Mr. Speaker, with respect to the small craft harbours program:
(a) Core harbours are harbours that are critical to the commercial fishing industry, and are either currently managed by harbour authorities or expected to be managed by harbour authorities in the future;
(b) there are 34 core harbours in the riding of West Nova, 26 in the riding of Central Nova, 5 in the riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley and 50 in the riding of South Shore-St. Margaret’s;
(c) 2006/07 total cost of program spending in the riding of West Nova is $2,594,891, in the riding of Central Nova is $4,726,711, in the riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley is $23,979 and in the riding of South Shore St. Margaret’s is $4,944,994;
(d) the total 2007 budget for the program is $97.1M (excluding employee benefit plans);
(e) the total planned spending for 2007-08 is the same as the total national budget, which is $97.1M (excluding employee benefit plans);
(f) as of October 2007, the percentage of SCH core harbours in poor or unsafe condition is 28%, or 209 of a total of 747;
(g) the SCH program estimates that $35M is required to be added to the current SCH annual budget in order to ensure proper life cycle management of assets at core harbours.