Fisheries committee  Each harbour authority, in their guidelines, sets their own fee structure depending on the harbour authority and what's going on in their facility. I do know that a lot of the larger vessels do pay more but it's not a uniform approach. One size doesn't fit all. Each harbour sets

Fisheries committee  There have been different harbours that have amalgamated issues around the area. They've incorporated six harbours to make one harbour authority, and they actually got rid of a facility that was one of the divestitures in the program. I do know of that issue, but a lot of these c

Fisheries committee  I know it's happened before. I can only go by personal experience. I know we had a long-term plan at our facility, back in 2006, and our structure was built post-war, in 1948. That's 70 years. It's outlived its lifespan. We've maintained the structure the best we can. We have a s

Fisheries committee  I'm just going by what I've heard in other parts of the country. I know that on Prince Edward Island the representatives on the committee have made the comments before. Wharves in P.E.I. have to have periodic dredging, because it's mostly sand in their facilities around there. S

Fisheries committee  We've had presentations at the national level on the worsening effect of climate change on the facilities and how they're going to be maintained in the future. When you build a facility now—anything, new repairs or new structures—they build what they call a hundred-year structu

Fisheries committee  This is a time I wish my colleague Osborne were here because he's from the gulf, in Cape Breton, so he knows a lot more about the ice factor than I do. To be honest, I don't know much about the ice factor. I just know that I've heard the comment from people in different harbours

Fisheries committee  Some harbour authorities have said that before a new member can get a new vessel, he should go before the board of the harbour authority and request an actual size increase. We don't have that at our facility because we only have a small number of users, but there are larger fa

Fisheries committee  Yes, they do. It's a very vibrant industry. As the fishing industry goes, so goes the rest of the economy in certain areas.

Fisheries committee  To my knowledge, the small craft harbours program has been in existence since right after the war. Small craft harbours managed all the harbours, and in 1988, they started to do the harbour authority model, where they turned the running of the actual harbours over to local users.

Fisheries committee  There always was some of that in the past. It has been better, because the users have more input now. At the end of the day, most of the volunteers around the communities who are running the harbour authorities are not engineers. They may have knowledge of a facility and how th

Fisheries committee  Yes, there's been considerable discussion on that within the community. There is concern about the strain that dredging is putting on the actual budget as a whole, because it takes so much money, right off the top at the start of the year, just to maintain regular maintenance dre

Fisheries committee  Yes, most definitely. In some of the areas, like in my particular harbour, we have a dredging issue. We can't get dredged because of the high cost of getting rid of dredge spoils. We used to dredge and put it on federal crown property within the facility, but now they want it tru

Fisheries committee  That's right. There's also a limited number of contractors who meet the environmental requirements. Each province is different in regard to environmental requirements. Nova Scotia has put in some very stringent standards over the last few years. They have been working on them, an

Fisheries committee  We have a strong core group of people at that table right now. We advise on different things in regard to capacity issues and any issue that may come up, from dredging to overcrowding to how we can increase our revenue models. That being said, it all comes back to dollars at th

Fisheries committee  Most definitely. I go back to climate change. You get a facility that's maybe been neglected. Maybe the rock wall isn't as high as it should be. The protection isn't as high. You get a severe storm that comes into the area. I fish in wintertime, and when I saw the hurricane-forc