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Transport committee Thank you.
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for allowing me the privilege to speak to you today about the impact that derelict vessels have had, and continue to have, on our community. While I am speaking for the Town of Bridgewater, our situation, sadly, is one that is repeat
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Thank you. My community doesn't really have any concerns, because we see this as a huge step forward from what we have in place now. I have spoken to my member of Parliament to express our support. We've seen action already, so I sense that this legislation will only see more a
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Sure. The expression may not be appropriate to say, but putting lipstick on a pig is kind of what we're doing here. We're beautifying our waterfront, yet sitting there is this giant eyesore. It's difficult to attract tourism. The things that leak out of these ships are a constant
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Again, the assessments are done by people from the property value assessment services from the province, who also look at the surroundings. In the background to all the homes on the waterway are these ships in this wharf, which keeps bringing these ships up. The owners constantly
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee You're absolutely correct. We don't have the financial capacity to deal with these ships. In my opening remarks, you heard me say that just with the Cormorant listing to the side—it didn't even sink to the bottom—it took over $1 million that had to come from the federal governmen
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Fifteen million dollars. We're pretty lean. We can't absorb this if it's an emergency. If we had to bear the cost of removing these ships or even bringing one back up to the surface, we couldn't do it.
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee I don't know. I understand where Shelburne was coming from in their answer, in response to my answer about punishing the wharf owner. I was specifically talking about how in this case, our case, it's a privately owned wharf. I wouldn't want Shelburne to have to bear that. Ther
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee I have just one quick thing, and maybe this is a provincial issue. As a town, we're not able to tax a public wharf that's owned by a private individual. Not only do we have to deal with these ships, but we get zero revenue that we could build into a fund to deal with them. That's
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Yes. I think that does make sense. It goes back to my original point about having a business case in order to bring the ship up. If you're going to divest yourself of a ship, as a government, you should make sure that the person who takes on that responsibility can.
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Correct me if I'm wrong, but does that only apply to vessels at a public wharf, not a privately owned wharf?
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee In Bridgewater, it's not so much the vessel—
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee For us it's the wharf owner that would be the issue. All the ships that have come up, they've brought up. In the Cormorant's case they sold it. Now the ownership is being disputed. The person who the wharf owner says he sold it to is saying, “I didn't buy that boat.” They're deal
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee Taxation would probably be one, but again, I think that's a provincial matter. For us, at the docks that we own, you can't park your vessel overnight for more than a certain number of days without our permission. We don't have that kind of jurisdiction.... It would be nice—and ma
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell
Transport committee For Bridgewater, the two big ones were the Fraser and, currently, the Cormorant. Behind that sit very large fishing trawlers, still quite large, but under the 300-gross-tonnage limit.
February 14th, 2018Committee meeting
David Mitchell