number of vessels, are going to work to clarify and get a little update to the committee so that it's unambiguous wording.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned..