Thank you very much for inviting us to participate in this very important discussion.
I will repeat what Mr. Weston said. This is a good bill, something we've been waiting for for a long time to address issues that we on the Sunshine Coast have been dealing with, as has the entire coast of B.C.
I'm going to get right to the introductions and speak a bit to some general items.
What we see, and as has been mentioned, is the jurisdictional issue. The major problem with current regulations is initiating action, because of the many jurisdictions involved, including federal ministries and, in some cases, several provincial ministries. It makes it difficult for the public and for local governments—and I'll speak for local governments—when, in order to get action on derelict vessels, they are shuffled from ministry to ministry and in some cases to provincial jurisdictions. This bill goes a long way toward improving that.
The bill does seem to identify Transport Canada as the lead ministry, obviously. This is initiated by Transport Canada. However, the document, in subclause 124(1) and in other places, makes reference to "may notify the minister responsible for administering that provision", or words to that effect. I think that we would like to see, in general, the burden taken off the public to interpret where reporting.... We want to make sure that they don't have to navigate an interjurisdictional maze. A major improvement would be that the lead interface ministry would do the required navigation through the jurisdictions, if the jurisdictions need to be taken care of.
In a similar way, subclause 6(1) should be clarified. It refers to “agreements and arrangements for carrying out the purposes of this Act...” and would authorize a provincial government, a local authority, a council, or a regional district to do the work.
I see this as positive. I believe these vessels end up at our front door, and the local governments have a major concern, as mentioned previously. I think, though, that there should be some commitment—and I'm not sure that it should be part of the bill—to compensate local governments for doing that. They don't have the resources to be able to undertake the work.
I want to talk about the transitional program as the introduction, too. The Transport Canada transitional program right now—and I think it's the abandoned boats program, which is part of the oceans protection plan— provides short-term funding for legacy abandoned vessels, but it doesn't meet the need in rural areas. There are many, many vessels in rural areas where that program only provides 75% of the contribution to remove the vessel. These rural areas are left to the devices of volunteer groups, and they don't have the capacity come up with the required contributions.
I'll go to Mr. Winn for some more comments.