Transport Committee on Nov. 5th, 2024

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

That's great. Well done.

My second part of questioning, Mr. Thomson, is with respect to the operational and infrastructure capacity that you may require within your operation.

I see that your capacity right now at the marina is about 750 slips. You have a few that are covered and a few that aren't. It's a full service marina. Once again, congratulations on that. I don't know how much work that is. Having been the mayor of a community that has a marina in Port Colborne, I can appreciate the work that you and your team have to do to keep that up.

Both during peak season and off-peak season, are you looking at expanding your facility in any way?

[Brad Thomson]

We're not looking to expand it right now. We do have room—

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Or improve?

[Brad Thomson]

We're always improving the marina, whether it be the roadways or the shorelines.

Right now, a big thing for us is just maintenance of the status quo. We went through several years, as you would know, with high water. That was a burden, especially on our shorelines. We fought through getting permits and everything.

We're on the rebound here now. It is heavily on maintenance. That's the biggest game right now that we're looking for.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Okay.

Is the funding that you have coming in all basically on you with the operational capital side? Do you have any participation from your municipal government or any other partners?

[Brad Thomson]

We are on our own. It's all money that we collect from our tenants and customers. We have no federal or municipal funding in any way.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

There's nothing. Okay.

You're seasonal, and unfortunately, we have the cold months, and of course there's the off-season. With that, are there any other planned infrastructure improvements that you're looking at in the future, especially when it comes to your capital? Of course, sometimes your capital offsets your operational side if you're financing any debt. Is there anything planned? That's question one.

As question two, what wouldn't be covered under your current base of revenue that you collect during your peak season and during your off-season with storage and things like that? What would be your ratio and difference in terms of the revenue that you need?

[Brad Thomson]

We need a lot of revenue. As I was mentioning earlier when I had a question about the electric vehicles coming, we don't have proper hydro service. As a matter of fact, to my knowledge, the Turkey Point area itself does not have the infrastructure, so we would have to fund that on our own at this point, and unfortunately that is not an option for the marina.

Moving forward, as I say, we're just going to maintain the status quo right now until infrastructure can be upgraded in our area.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

My final question is for you, Mr. Thomson, and it's a recommendation to you.

One of the reasons we put in place, for example, the luxury tax, the carbon tax and things like that is that we reinvest those dollars into different services, whether they be offsetting property taxes, water bills from the infrastructure side or other services both municipal and personal, but I don't want to get into that.

What I'm most interested in is where some of that help can be placed on you as a marine operation—or anybody, for that matter—so that some of those dollars can be contributing to you as well as municipalities and Canadians.

I'll ask that you pass that on to us. That would be wonderful.

[Brad Thomson]

We can always use that money for maintenance dredging to make our canals deeper. Drinking water is also a big issue here. I make the drinking water right now, so there's hydro, channel access and deeper water, and drinking water.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Thomson. That was a great job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Badawey.

Next we have Mr. Vis.

Mr. Vis, the floor is yours for five minutes, sir.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Chair. It's nice to see you today.

To Brad, for the middle class and those working hard to join it, just to clarify, do they enjoy paying the carbon tax at your marina?

[Brad Thomson]

No, they do not.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I just need to hear that one more time. For the middle class and those working hard to join it, do they appreciate paying the carbon tax at your marina?

[Brad Thomson]

No, they do not.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Rennie, I was intrigued by your previous research in British Columbia on scour in salmon spawning habitat. I represent the majority of the Fraser River in British Columbia, and nowhere else in Canada have we experienced natural disasters in recent times. Part of that we can attribute to climate change, but part of that we can also attribute to the federal government draining an ancient lake that was fished and lived on by the Stó:lō people, and that's Sumas Lake. Are you familiar with Sumas Lake?

[Dr. Colin Rennie]

I'm familiar with Sumas Lake, yes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Have you conducted any research on the major natural disasters, or are you aware of any of the studies on the impact that recreational boats have had on the salmon habitat after the flooding?

[Dr. Colin Rennie]

I can say no. With regard to recreational boating and salmon habitat and the Fraser River post-flood, no, I have not been out there since the flood.

I have ongoing collaboration with professors at SFU and UBC—Jeremy Venditti and Michael Church—and we have studied things like sediment transport on the Fraser for many years, but I have not done a post-flood study in that region.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Vermaire, have you?

[Dr. Colin Rennie]

If had the opportunity, I would.

[Dr. Jesse Vermaire]

I haven't either, no.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

That's too bad.

We deal with a lot of interesting dynamics between the recreational fishery, the indigenous fishery and the commercial fishery, and the lack of infrastructure that our communities received. All these big factors are at play on the Fraser River now, and unfortunately we haven't received any infrastructure money to protect our waterways post flood, especially our critical salmon habitats, but I guess that will have to wait for another time.

I have one final question for you as we wrap up.

Those in the middle class and those working hard to join it, as we heard earlier, are very concerned about the carbon tax. Has the carbon tax impacted the number of boats on the Ottawa River and soil turbidity?

[Dr. Colin Rennie]

I wouldn't know whether the carbon tax has impacted boating on the Ottawa or the Rideau.

Jessie, do you have any idea?