Evidence of meeting #90 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Maybe we'll just go back to future. Mr. Weston, when you were working on your legislation, did you examine the difficulties of doing something with whatever it was you've taken out of the spot?
Lawyer, Pan Pacific Law Corporation
The closest thing to that was to look to the very witnesses you're speaking to. I think you have excellent witnesses from Olympia with hardened experience in actually removing the vessels.
If I could respond to your colleague's earlier question about identification, there are several sections in the bill that I think could be improved with just a bit of refinement. May I just touch upon those quickly?
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
No, actually, because I have some other questions. However, are they in your written submission?
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Good. Perfect.
Mr. Mauro and Mr. Winn, is there a lot of crossed-arm finger-pointing going on with respect to who has jurisdiction over the wrecks you're finding in the Gulf Islands and up and down the coasts?
Director, Area A - Pender Harbour & Egmont, Sunshine Coast Regional District Board
There is. I can say that Transport Canada in some instances has been helpful in issuing orders to remove—more so with derelict structures than with vessels—and the RCMP has also been helpful, but when it comes time to actually enforce and remove, people tend to back away. That's one of the issues.
Director, Area F - West Howe Sound, Sunshine Coast Regional District Board
We haven't talked about the role of the first nations. There is a boat ashore on the Squamish first nation's land in my rural area right now. That's yet another jurisdiction we haven't even started to talk about yet: what do first nations do with vessels?
Director, Area A - Pender Harbour & Egmont, Sunshine Coast Regional District Board
Under provincial jurisdiction, the province controls the land in the harbours—the land under the water—and this gives rise to the issue of trespass. People point to the enforcement officers of Forests, Lands, Natural Resources Operations, which is the B.C. land lessor. They have the ability to give permits.
Yes, there is finger-pointing, and there is also the actual enforcement. The Coast Guard will contain any spill, but when it comes to removing a vessel, it's a problem. As an example, we had a vessel sink in the harbour. The result was that it was marked on the charts as a hazard to navigation, so again we're not dealing with the problem.
That's the kind of finger-pointing I mean. I know I'm just describing problems, but I think this bill goes a long way towards providing solutions. Perhaps it could be improved in the areas we discussed.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
By the way, to Mr. Weston's earlier point, we value your input; I just needed time to ask some more questions. Thanks, John.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay, no worries.
Mr. Murphy and Mr. Wood, you mentioned that your program has gone through a number of transitions since it was created. From a high level, can you take us through some of those transitions and tell us the reason you had to shift gears?
Assistant Division Manager, Aquatic Resources Division, Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Most of the transitions were done to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the program.
We went through things like providing additional authority for us and other agencies to board vessels, refining the custody process so that it would adhere to the due process requirements we have in the United States, and raising the fee, which started off at $1 and is going up to $3. The most recent changes we went through were to try to encourage vessel owner responsibility, including requiring marinas and the vessels that have long-term moorage agreements in marinas to have insurance. We now have in place a secondary liability structure whereby we can go after previous owners who didn't follow the legal steps when selling their vessels. For example, we are trying to discourage people with a boat that's becoming a problem from just selling it for a dollar to a guy they met in a bar.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to ask the witnesses their opinion on clause 24 of the bill. Clause 24 requires a vessel of 300 gross tonnage and above to carry a certificate of insurance if entering or leaving a port in Canadian waters. The reason I want to ask about this is that some people have suggested that the cut-off of 300 tonnes may be too high, and the committee may want to look at amending the bill to reduce the tonnage from 300 down to another number.
I was just doing some very basic research here, and 300 tonnes is a big boat. For example, the old Mill Bay ferry that went across the Saanich Peninsula to Mill Bay was only half of 300 tonnes. Half of New Brunswick's and Newfoundland and Labrador's ferry fleets are under 300 tonnes. The Glenora ferry that takes people and cars from Prince Edward County to the mainland, to an Ontario provincial highway, is only 200 tonnes. The Toronto Island ferry is only 180 gross registered tonnes.
It seems to me that we're missing a lot of boats that wouldn't be required to carry insurance to fund the removal of these derelict and abandoned vessels if we're setting 300 gross tonnes for the requirement to carry insurance. I'm interested to hear what members of the witness panel have to say about that 300-tonne limit.
Lawyer, Pan Pacific Law Corporation
Well, we heard from Washington that they have a convention, I think, or are trying to impose a convention, that all marinas and vessel owners have some form of identification and maybe insurance. It would be worth knowing what level of expense and inconvenience is imposed upon a boat owner to get such a thing.
The other part about the clause you refer to is that it refers, I believe, to the international convention. Part of my comments are that there isn't enough coordination between the international convention and this law. Nowhere in the law does it say what prevails in the event of a conflict between the international convention and this law.
Furthermore, a lot of the definition clauses could be tightened up. With “owner”, for instance, in clause 15, it's not clear whether the consequences of the act have to be imposed against corporate owners in clause 12, as the act intends. The whole notion of abandonment for a period of less than two years is not clearly defined in subclauses 32(2) and 32(3). I think there are areas that could be tightened up overall to achieve the stated goals of the act.
Again, I think it would be worth hearing from Washington on how they deal with this matter of insurance.
Assistant Division Manager, Aquatic Resources Division, Washington State Department of Natural Resources
First, our program isn't restricted by the tonnage of a vessel, but by the size of a vessel. The funding we get can't be used for any vessels over 200 feet, so approximately 60 metres to 70 metres in length.
In terms of the insurance, we found that most of the large commercial vessels currently in operation, or even smaller commercial fishing vessels in operation, were already insured or had insurance. Mostly what we were running into was smaller recreational vessels that were uninsured that were being abandoned in marinas or becoming derelict in marinas. That was the big piece of the pie that we were trying to address when we thought about insurance.
Director, Area A - Pender Harbour & Egmont, Sunshine Coast Regional District Board
Can I speak to that?
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
I have just a quick question for the witness from Washington.
Do all vessels under 200 feet require insurance in the state of Washington?
Assistant Division Manager, Aquatic Resources Division, Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Only if a vessel has a long-term moorage agreement or contract with a private or public moorage operator—a marina—are they required to have insurance. If a vessel is on an authorized mooring buoy, for example, that they own, they don't have to have insurance. I guess you could say there are some loopholes in that insurance piece of it.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Just to clarify, if I have a 60-foot Beneteau moored at a yacht club in Seattle, would I require insurance?
Assistant Division Manager, Aquatic Resources Division, Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Yes. The stick-and-carrot analogy, or the way it works, is that if you have your vessel moored in that marina and you don't have insurance and the vessel sinks, the marina or the public entity wouldn't have access to the derelict vessel funds to remove that boat.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
When I introduced M-40, which was the motion that was the framework for the legislation, I actually followed Mr. Weston's bill and had a good chance to look at your bill that was put forward, as well as Jean Crowder's, and of course what was happening in Washington. Congratulations on all of the good work that you're doing there
From the east coast perspective, it's a bit different, because the abandoned vessels that we're dealing with on the east coast are not necessarily pleasure craft. There are maybe some, but for the most part they're large navy vessels, old Coast Guard vessels, industrial fishing vessels, so it's a bit different in terms of removal. Do you know of any place, other coastal states—I'm talking to the people in Washington right now—that have programs similar to yours that deal with larger vessels?
