Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 8 - Evidence - February 15, 2011
OTTAWA, Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 5:30 p.m. to examine issues relating to the federal government's current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada's fisheries and oceans (topic: Canadian lighthouses).
Senator Bill Rompkey (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I call to order this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. Some of our guests have to catch flights, so we need to ensure that we give them adequate time. I am Senator Rompkey, chair of the committee. The other members may introduce themselves.
Senator Raine: I am Nancy Raine, from British Columbia.
Senator Murray: I am Lowell Murray, from Ontario.
Senator Cochrane: I am Ethel Cochrane, from Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Chair: Thank you. In our continuing search for the truth on lighthouses and the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, we will hear from representatives from the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Representatives from the provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island were scheduled to attend today as well but had to change their plans at the last minute and cannot be with us. We have received written submissions from the president of the Prince Edward Island Lighthouse Society and from the founder of the New Brunswick Lighthouse Society. These submissions will be sent to the members of the committee for consideration as part of this study.
I welcome our witnesses from the Southampton Marine Heritage Society in Ontario, Mike Sterling, Former Chairman; and Vicki Tomori, Board Member; and from the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners, Mike Fair, Treasurer.
Please, proceed with presentations, after which we will have questions.
Vicki Tomori, Board Member, Southampton Marine Heritage Society: I would like to thank the members of the Senate committee for giving us this opportunity to speak tonight. Perhaps you can follow me with the picture booklet provided in your package. I will give a little pictorial of the work that has been accomplished by the Southampton Marine Heritage Society.
The society is a not-for-profit group of volunteers dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of the marine heritage history. The objective of our society is to identify, preserve and restore material items of marine historical significance and to raise sufficient funds to support these endeavours.
In 1997 our group started its work. The first picture in the booklet shows Chantry Island with a tugboat. As you can see, there is no roof on the keeper's cottage. After 1956 the light was automated, and it was no longer necessary to have a keeper live on the island during the summer. It did not take long for the fall and ruin of the keeper's cottage. In 1997, our group travelled to Chantry Island to begin a complete restoration of the cottage.
On the next page, you can see that the cottage roof had fallen in, and the walls and floor had crumbled into a pile of rubble that settled in the basement. With the permission of five levels of government, we were able to find the original plans and rebuild the cottage. The timbers needed for the cottage were not available at our local lumber yard, so our volunteers cut the trees down and milled the wood in order to do the work according to the specifications of the original build.
One of our local contractors has a barge, and he offered to transport our equipment to the island, so the guys could put things together. You can see in one picture that we had a very elaborate dock to offload all supplies to the island.
In August 2001, we took the past lighthouse keeper's families on the first tour to Chantry Island. Since then we have run tours all summer long. We have had over 12,000 visitors to the island to visit not only the lighthouse but also the keeper's cottage. The boat we use was found stored in the shed. It was an old water rescue boat. Our volunteers spent numerous hours restoring the boat. This will be our tenth year doing tours. We ordered a brand new boat to be delivered this spring.
We have other projects for our group. We also help to manage the Saugeen River Range Lights. There is a picture of the range light in the booklet. Our job this spring is to repaint the front range light at Saugeen. The picture of the rear range light shows a bunch of school kids, including my children. There had been a plan for some workers to strip the shingles from the range light and put aluminum siding on it. When our group found out what was planned, we had our kids stand around the range light to stop the workers from doing the job. We did not want them putting aluminum siding on an otherwise historical facility because the next step would have been tearing it down altogether and erecting a steel pole with a light on it, which is not what our community is about. We stood on guard, and the Coast Guard ended up listening to us. A local service club offered to pay for the shingles, and to this day we have wooden shingles on our historical light.
The next page shows the McNab Point Range Light, which we manage. Our volunteers did a restoration on it in 2009. The Stokes Bay Range Light was relocated in 2009 to the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre located in Southampton.
There are other special projects, such as the Chantry Island tours. The Canadian Tourism Commission sponsored a contest called LOCALS KNOW. Chantry Island was nominated, and we ended up being the top location voted for. We ended up being Canada's Best Hidden Travel Gem for 2010. We are proud of that because we worked hard, and we want to take as many people as we can to see Chantry Island.
We have done other projects. We built a 12-foot information kiosk and a 14-foot travelling lighthouse, and we created a to-scale replica of the Big Tub Lighthouse located in the Vaughan Mills Shopping Centre. In 2006 we hosted the International Lighthouse Conference, and we had delegates come from Italy to speak about lighthouses. People are really enthused about lighthouses; no matter where they are from, everyone loves lighthouses.
The last thing I would like to offer to the committee is that, as a community of volunteers, staff and council representatives, we would like to see a funding strategy put into place with public policy recommendations in order to help these communities. Even though you can have a great group of volunteers that will do enormous amounts of work, you still need something in place to help them, because no one will be able to stand alone and afford major repairs on a lighthouse.
Our group has set money aside every year. We have $50,000 set aside for the future of our lighthouse, and we have opted not to spend that on our boat. We are doing fundraising for the new boat; we have donations for it, and we have a good rapport with our municipality, which is the Town of Saugeen Shores. We work very hard with them to make this work.
I would like to turn it over now to Mr. Sterling, who will tell you how a group of people accomplished all these projects.
Mike Sterling, Former Chairman, Southampton Marine Heritage Society: Thank you. I want to say at the outset that we have had nothing but wonderful cooperation from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO; the Coast Guard; the municipality; the Province of Ontario; and the federal government. They have been wonderful to us.
This whole endeavour started out in 1997 with a series of 16 town meetings over the summer. Ms. Tomori was on council then, and they hired Professor David Douglas from the University of Guelph to manage what we wanted to see in 10 years.
In the first few sessions, people were worried about traffic lights and things like that. Pretty soon it coalesced into three major projects: the restoration of our high street, our business district; the restoration of the beach and the beach dunes; and the restoration of Chantry Island, the icon of the area.
At that time, we were a group of about five people. I was the chair of the committee, and I decided then and there not to ask for any corporate donations of any size and not to ask for any grants. The rationale behind that was that I wanted the community to get behind it. If they thought we were getting money that was taken away from health care or whatever, they would not put their oars in the water with us.
Therefore, we developed a business plan. I had been a small business starter, having started three high-tech businesses, so we put together a little plan. To date, we have raised $770,000 through a combination of donations from individuals, fundraisers and things like tours that we run.
The execution of the plan took place between 1997 and August 11, 2001. We had the plan to be open for tours in 2001, and we made that date.
This is not to say that we did not get cooperation from the municipality. They helped us with an insurance umbrella, so our volunteers were insured. That is a big deal, and that worked very well.
I made a presentation to Randy Childerhose out of Parry Sound. He listened to the presentation and said, "You will have to leave me alone for half an hour. I will go." He gave us an agreement so we could get going. It is very important in these projects to do something, because people do not like to see people applying for grants; they like to see some effort.
Therefore, we presented him with this business plan. He said, "Let us see what you can do. We will rein you in if we do not think you will do a good job." We did that, and now we manage Chantry Island, four range lights and three boats. We have restored a boathouse, built a new boathouse on the island as a replica of the old one, and we run a tour gift shop.
The economic impact on the community has been substantial from tourism up and down the Bruce Coast with the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners. As Ms. Tomori said, we ran the 2006 International Lighthouse Conference. We now have about 250 volunteers in various capacities, and we have expanded.
We were lucky enough to be the site of a new shipwreck discovery: The HMS General Hunter was a British brig that participated in the Battle of Lake Erie. It was captured by Admiral Perry and ended up on our beach, buried nine feet below the surface. We excavated that with the help of a professional archaeologist. In 2012, we will have a marine heritage festival at our local museum that will feature the HMS General Hunter and all our lighthouse work.
I would like to thank the government agencies, all the way from our municipality right up to the federal government, for the help they have given. Once we got this restoration done, they came in as a second level and said, "There is some contamination around here. We need to clean that up in order to divest ourselves of this." They did that. There were some structural things in the lighthouse that were professionally done with our guidance. We got nothing but help from the government. It has been a wonderful experience for me to be involved in this.
Mike Fair, Treasurer, Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners: Good evening. I am here on behalf of the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners, BCLP. This is just one piece of the product that we have been able to produce.
The Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners meet monthly. We discuss and collaborate on joints marketing initiatives. The lighthouse partners also exchange ideas and discuss problems and solutions regarding operations and capital projects. Our partnership includes representatives from Kincardine Lighthouse in the town of Kincardine, Chantry Lighthouse and the Southampton Marine Heritage Society, Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre in Southampton, Bruce County Tourism in Wiarton, Cabot Head Lighthouse, Cove Island, Flower Pot Island, Lion's Head Light, and Point Clark Lighthouse National Historic Site. Combined, our visitors would be over 100,000 people annually. For more information on our lighthouses, you can go to www.brucecoastlighthouses.com.
The objectives of the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners are to promote the lighthouses on the Bruce Coast as the lighthouse destination in Great Lakes Canada; to encourage the preservation of lighthouses and associated marine heritage along the Bruce Coast; to encourage the public use of lighthouses and marine heritage facilities and the associated economic benefits; and to encourage information sharing, networking and professional development amongst the partnership.
The partnership has been active for about 12 years, and we were incorporated 9 years ago. It is likely a great example of joint marketing and collaboration to the rest of the province, and maybe the nation. The partnership was incorporated for many reasons. However, financial benefit to qualify for grant funding was a priority as well.
We did our first project in 2002. That was the Cultural Strategic Development Plan. It was to assist ourselves, the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners, to increase our market readiness through improvement of the visitor experience and enhancement of the interpretation of Bruce County's marine heritage and to increase our capacity for self- sustainability.
In 2003, we had the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners and the Ontario Power Generation public-private partnership for mass marketing. We distributed 110,000 placemats to over 50 local restaurants in Southern Ontario. We did that to ensure that the people around us knew where we were, because we were a hidden gem. That is where we started.
From 2003 to the present we have a joint marketing initiative with Bruce County Tourism, and we created the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Tour campaign, marketing the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Tour as the lighthouse destination in Great Lakes Canada. We have a site, passport.explorethebruce.com, for more information on that project.
In 2006 we did a joint marketing initiative with the Lake Huron Shoreline Tourism Partners, a funding partnership to implement a common signing strategy within the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners. We wanted to make sure that when people visit one site they are led to another. We did that through signage. If you visit one, you get to see a little piece of another one, and it would draw you on.
In 2010, we were in the middle of a Rural Economic Development project, which is securing matching RED funds of $67,500 in partnerships with the Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre and a few of the partners that required capital upgrades, exhibit design and creation and joint marketing at conferences and trade shows that would be distributed to several of the partnerships that required the project funding. For example, in Point Clark we are redoing and revitalizing displays that were becoming stagnant.
In 2011, currently, we are right in the middle of a Trillium fund. We are going back to the beginning and are doing a strategic plan initiative now. We are creating a five-year strategic plan to guide the partnership from 2011 to 2016. The expected outcomes are a promotion and marketing plan, a product development plan, a strengthening of volunteer involvement through the process, an assessment of our own bylaws and constitution, and also the identification of self- sustaining funding sources.
Partnership is what the BCLP is all about. The Point Clark Lighthouse is a national historic site. It is owned by Parks Canada and operated by the Township of Huron-Kinloss as a museum through the summer months. We offer guided tours of the lighthouse and carry out the minor maintenance. We also have an agreement with the Coast Guard, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to provide the continued operation of the automated light at Point Clark. The Coast Guard is responsible for the maintenance of the lighthouse, in cooperation with Parks Canada. This was a great partnership in the past, and we will continue to work together in the future.
Other public-private partnerships have also been established between the municipality of Saugeen Shores and Chantry Island, Northern Bruce Peninsula and Cabot Head, Big Tub at Tobermory, plus the Lion's Head Light, the Town of Kincardine and the Kincardine Yacht Club for the Kincardine Light, Cape Croker and Chippewas of Nawash First Nations No. 27 and Parks Canada for Cove Island and Flowerpot Island Lightstation.
Partnerships are what we have built upon. We meet annually to look at our direction in the future, and we understand that not all lighthouses can be restored and maintained for future generations. The financial implications are not feasible. However, to understand the important role in marine history and navigation, the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act must address the need to provide the opportunity for some of our unique cultural and historic icons to be preserved for future generations.
The opportunity for lighthouse preservation must be available to all lighthouses. If there is not enough interest or financial commitment, a business plan could be developed by a local population, whether it is friends or at the municipal or county level, then a solid foundation for a decision-making process must be available to the local population to pursue the preservation. Of course, a sustainable federal funding program could be developed to provide a portion of the financial support required for long-term preservation of the remaining lights.
With funding comes responsibility and accountability, which has highlighted the need for the Bruce Coast Lighthouse Partners to continue to work together developing a future planning process. Our tour continues.
The Chair: Thank you. Before I go to questions, I might just say to my colleagues who have just arrived that we had to start early because our guests have a flight to catch. I thought it was best to start as soon as we had quorum.
I am pleased to welcome Senator Patterson, the vice-chair of the committee; Senator Marshall; Senator MacDonald from Cape Breton, where he will tell you the first lighthouse was erected in 1734 or something like that; Senator Watt; Senator Nancy Ruth, who is our go-to person on the Great Lakes; Senator Losier-Cool; Senator Poirier; and Senator Hubley.
Senator Murray: Will Mr. Noreau speak now or later?
The Chair: Mr. Noreau does not have to catch a flight.
Peter Noreau, President, Corporation des gestionnaires de phares de l'estuaire et du golfe du Saint-Laurent: I am in no rush.
The Chair: He offered to stay on and guide us through future deliberations, if that is okay. Perhaps we should use the time to ask our guests who have to catch a flight.
Senator Cochrane: I am impressed with the group and what you have done. It all started as volunteers; is that right?
Ms. Tomori: It still is volunteers.
Senator Cochrane: What about the province, the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Investment in B.C.?
How did you manage to get all the cooperation from so many to get started?
Mr. Sterling: We approached them with a plan. Incrementally, every plan we had, they had a lasso on us, so if we wandered off in the weeds they could pull back.
Senator Cochrane: Who is "they"?
Mr. Sterling: For instance, the Coast Guard. Chantry Island is an international bird sanctuary. There are 10,000 mating pairs there in May and June, so it is a very delicate environmental situation.
We approached them with concrete things. We did something and they gave us more rope. We kept moving that way. That occurred all the way up from the municipality and the mayor. The mayor came to me and stuck his face right in mine and said, "If will let you do this, will you finish it?" I said, "Yes, we will." It is a matter of trust, building trust and then continuing and not asking for money. The first time we approached town council, the first thing out of my mouth was that we were not asking for any money at this point in time. We were asking for a red light or green light, not a murky amber light that puts us in limbo.
Ms. Tomori: You were asking about volunteers and how we could get that many people to do that much work.
Senator Cochrane: Yes.
Ms. Tomori: It is incredible because the demographics in our communities include many retirees. I work at the town office, and if they are new to town you ask them if they have decided where they are going to volunteer. Our community is known as the capital of volunteerism. We have a ton of different service groups, and we accomplish a lot.
We have a volunteer fair, and we invite the ones we have presently and ask them to bring friends, and we have sign- up sheets. We need someone to garden at Chantry Island and someone to clean the lighthouse, sweep it down for us every Friday morning. It is a boat trip to go out with a broom. We actually have a little problem because we only have so many jobs, and we almost have too many volunteers. We have to be careful about how many we ask for, how we advertise for volunteers.
Senator Cochrane: Do you have someone over the whole group?
Ms. Tomori: We have a board of directors of 10 people who manage the program, because we are running a business. We have taken in over $275,000 in tours alone. We have decided to have a little gift shop with the tour base because they will be there anyway, so we might as well sell souvenirs. Over the years we have sold over $75,000 worth of souvenirs, some of which are handcrafted by volunteers who knit, sew, sculpt or paint. We have an abundance of input that way. We are run by a board of directors of 10 that manages the project.
Senator Cochrane: Who does the tours? Are they volunteers as well?
Ms. Tomori: Yes, they are. Our captain, our crew and our tour guides are all volunteers. They are former doctors and lawyers who owned a boat and had a hankering to drive a boat.
With our group now, we have different legislation. It keeps changing. Therefore, the captains have to have a certain level in order to operate, and we found a guy that can teach it. He is one of our captains and he can teach the course. Instead of paying $600 per person for the course, we pay for the books, and our captain teaches the course. It is well organized, and we have an enormous amount of strength in the community.
Senator Cochrane: Right from the beginning, you had cooperation from Coast Guard and Parks Canada and so on?
Mr. Sterling: Yes, wonderful cooperation.
The Chair: The Coast Guard still owns the lighthouse, does it?
Mr. Sterling: The Coast Guard manages the lighthouse, yes. We do all the work on it. They have been wonderful to us, really.
Ms. Tomori: We attribute the success with those governing bodies to our approach, to how we approach them to ask for things. We do not demand. We just say, "We could use this." When you see that picture of the boat, it is not a joke but a real picture of those guys in a rowboat. It was dilemma, what to do with the boat. Then they found a water rescue boat, so they went to the town and said, "Would you mind if we used that boat?" It was stuck in a garage. I think they did about $1,000 damage getting it out of the shed, which they had to fix up, but the town has been supportive. It was a decommissioned water rescue boat, and it suited the bill.
Senator Cochrane: What is the reaction regarding the automated lighthouse? Has it been just as effective as the lighthouse with people staying in it?
Mr. Sterling: Our light was electrified in 1954. The last lighthouse keeper left at that time, and the town has become used to it being unmanned. However, it is still the icon of the community, so people wanted it preserved. They preserved the memory of Ronie Spencer and all the lighthouse keepers. That is a big deal in the community. However, there is no current reaction to its being unmanned in our community because it has been electrified for a long time.
Senator Cochrane: You are saying that it has been just as effective as the manned ones?
Mr. Sterling: Yes.
Senator Raine: It is great to hear of your successes. I would like to find out who owns the lighthouses. Maybe we could go to the whole string of them. With the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, will you actually be formalizing and taking ownership of the lighthouses in your societies?
Mr. Sterling: The act is moving along and we have been negotiating — at least the Town of Saugeen Shores has been negotiating for divestiture.
Ms. Tomori: For our four lighthouses.
Senator Raine: Is that going well?
Ms. Tomori: Yes. We are moving in the right direction with that. How about the other ones? Do you know anything about those?
Mr. Fair: Point Clark is a national historic site, so it is not divested. I believe the Town of Kincardine has ownership of their light now, and there are a few others. There is the light in Cabot Head, which right now I believe the municipality has a lease on, which they have turned around and sublet to the Friends of Cabot Head. I do not know much detail about Cove Island. I believe Flower Pot Island is in Parks Canada, and then there is Cove Island as well. I am not sure about their status.
The Chair: This was just a regular divestiture process of the government, was it? They just divested with two municipalities? Is that what happened?
Mr. Fair: Some have already taken place, and some are on the new place. We are fortunate between our county level of government and the municipal level of government. They have become quite involved with the lighthouses. We are fortunate that our area understands tourism and the importance of the lighthouses to our tourism industry.
Senator Raine: All of us are concerned that the intention of the act is good, but it might not work properly. I am happy to hear that in your case you think it is working properly, and you will be able to take ownership of the lighthouses yourself and carry on with what you are doing. I presume that if you had a non-profit society in the other areas, that could happen in those places as well.
Mr. Fair: I hope so. Unfortunately, we have some, like Cove Island and Flower Pot Island, where friends groups might be involved, but unfortunately they might not be financially strong enough to take on the endeavour. That is the big concern here.
It is so much easier when you are working with the local municipal government or at the county level; it is difficult when you do not have support for some of the offshore lighthouses. For example, the visitation that Flower Pot Island takes on throughout the summer is huge. Tobermory is abuzz every day throughout the summer months with tours to Flower Pot Island.
Senator Hubley: Thank you for your presentations. I would like to follow up on the senator's comments. What do you charge for tours? What would a tour include? Does it mean the boat trip out? Does it mean the visitation? What sort of dollars are we looking at here?
Ms. Tomori: We charge $28.25 per person on our boat, but our situation is unique because the island is a bird sanctuary, so we have restrictions; we are allowed only nine passengers per boatload twice a day in July because of the birds. In order to make that work, we have a guide, a captain and a crew member and then the nine paying passengers. It really makes it a unique trip, and we get many people having to come back or reschedule.
It is a two-hour tour altogether. It is a boat ride to the island, and the tourists get off the boat at the island. The crew member takes them up into the lighthouse, so they get to see out from the top of the lighthouse, and then the other guide takes them through the keeper's cottage and the gardens. Because we are right on the shoreline, there are all sorts of shipwreck talk and different things for them to discuss back and forth.
Senator Hubley: Are all of your lighthouses connected for a lighthouse tour? They are. Do you get tours, people coming specifically or bus tours coming just to visit lighthouses generally?
Mr. Fair: To a certain degree. Some of our lighthouses are quite limited to get to, for example Cove Island and Flower Pot Island. For Parks Canada, you would pay a fee to Parks Canada, then you would pay a fee to the boat tour company, and then you would get driven over to the island and get dropped off. For the volunteers, the friends of the group, their source of revenue is donations at the light station and selling water.
Senator Hubley: I am wondering about the potential for generating revenue at these stations. Will it ultimately cover the maintenance costs that you agreed to do? You did suggest that there was other maintenance that other people looked after, but you look after general maintenance, I believe?
Mr. Fair: Right. At Point Clark, for example, in our partnership with Parks Canada we do minor maintenance. We look after the furnace, the water heaters, things like that.
Senator Hubley: Parks Canada looks after painting?
Mr. Fair: The big stuff. Some of the painting.
Senator Hubley: What sort of things would Parks Canada look after?
Mr. Fair: They used to do a lot more of the painting and a lot more regularly, but their resources are limited as well at times.
Right now we charge $5 per person at Point Clark. We are on the mainland so we are accessible to the public. We do quite a few bus tours throughout the summer to places like Cabot Head on the basis of donations. If 20,000 people come, they bring in a decent amount of money, but whether it is enough for the long term to do some of the bigger capital upgrades just depends. It helps us to keep up with the minor maintenance, and we hope that the big stuff will look after itself. Every once in a while we have to spend a lot of money on the big stuff too.
Senator Murray: For the record, if the light is active it belongs to the Crown, whether it is on a stick or in a lighthouse or wherever else. The others that you are talking about, Mr. Fair, belong to municipalities. They are no longer active lights.
Mr. Sterling: Some of them are private aids to navigation, such as Kincardine Lighthouse.
Senator Murray: They are no longer the property of the Crown.
Mr. Sterling: That is right.
Senator Murray: Chantry Island has been de-staffed and automated since 1954. Things started falling apart over a period time. Forty years later, you came and began quite a restoration project. You said that this was done with permission from five levels of government.
One of my concerns, which perhaps others have as well, is the fact that as soon as the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act was proclaimed, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or the Coast Guard or other agency designated just about every active light, except those that are staffed, as surplus to their requirements. This has caused a great deal of confusion among potential applicants to take over these properties about what they will do.
More than that, it seems that if the department is serious and truly declares them surplus, the same thing will happen to these lights that happened at Chantry Island; the property will start to deteriorate and all the rest of it.
What advice do you have for groups that are forming or might form about how they should handle this? What should their relationship be with the government or the Coast Guard in terms of lights that are automated and still active?
Mr. Sterling: I have gone through this. I have given 89 talks across Canada.
Senator Murray: Summarize one for us.
Mr. Sterling: I gave two talks to a lighthouse group down near Burlington, Ontario, where they have a lovely little John Brown historic light. My advice to them was to get started. They seemed to want to deal with the top level of government. They were dealing with Sheila Copps. They want to deal with Union Gas Limited to give them some big upfront donations. The advice is to get started, and private donations will come in sizable amounts. We have $350,000 from people. My advice seems trivial, but if they just get going, they can deal with government later, which will be cooperative if they have already started. I am talking about the working levels of these organizations.
Senator Murray: In the case of Chantry Island, the government owns the lighthouse, the light and, I presume, the property. You do not own the land, really.
Mr. Sterling: We lease the property from the government.
Senator Murray: You lease the property from the federal government. When you want to make various changes and improvements, I presume you have to negotiate with the government.
Mr. Sterling: We talk to them. They became so trusting that a phone conversation does it.
Senator Murray: What is this about Canadian Heritage not being in a position to look after its own properties, Mr. Fair? That is what you are telling us, I understand.
Mr. Fair: I find that sometimes funding might not be what it used to be in Parks Canada. Funding levels can go up or down. For Point Clark we are awaiting a major restoration project. We are hoping to see the funding for it. They are talking about $1.5 million.
Senator Murray: We are talking about a national historic site.
Mr. Fair: Yes.
Senator Murray: Where is your organization in all of this?
Mr. Fair: I work for the Township of Huron-Kinloss. My job is to manage it as a museum and hire the students and staff to work in it.
Senator Murray: What do you manage as a museum?
Mr. Fair: I manage the lightkeeper's house. Point Clark Lighthouse is a museum, and we do tours up the tower.
Senator Murray: It is no longer an active light.
Mr. Fair: The lighthouse is still an active light. It is automated.
Senator Murray: The Coast Guard has some responsibility for it.
Mr. Fair: Right. It was upgraded a few years ago with a new automated light.
Senator Murray: They look after it and presumably visit it a couple of times a year and do whatever they have to do.
Mr. Fair: Yes.
Senator Murray: The rest of the property is a national historic site. Either Parks Canada is looking after it or they are not doing so. What do you have to do?
Mr. Fair: No, it is not to that degree. Unfortunately, the resources are a little bit thin at times. However, there is some movement between Parks Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that Point Clark is looking at. The tower has excessive spalling, to the point that they closed it in 2010, so we could not take tours up the tower. I understand that there is a tender document. They are looking at construction. They have done the construction drawings with the engineer's recommendations. We hope that they will come forth this spring.
Senator Marshall: Congratulations. You are telling an incredible story. My first question is about money. Ms. Tomori, you talked about fundraising $770,000. I would like you to speak to that briefly.
Mr. Fair, you talked about where your money comes from, and I am certainly interested. It is like a story of power of the people. If you can give me some information, I would be interested in knowing.
Ms. Tomori: The money is a combination of $275,000 worth of tours, $75,000 from the sale of souvenirs in the tour base, and then we had donors and we had fundraisers, such as barbecues, fish fries and other events.
Senator Marshall: Who arranged all of these fundraising activities?
Ms. Tomori: Mr. Sterling was behind much of it, and the board of directors. There are other community groups as well, such as the ladies group in Southampton since 1956. They are called the Chantry Island Chambettes. They have given us money from their various fundraisers. They have a sleepover once a year at Chantry Island and each of their members pays $100 to go. Unique things are done that involve the island.
Senator Marshall: There is that commitment to raise money.
Ms. Tomori: Yes.
Senator Marshall: Mr. Fair, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about the money.
Mr. Fair: Let us take the Point Clark Lighthouse as an example. We run a deficit to open it up for two and a half months for the summer season for a museum. We run anywhere from a $5,000 to a $10,000 deficit. The municipality is prepared to do that.
Senator Marshall: The municipality picks that up, does it?
Mr. Fair: Yes. We consider it a beacon for tourism. The Lake Huron Shoreline Tourism Partners and Sunsets.com have been funding partners. Bruce County Tourism is one of our biggest funding partners. Bruce County Museum and Cultural Centre, the archives, is another one, as is the province.
Senator Marshall: Congratulations. It is an excellent brochure, I must say.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for being here. I apologize for being a few minutes late and missing the beginning of your presentation. From what I heard, you are active and an inspiration to many others out there who might want to head down the same path.
You spoke about the $750,000. Is that an amount you collect annually?
Ms. Tomori: No, that would be our total to date, from 1997 to 2010. We are not open for 2011 yet.
Senator Poirier: In terms of your capability of operation cost, I know you have a lot of volunteers. How many volunteers do you need a day in order to operate? That would include your gift shop, boat tours, guides and everything.
Who looks after the insurance for the boat, the liability if something should happen to these people you are hauling over, the maintenance and care of your gift shop and the ordering of your supplies? Is that all done by volunteers? Do you have any paid employees at all?
Ms. Tomori: We apply for student grants. I manage the tour base myself; I work, but I manage it as a volunteer. I try to get two summer students, and we apply for grants for them; sometimes we get them and sometimes we do not. We get a $2 an hour subsidy for sure, but sometimes we can get full wages for a few weeks.
It is imperative to involve the youth and have them help. It is a lesson for them and an awesome job for these summer students. Some of them have volunteered for us in the past, so it is a pleasure to be able to hire them in the summer and give them a few hours. One of our students is capable of being a captain on the boat. They are dedicated and loyal.
I have the same people among my volunteers in the tour base. The same people volunteer every Monday morning for the whole summer. It is not that every day you will have a different variety. There is continuity there. We have someone in charge of the captains, another volunteer in charge of the crew and another in charge of the tour guides. It is not daunting on one person.
Another thing we worry about and are conscious of is burnout. The last thing we want to do is burn out our volunteers. In August, for example, we could have as many tours a day as we want because the restriction for the bird sanctuary is off. However, we do not. We put one more on at 9:30 a.m., but we do not go crazy because we do not want to burn out our volunteers and have the tours not happen.
Senator Poirier: Is it your organization that covers the liability and insurance costs?
Ms. Tomori: Yes. Of the $750,000 we have taken in, our expenses were probably $668,000.
Senator Poirier: You also mentioned having nine people per day on your boat for the tour.
Ms. Tomori: Nine paying passengers and a captain, crew and tour guide. The boat holds 12 people.
Senator Poirier: Is it one trip a day?
Ms. Tomori: We do two trips in the afternoon in July, seven days a week. In August, we do three trips a day, seven days a week. In the shoulder season — May and June — we do weekends, and in September we do only the first two weekends.
We rely on weather, and it can be treacherous to try to get out there. We cancel when we need to. Last year, for example, we had 36 boatloads cancel because of weather. We try to get them to the range lights or somewhere else — redirect them to keep them as customers.
Senator Poirier: How long does your tour last? You said it was $28.25 per person. Is that an hour or two hours?
Ms. Tomori: Two hours.
Senator Poirier: You said that in that two-hour tour you also talk about your coastline, things that could happen and shipwrecks. Who helps you do the research so that you have enough interesting information to provide on the tours? Is this research done by volunteers? Is there a database, or does Parks Canada fill in?
Ms. Tomori: Initially, the research was started by John Weichel, who used to be a newspaperman — he wrote columns for newspapers. He actually became a historian at the museum. He did all the research and had all the information so that we could come up with a script. That helps with the success of our volunteers. If you give them a script, they know what they are talking about; they have the history and all of that right there.
Senator Poirier: Too bad we could not find you a nice volunteer to help spread this good news to all of Canada.
Senator MacDonald: I guess that is for us to do.
First, I cannot tell you how much I admire the work you have done. Sometimes we almost lose hope trying to find a solution to this. I can speak for my colleagues here that we are concerned about the lighthouses in this country for their value in heritage and tourism. They do have intrinsic value. What you have done exemplifies that and shows that communities feel the same way. It is a matter of finding the template we can apply. It is so multi-faceted with Parks Canada's involvement, municipal involvement and Coast Guard involvement. It is a matter of trying to find the proper solution for these things.
I want to ask a question about your fee structure. What percentage of your money do you raise from fees? For example, I notice you have a group rate. For some sites you have a fee; for others people can volunteer money; and for some you have no fee at all. Why have you taken that approach, and why would you not have some small fee for each one?
Mr. Fair: Cabot Head Lighthouse is run the Friends of Cabot Head. They do not charge a fee but just accept donations. They find that they likely generate more money from donations than they would if they put a fee to it. Another of their fundraising efforts is having people live at the lighthouse. You live in the lighthouse at Cabot Head and you might pay a fee to live there for a week. However, you will weed the flowerbeds; sell pop and water; and do this, that and the other thing. That is part of your job, and you pay to do that. What a concept.
Senator MacDonald: You mentioned the Point Clark Lighthouse, which is a national historic site. The chair mentioned that the lighthouse in my hometown of Louisbourg is a national historic site. I am sure we have the same levels of government we have to deal with. You said the interior tours of the Point Clark Lighthouse were stopped last year. Do they have to do some work?
Mr. Fair: Yes.
Senator MacDonald: When it comes to large capital expenditures of that kind, does the Coast Guard participate, or is it just Parks Canada?
Mr. Fair: I cannot tell you where the funding is coming from. All I know is that the tender documents have been released, and we are hoping that I will hear word. I have not been actively involved in that process. It has been Parks Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO.
Senator MacDonald: Time is short. I have so many questions. Thank you for coming. You might hear from us again.
The Chair: I was just thinking that we might try to do that, although we have time problems ourselves.
Senator Patterson: What you have done is so impressive. I would like you to elaborate on a couple of things, Ms. Tomori. Can you tell us a bit about the international conference? What kind of people did you meet, and what kind of international fraternity is there?
Ms. Tomori: We struck a committee to organize it, and two of our representatives travelled around to see speakers speak. They did not just phone people and say, "Come and speak at our conference." They went and cherry-picked or headhunted — or however you want to say it — and got really good speakers with very good presentations.
We also were connected through the Internet with a couple from Italy who wanted to come to the conference and who offered to speak about Italian lighthouses. I think it was through Mr. Sterling that they contacted us. They flew to Ontario at their own expense. I think we put them up, or found somewhere for them to stay. The community embraced the fact that they would travel that far just to come and speak about lighthouses. It means as much to the Italians as it does to us.
Among the people who came there were tons of Americans. I could not believe it. Because the conference was happening at the museum, I was at the tour base. At about six o'clock in the morning, there was a gentleman at the door who had arrived early and wanted to see every lighthouse he could, because he still wanted to be at the nine o'clock session. We gave him maps and directions. It was amazing. There were many people from the United States. They had a great time. It was an awesome thing.
Senator Patterson: You seem to be describing a passion, an enthusiasm, an obsession, some might say. Do we have a nerve we can touch to establish some kind of a trust or a national initiative to gather this energy that some people have?
Mr. Sterling: I was a little worried about appealing locally. The fruit falls from the tree, and it is local. We were interested in convincing our local people that it could be done early on, and my message was economic for them rather than heritage. Our motivation is heritage, but to them I sold the economics of having us do this. It would be beneficial to the community.
I think, if you can combine the economic component, it is like a two-dimensional vector with two components. One is the heritage component, but do not forget that the local economic component will convince people who are seemingly unconvinced at the start.
Senator Patterson: Thank you.
The Chair: It is past 6:30. I know Senator Raine has a question, but Mr. Noreau will stay with us. Do you have a quick question?
Senator Raine: It is just a quick question. I know there are mechanisms in other areas for fundraising, for instance, Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. I am thinking that obviously we need to have funding and support and spark plugs from the local area, because it is only people's passion locally that will keep these lighthouses alive and well. However, to share them with the world sometimes takes a bigger push. I think there is room for a national historic preservation society that maybe would raise money on a national and international level to have a fund to do the major jobs. Does that make sense to you? Would you be willing to share your expertise in founding something like that?
Mr. Sterling: That is a really good idea, like a Lighthouses Unlimited.
Senator Raine: Yes.
Mr. Sterling: Good idea.
The Chair: On that positive note, now that you are committed to an international program, we send you away with lots of work to do.
Thank you for coming. As people have said, it has been very impressive. We have learned a lot, and we congratulate you on what you have done. Perhaps we can continue the conversation some other way. I am not sure how, but we will try.
Mr. Noreau is staying, if people have other questions. We do have the Quebec people appearing, but they do not have a time constraint, do they?
Danielle Labonté, Clerk of the Committee: Not as much, no.
The Chair: We welcome officially Mr. Peter Noreau. Please make a presentation to us, and then we will have some questions.
Mr. Noreau: I am comfortable in both languages, so if someone has questions in French, I can make it whatever you want, part in French, part in English; it is all the same to me.
First, I want to put forward one thing, like my colleagues from Ontario. As the gentleman at the end said before, and I will add a little emphasis, you have to be crazy to do what we are doing.
I am extremely proud and happy to represent not only the province of Quebec, but the whole lighthouse process across Canada. I happen to work also with the Consultative Group on Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act here in Ottawa under the guidance of Senator Carney.
With my numbers, it is certainly not a real estate business. I am personally totally against that. If people just have a quick look on the Internet and say, "I can acquire a lighthouse and a nice piece of property," give it a year or two or three or twenty — it will be down, and they will use the land for another purpose. That is not my philosophy.
I am jumping from one point to another. I am now talking about budget. I spent a little over $2,000 just on a cell phone last summer. In 2010, I had 58 different interviews with the media regarding the sale of a lighthouse. Being who I am, an old French Canadian with some Irish blood, I said the lighthouses for me are not for sale; you have to deserve it if you want a lighthouse.
I am saying that because I restored one on my own. I am just the manager, not the owner. DFO is still the owner. I have a lease with them, and I put several hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money into it — no subsidies, nothing like that, just because I believed in it. I can admit publicly that I have the use of it. However, it is open to the public; it is there for tourists, and it is one thing I am extremely proud of. It is 100 per cent restored to exactly the way it was in the good old days.
I even spoke to an architect from Parks Canada last year at a meeting here in Ottawa. As a simple example, I asked whether when restoring a lighthouse it is more complicated to paint the lighthouse white and red, like it is supposed to be normally, or pink and blue. He said, "I think you have a point." That is what he said to me.
I respected to the nickel the way it was done in the old days. The previous witness was talking about putting aluminum shingles on the lighthouse. You do not want to see that. I restored mine with cedar shingles, as it was built in the old days. I can guarantee you it is just as simple, because I did it with my own hands and a few guys I hired.
It takes a lot of organization. I had to lodge and feed people, et cetera, because I am in an extremely remote area. Compared to the folks in Ontario, the society I am the president of now has lighthouses spread over 1,000 kilometres, which is a different philosophy all together. We do have a lighthouse tour. We sell passports, and we have a little cruise that we do once a year because it takes 13 hours just to see a few lighthouses since they are extremely remote. About 15 or 20 of them are accessible by road, but the rest, forget about it.
I will be jumping from one subject to another, but you should be able to follow me.
Someone previously asked about a bit of advice on how to get funding. I think that a small budget in the hands of DFO — you may say, "No, it is not DFO's mandate to restore lighthouses or historical points." I know that, but nevertheless, I think they are in a pretty good position to manage that. I do not want to manage computers or projects that go on forever and will consume money. I am talking about scraping walls and restoring, getting down to the nitty- gritty. I think we could do quite a long shot with that because I have done it myself, and I have some volunteers whom I am very proud of. We have a little meeting once a year, and I have to drive 700 kilometres from my place — I live in the province of Quebec — to attend that meeting. It is all volunteer work. My first lighthouse is about 80 kilometres east of Quebec City. I wish Newfoundland could offer me a beer; I think I could reach over, it is so far. That is how far we have to cover.
Many of our lighthouses have been abandoned, but thank God for some of our good old volunteers. Some of them are creeping up the hill; they are getting to be in pretty good shape.
I think it would be appropriate to have a good leader. You were talking previously about having a conservation project across Canada. I am bilingual and I have been voicing this across the country left, right and centre. I had an interview with Radio-Canada in Vancouver about three weeks ago, and I remain with my old philosophy: If we want to keep our lighthouses, we better jump the gun and get going here because many of them are suffering now.
I think there is too much involvement and this and that and blah, blah, blah. There is a little too much of that. With the example Ontario just provided, I am working with Robert Square, whom I respect very much, and they have done a pretty good job, I must admit.
With the extreme distance, you have to understand that it is more complicated for us to organize fundraising. That is in answer to the senator's questions previously about whether we think we could do a national project. I am quite in favour of that, but it would have to be advertised pretty strongly because there is so much distance between one and another, and we are dealing with very small communities. I am talking about 150 people.
Some of my colleagues and I are instructing, teaching our managers who want to put in a petition about how to do that. You may think, why a petition? There are only 25 people 18 years and older. I sat at a meeting in Quebec City that I organized voluntarily — it took 300 kilometres from my home to get there — with a person representing DFO, who is an outstanding human being, Mr. Donald Moffet. I will mention his name. He is very cooperative, but he has his hands tied with budgets, et cetera. He understands our feelings, and he follows us and comes to our meetings.
I looked at my watch; we started at 8:30 in the morning and it was 4:20 in the afternoon and we were still working on covering how to instruct our volunteers to get to what has to be done. I am not talking about real estate; I am talking about petitioning and saving a lighthouse. I think you have to deserve it if you want to acquire a lighthouse.
Senator Hubley: Welcome. With a thousand lighthouses now in surplus, there is a sense of panic that we do not have very much time to properly assess each lighthouse to look at what the support groups might be around those lighthouses so that we can feel we are doing a fair job by maintaining and looking after our lighthouses.
If you had to suggest how we would recommend the communication piece of this, how would we tell the minister to go about contacting communities or municipal governments? Do you have an idea of how that should be approached? What groups should absolutely be made aware that these lighthouses might be available?
Mr. Noreau: There are many groups. That is exactly what I was describing. That is what we are doing with our own lighthouses.
I will use a little joke here and say I will do it the Bloc Québécois way, such that we will present all our organizations together in one block. The people will be arriving in Ottawa with their paperwork being done in the proper way, and I am on the committee that oversees those lighthouses, and we are learning. Senator Carney told me in an email — because I was a little low key when talking about the lighthouses in Ontario; I do not know all the lighthouses — "Do not worry about that; I am from B.C. and I was low key, and even Parks Canada was low key on that." We are in the learning process, but I do want to make sure it is not a real estate business.
To answer your question, I come back to this idea of having a little budget in the hands of DFO. I think that would be the answer. Have someone go out and instruct. I would be willing to do that, to go out and explain to people what they have to do. The petition is fairly simple, to declare a lighthouse heritage. After that, you must show a work plan.
They show us the work plan. If they give us too many papers, we keep them. Normally, once the petition has been submitted, it takes two to three weeks to receive a letter from Parks Canada saying that they want your business plan. At that point, we will help them. We have a bit of time but not all that much time. The clock keeps ticking. The business plan involves many little things. They have to pay a welcome tax if they acquire a lighthouse. Keep in mind that we are talking about volunteers having to pay a welcome tax. We have that in the province of Quebec. If I buy your house in the province of Quebec, I have to pay $2,000 or $3,000 in welcome tax — just to say, hello, I bought your house.
The Chair: Is that a Quebec policy?
Mr. Noreau: I believe it is. I will say yes.
Senator Raine: It is a real estate transaction tax.
Mr. Noreau: That is it.
Senator Raine: We have it in B.C. too.
Mr. Noreau: That is one example. They have to pay taxes and buy insurance. Sometimes there is no hydro meter at lighthouses that have electricity. We educate our managers on those small problems that they might run into. Many people want to do this, but all the problems have to be ironed out.
I hope I am right about this: A Canadian law says that any property transferred or sold requires a surveyor's act within two years. Can you imagine that process for 1,000 lighthouses? Think of that for a second. My lighthouse is so isolated. Those papers date from the 1800s in many cases. The surveys were quite right in those days, but today, it is the law.
Any lighthouses that are still contaminated cannot be handed over as knowingly contaminated. There has to be proof.
The Chair: When you talk about a budget in DFO, do you mean for someone to travel?
Mr. Noreau: It is not only for travel. I say DFO because they are in every province across Canada. It is not their mandate, but there could be an opening somewhere. They have lot of ins and outs, and the people are all human beings. I ran into some people from DFO and the Coast Guard who are outstanding men and women. They were so cooperative because we are all human beings, as I said. We are not here to work against one another but together.
You are asking me whether there is a solution. Yes, there is a solution, but we need some kind of a manager for it. I do not want to see money on computers. I know am repeating myself, but I want to see it done. I want to come in and do a little bit of work and hand it out to volunteers. I want to see a guideline. I do not want to see money thrown across the road so that whoever is the best gets the most. That is not what I want to see. I want to get the work done. The government will say we cannot pay a guy $20 under the table. I know all that, but there is a way for funding to be well-controlled by someone who is in a senior position, and then away we go. Ask the minister for a little budget because it is our history.
Did I answer your question properly?
Senator Hubley: You certainly did.
Senator Poirier: If I hear you clearly, you are basically trying to help people understand all the red tape that they will have to get through in order to make any progress. That can be complicated, especially for volunteers who are not used to getting into the bureaucratic filling out of forms and understanding possible environmental issues, et cetera. I follow you clearly on where you are going with that.
I know you are working with many groups in your province of Quebec to help people to organize themselves as a block and to ensure that they are getting the information they need. Are any groups already in the process? You have leased and restored one to its original state. Has any not-for-profit organization taken one that they are using possibly as a tourism attraction? If so, how did they get to where they are now?
Mr. Noreau: They went through the same simple process. They used volunteers and they believe in the historical point of these lighthouses. When I am talking about a lighthouse, I am talking not only about the structure with its light but also about the entire site, which includes the foghorn building, the houses for the keeper and the assistant, and any little shack or garage. People once believed in lighthouses. I have a little note that I wrote before. In my little inquiry, I found that 95 per cent of the population have never seen a lighthouse up close or from far away. It is surprising. I overheard you say that you lived in an area with lighthouses all around you. You are part of the other 5 per cent of the population.
Senator MacDonald: Yes.
Mr. Noreau: I attach a lot of importance to that. I am in an area where there are no lighthouses, but I got involved. I was an airline pilot all my life and got involved in lighthouses because you have to be crazy to do what I did and am still doing. You either believe or not believe, and that is why I am so darned proud to be sitting here this evening to talk about lighthouses right across Canada, not just in Quebec.
Senator Poirier: You mentioned the remoteness and the distance between one place and another. Are there half-day tours or day tours in the province of Quebec? Do they have boat tours? Can you visit two or three in the same day?
Mr. Noreau: I was mentioning that. We do that once each a year. There is a boat that holds 419 people. Luc Harvey and his son are captains on the boat. They have been taking people out for tours of the St. Lawrence River for 49 years this year. He is quite a skipper, and I have the utmost respect for him and his family. This year on July 31, we are to leave a place called Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, which is approximately 120 kilometres east of Quebec City on the South Shore. However, we have to depend on the tides, so the boat has to leave at a certain time and arrive back at a certain time. There are all kinds of constraints, but we are used to it.
Senator Poirier: Is it a one-day tour?
Mr. Noreau: Yes. People can see six lighthouses because of the great distances.
Senator Poirier: That is done once a year.
Mr. Noreau: Yes, we normally do that once a year. You can go by car to the Gaspé where there are about 15 lighthouses to visit. That is why we have our little passport that we sell for $30 for two years. Forget about incoming money. We are a non-profit organization of volunteers. We try to collect a few dollars here and there, but it is minimal because we cannot concentrate. We are well aware of that.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you for coming today. We appreciate it. Some of the finest lighthouses in the country are on the St. Lawrence River; they are beautiful. They have not had keepers in a while and have been automated for a long time. I know you have been to more of them than I have visited. I would like your assessment on the relative condition of them as a collection. How much work do you think they need? Are any of the lighthouses inaccessible to the public?
Mr. Noreau: Some are barely accessible. Some are on remote islands. You have to be extremely determined to get there. My lighthouse is fairly difficult to access. My neighbour to the east is very difficult to access.
Senator MacDonald: What about the ones on the St. Lawrence River?
Mr. Noreau: They are all on the St. Lawrence.
Senator MacDonald: I mean the ones on the coastline of the river.
Mr. Noreau: The ones I have been talking about are on the coast and not on islands. They are very difficult to access. I have to go up a hill that is 33 per cent to reach my lighthouse. I do that with an ATV, all-terrain vehicle. You have to be fairly calm. There was no road before. The only access was by water, so I built a road over the years.
Senator MacDonald: Is the best access for many of them still by water?
Mr. Noreau: There are about 12. Do not quote me on that, but about 12 or 14 are accessed by water. Not far from your place on Anticosti Island, there are still a few nice lighthouses. There are a couple that are totally abandoned there; they are in shambles, unfortunately.
Senator MacDonald: Some of them are big structures along the St. Lawrence. Has an overall assessment been done? How much money —
Mr. Noreau: I am positive there is an assessment. We will have to get down to the nitty-gritty and do the work. Forget about the assessments. Let us get someone in to do the basics to help us out. It is my dream. I would like to see us get a few bucks and restore them.
Senator Marshall: You were talking about having your own lighthouse, which you have restored. I think you said you put a couple hundred thousand dollars into it. Would you know enough about the other lighthouses? Do you think that is probably an average amount to restore a lighthouse?
Mr. Noreau: I would say $250,000 to $300,000 on average. However, we have the odd exception. There is Cap-des- Rosiers, the tallest lighthouse in Canada. That is about $2.2 million there, after talking with Mr. Moffet from DFO.
Senator Marshall: What is your experience? How long has it been since you restored your lighthouse?
Mr. Noreau: I just finished this afternoon.
Senator Marshall: I wanted to ask you about your experience with the maintenance costs. It is not just the capital to restore it — you also have ongoing maintenance costs.
Mr. Noreau: Now it is to maintain it. It is like an automobile or a house: If you are on top of the operation, it becomes easier. If you let everything go, it becomes difficult. That is how I took it. I have a bunch of pictures I could show you afterwards. It was atrocious. There are many lighthouses like that.
The first thing you have to do when you restore a lighthouse is clean up. You would be impressed to see the amount of garbage I took out from my site. Decontamination is a further step. That is more complicated. You need specialized firms to do that, for mercury and oils and whatever you can find on these sites from those days.
Senator Marshall: You spoke earlier about some managerial position. You almost need someone devoted to each lighthouse on an individual basis, do you not?
Mr. Noreau: That is what I described to my little group, except that certain lighthouses are not so complicated. As was said before in this session, I realize that I am not dreaming saying that we can save every single lighthouse in Canada. I want to ensure I am not sitting here in the real estate business. It is important to me, and I am a firm believer. I do not know about Senator Cochrane, but it is not just a game about making money.
Senator Cochrane: Volunteerism is commitment.
Senator Marshall: It is challenging, but not impossible.
Mr. Noreau: Give me a call if there is anything I can do to boost the morale or help the troops.
Senator Cochrane: Does Parks Canada then have any involvement at all with the lighthouses we are talking about?
Mr. Noreau: Are you talking about the ones they own, if I can use that word?
Senator Cochrane: Yes.
Mr. Noreau: They have one and a half in the province of Quebec. Why one and a half? One of them is under their jurisdiction, and the other site is theirs, but technically the lighthouse itself is not. That is why I am saying one and a half. Parks Canada's lighthouses are not touched by Bill S-215. It is the same for the lighthouses that are still kept by human beings. They are not touched by the law for now.
All the rest, if I am not mistaken, I believe DFO declared surplus.
Senator Cochrane: All of them surplus?
Mr. Noreau: The way I understand the numbers, I think they are, unless I am totally off the tracks here.
The Chair: About a thousand, or close to a thousand.
Senator Cochrane: What about the land they are sitting on?
Mr. Noreau: It is the same. They have to divest. When I am talking about a lighthouse, let us call it a site. I am talking about the land, the buildings and anything that has to do with heritage and history of our Canadian lighthouses. That is what I am talking about.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much, Mr. Noreau. It is great to hear what is happening on the St. Lawrence. Can you tell me how many light stations there are between where you are, just east of Quebec City, to the Newfoundland border, on both sides of the river?
Mr. Noreau: Most of them are east of my lighthouse.
Senator Raine: How many would there be?
Mr. Noreau: There are something like 39, or more than that. Let us put it at 41.
The Chair: Are they along the south shore?
Mr. Noreau: Some of them. I happen to be on the north shore. On the north shore, until I get to Anticosti Island, there are about seven. I am looking at mine, Cap de la Tête au Chien, Cap de Bon-Désire, and Pointe-Des-Monts is fourth. Pointe-Des-Monts is an exception because it belongs to the provincial government. In all the years I have been involved, I have never heard of the Province of Quebec's involvement. Some municipalities, then we can skip the province, and then it comes to the federal government.
Senator Raine: Of the 41 there now, are all of them going to survive, in your opinion, and is there a possibility?
Mr. Noreau: No.
Senator Raine: Are there some that will decline and are not worth the effort to save? Is anybody doing an assessment?
Mr. Noreau: DFO and Parks Canada did an assessment. There are all kinds of ratings on that. I would like to say every lighthouse in Canada will be saved, but I am not crazy. I think it is impossible. There are a few under our jurisdiction that are beyond restoration.
Senator Raine: I notice on a list I have here that Cap de la Madeleine, La Martre de Gaspé and Cap Chat are privately owned already. Is that correct?
Mr. Noreau: Not already, no, but they are managed.
Senator Raine: It says fully transferred lighthouses. Association touristique Madeleine.
Mr. Noreau: Not that one, unless I am wrong. Matane Lighthouse was transferred to the municipality, but Cap de la Madeleine has a manager — a lady who is taking care of it.
Pointe-à-la-Renommée is the famous lighthouse that was taken from its location in the Gaspé Peninsula, brought to Quebec City and put on the wharf for a few years. Three ladies got together and brought it back to Pointe-à-la- Renommée. It is in immaculate condition now. That one I know is transferred. I remember saying to someone at our meeting on November 1, "You are not part of the game. You cannot put a petition out because it is not the feds anymore. We will never forget you."
Senator Raine: It is funny because that is not on our list here of fully transferred lighthouses. We will check on that.
What about Pointe-Métis?
Mr. Noreau: Métis Beach. Someone put in a petition. Are you reading the petitions you have?
Senator Raine: This is background material we have.
Mr. Noreau: Someone put in a petition on that. I was not aware of it until November 1 at our meeting.
Senator Raine: The municipality of Métis-sur-Mer.
Mr. Noreau: They could be working on it there, but there is an individual, to my knowledge. That came as a surprise to me, because he was not part of our group, so I was looking for information on that.
Senator Raine: It is great that you have an organized group and are helping each other.
Mr. Noreau: The distance is so complicated.
If I can mention another thing while I am before this public audience, I wish we could have meetings like this outside of Ottawa. I have nothing against Ottawa, but to be sitting in a motel next to a lighthouse site —
Senator Raine: We should do that.
Mr. Noreau: I have mentioned that every time.
The Chair: I just want to say that we have done this in Newfoundland, in Nova Scotia and in B.C., but we have not done it in Quebec. It is a good idea.
Mr. Noreau: I was not thinking only of Quebec, but you are more than welcome. I would be pleased to guide you around and organize something for you.
The Chair: That is the way to do it.
Mr. Noreau: With Norman Shields from Parks Canada, who is managing this Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act.
The Chair: If we can get the money. I hate to bring that up, but if we had the funds to do so.
Mr. Noreau: How much does it cost to bring us up here? I am not paid for my time, but just the expenses.
Senator Raine: I have one more important point. I understand that Parks Canada's policy adviser has informed members of the consultative group that they cannot be given the names of heritage lighthouse petitioners because of privacy concerns. I do not understand that. If that is true, that does not make any sense at all.
Mr. Noreau: It is totally against my philosophy. I just said to Senator Carney, for whom I have the utmost respect — she is doing quite a job — that I think it should not happen like that. It is not correct. There should not be any privacy in there. The reason I answered to Senator Carney is that I asked whether there are gimmicks that will become a real estate game because someone knows someone: Here is your lighthouse, and bingo. If that is the case, you will never see me here again. I do not believe in that.
Senator Raine: If that is the case, when people apply for a petition, would it not be relatively simple for Parks Canada to have them fill out a form saying they agree to have their petition disclosed to the consultative group?
Mr. Noreau: We could do that. That is a good point.
The Chair: We will have Parks Canada, so we can ask them that question.
Senator Raine: The group is doing a great job.
Mr. Noreau: Yes.
Senator Raine: We certainly do not need people going behind the group.
The Chair: We will ask Parks Canada about that.
Senator Patterson: It is fascinating to meet you and hear from you. I do not want you to think I am doubting what you said about the real estate transaction piece of it, but the committee did hear from someone on the West Coast who has been in the business of restoring heritage assets and who says that if you structure it so that there are clear limits about preserving the original integrity, there is a potential for private money to restore these facilities.
I know that this is waterfront property. It is extremely valuable and rare, and there can be people with bad motives. Would you elaborate a bit further on what your fears are? Have you had any experience with people who have gone in with bad motives that you can share?
Mr. Noreau: Not yet. The project is too young to give you an answer on that. I am a firm believer that if you go before a judge in court, you cannot give and withhold at the same time. The judge will ask if there is a case here, or am I crazy or something. As I was saying at the beginning of my statement, once you give it a year, five years, twenty years, the bulldozers will come in, throw the whole site down, and they will build something there.
You do not have to go far. There is an article going on in the city of Saint John, New Brunswick. There is already that case there. It is a lighthouse that is only 25 years old. I just happened to read an article on that last week. Robert Square sent me that.
Senator Patterson: I have not read the act and I do not have it in front of me, but it seems to me that the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act is a little bit vague about what kind of a group can take that over. It does not say non- profit. Is that a fear of yours, that this legislation might be used for the wrong purposes?
Mr. Noreau: This consultative group I am working with, with Senator Carney, is looking at it case by case. As they come up, we take a decision on what is happening. Plus, there is the feeling of the local DFO and Coast Guard people. Sooner or later, as I said, it is either yes or no. The way I understand it, there could be some kind of a written promise that you will respect the site.
If it ever has to come to court, I think it is impossible in front of a judge. I am not a legal expert, but I can tell you that the judge will say that you gave it to this group, so tough luck.
Senator Patterson: Possession is nine tenths of the law.
Mr. Noreau: I just hope it will not happen. Earlier in the meeting we were talking about the necessity to give access to DFO employees. I am a firm believer in that. I would sign on that any time. They have to come in and maintain the light. That is what I am saying. We are there to work together. I have heard through the branches that someone is saying, no, if I get the lighthouse, they will not come on my property. Is that a fair game? I do not think so. It is not my belief, anyway.
Senator Patterson: Could you tell us a bit about the conservancy group? I am sorry that I do not have the correct title.
Mr. Noreau: Let us call it the lighthouse preservation society in the province of Quebec. In French it is la Corporation des gestionnaires de phares de l'estuaire et du golfe du Saint-Laurent, which I represent today.
Senator Patterson: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Could you tell us a bit more about the corporation, how many are in it and something more about it?
Mr. Noreau: We are five on the small board of directors, because there are certain things that we have to respect to be legally formed. We have about 32 members right now. It varies a little bit, for all kinds of reasons. At the last meeting with my colleagues from Rimouski we were 24 people. It is so far and so costly that we have a meeting once a year. For the rest, we send out a bulletin and a few emails so we know what is going on. The person in charge in Quebec City, Mr. Moffet, is outstanding to liaise with.
The Chair: That raises an idea about social media. If you can organize a revolution in Egypt with social media, perhaps you can organize some sort of combined effort across Canada with social media. Do you have to travel, get in a car and go? How much can you do electronically?
Mr. Noreau: It is fairly limited. A good face-to-face meeting like we are having now is hard to beat. Senator Carney is a firm believer in that, and she gives herself a lot of trouble to come here to Ottawa. I have to come up, and others, but there is nothing to beat that.
Electronically, you can do a bit. We do some conference calls as well, a couple per year. With the money it costs to bring us here, maybe we could do one in B.C. and one in Quebec and one in Newfoundland, without forgetting anyone. I am just mentioning those as an example.
The Chair: Thank you very much. That has been very helpful to us. We appreciate what you have told us. You have been very patient, and we thank you for coming. We applaud the work that you are doing.
Mr. Noreau: Thank you very much. There is one thing I forgot to mention. Talking about B.C., the French government has a program called Thalassa. It is like the National Geographic magazine; they are known worldwide. I spent four days with them, and they turned up at my lighthouse for two days. Then we went to L'Isle-Verte, and they went to Nova Scotia. I happened to be able to see the film on the Internet, and I would say a good nine minutes of it are in B.C. It was shown in France last Friday, and it will be on TV5 this coming Friday night at 8 p.m., in three days' time.
The Chair: Thank you for your attendance, Mr. Noreau.
Pam Copley is a community heritage planner and the manager of heritage programs at the B.C. Heritage Branch. If you would like to talk to us for a while, then we will ask you some questions. Is that okay?
Pam Copley, Community Heritage Planner, British Columbia Heritage Branch, B.C. Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Investment: That is fine. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I know that the clerk and others have worked hard to make it happen.
I would like to say that I do not wear those two hats. It would be my director, Jennifer Iredale, who was not able to be with us today, who wears the director's hat. It is just myself here today.
I have been listening with interest to the other witnesses today previous to myself, at least a couple of them. I believe you have two submissions from us, a longer one and a shorter one. Hopefully you have had a chance to at least read the shorter one.
The Chair: Yes.
Ms. Copley: Also, a submission came from the B.C. Heritage Branch in November around the staffing issue, but I will not go over that territory again. You can refer back to that.
I am representing the role of the Heritage Branch in broadly representing the heritage interests around lighthouses in B.C. I would say part of that would also be to ensure there is a fair, open and managed process for that to happen. I know that is the intention going forward with the process that has been set up in association with the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act. We have certainly identified and heard concerns in that regard.
I have heard similar concerns being reiterated by the previous speakers as well, such as all of these lighthouses being surplus at the same time. The timing, and I do mean the short time for the petitioning process to take place, and the complexity of the process have certainly been an issue, and I think there are many questions that still exist around that process and around the specifics of the individual lighthouses in various parts of country.
I would concur with Mr. Noreau's statement that really what we should be referring to are light stations because they can range from anything like a little light on a rock to these iconic historic structures.
I think what we are talking about right now for the purposes of this meeting are the 18 unstaffed lighthouses that have been declared surplus in B.C. You have that background in the submission that we presented.
What we know that is a concern to Parks Canada and to others, including ourselves, is that only three petitions that we are aware of have come forward in B.C. to date. We have to ask ourselves why that is.
In that regard, the Heritage Branch, as provincial representatives, saw a role for coordinating the efforts around recognition, nomination, petitioning — in other words, understanding the processes around what can happen to lighthouses and, conversely, what can happen if nothing is done. That is why we have put ourselves forward as the liaison with you and also with other non-profit, non-governmental groups, such as the Land Conservancy of British Columbia. They are more of a provincial community-based group, representing heritage properties and nature conservancy in B.C.
We have also communicated with the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in its role, which is different from what we are doing, but it is important that we communicate with each other. We are also collaborating with our federal and territorial partners. There are many moving parts to this. The more we talk and discuss, the greater the understanding will be.
For us, it is really finding out why little interest has been expressed in B.C. As you see in the submission, we have taken some steps to find out why and to encourage communities to become more interested.
I have heard the passion from other parts of the country with regard to how people feel about lighthouses. I think it is similar here; we just have not quite heard it yet. Certainly, as Mr. Noreau said, many of the concerns in B.C. are that so many of our light stations are remote; access is difficult; and they are not in or part of a community. What will happen to those? They are important on many levels, including some as light stations and some just as iconic coastal structures.
If we get right down to the issues, much of what we believe still needs to be done is the clarification around the confusion that exists between the process that is playing out here — the surplus and the heritage designation, and you layer on top of that the active and inactive stations. I think people are really confused with all these processes. I suspect that has much to do with the fact that they have not come forward.
Some clarification is required around the terms of the act as well. I have spoken to Norman Shields a number of times on this question: There is a different meaning to the term "heritage designation" if you are referring to it in terms of the act, or if you are referring to it in terms of national heritage sites status designation. In British Columbia, where the heritage conservation is enabled at the local government and regional government level for the most part, heritage designation means legal protection. There are some distinctions there.
I think it is coordinating efforts mainly, bringing pieces of the puzzle together, making it clearer to the public that there is a process, that this is the process, and just to simplify it, because we believe there are gaps that are not being addressed.
There is also a requirement for clarification around the federal government's responsibility in making sure that lights are transferred in a condition that will not break the bank, that is manageable in an ongoing way, and that there are some supports to ensure that happens.
We know that in B.C. there is very little capacity on the part of many local governments, community groups and even the province. We have a very small branch and a limited budget. We cannot take on the management of these lighthouses or light stations, even though we understand that many of them are important and many have potential. That is a concern. As has been mentioned before, there is the high cost of hazardous materials in many cases, so who will pay for those issues to be addressed? We are, after all, talking about industrial heritage sites in many cases.
There is a bit of a mystery around what will happen to the undesignated lighthouses at the end of the five-year period.
I heard very clearly the message from your previous report on staffing, that the one-size-fits-all approach will not work, and I think the same is true here. We need to be considering regional differences, community and local government capacity, funding, all kinds of issues that I have just mentioned.
The other thing I would mention, but I will not go into detail on this, is that in B.C. we are less interested in the meticulous restoration of a heritage lighthouse back to something that it once was, which is often done in the heritage field, and more interested in the ongoing maintenance of these places and their continued public use, which I know is also a goal through the act.
I will leave it there for now, but those are some of the concerns we have and the position that we are representing. Broadly, we are acting as a liaison between our B.C. communities and Parks Canada agencies in managing this process and other community and local government groups.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Copley.
Senator Patterson: Thank you very much for your presentation, which is both detailed and a summary.
The branch intends to undertake a comprehensive scan of all lighthouses in B.C. Could you give us an idea of your time frame for that? Second, would you be prepared to share the results of that scan in some form with our committee once it is done?
Ms. Copley: I do not have a time frame for that scan at the moment. Given that the urgency is around the petitioning process for heritage designation, and that is a very small window, I would say that that would be the priority right now. Over the long term there may be lighthouses or light stations of concern and the complexes that exist around these, again as Mr. Noreau mentioned. It is not just the building itself; it is very often the site and even the adjacent land that has potentially some significance. The scan is probably a little more of a longer-term goal for us in an effort not to miss light stations that no one is even talking about right now. That is really our goal, and we would share any results in that regard with you.
Senator Raine: Ms. Copley, thank you for being with us at a distance.
We are fortunate in British Columbia that we still have 27 staffed light stations. I think we can safely assume that those ones are not at risk of deteriorating at this time. However, when I look back, I know that some of the light stations that were de-staffed in the last go-around have fallen on very hard times. Lucy Island and Lawyer Island were de-staffed. They promised it was a trial only; they fenced off the property to protect it, and when a stranded boater broke in to use the radio and call for help, they responded by burning it down, which I thought was pretty terrible logic. I know that Sisters Islets also is de-staffed, and I believe it is now a heritage site, but it is costing a lot to maintain and is probably at risk. There are others that are at risk.
We are very encouraged by what is happening at Saturna Island where they have put together a great group of people to maintain the foghorn building as a heritage site. There is certainly an interest all up and down the East Coast of Vancouver Island, where they call themselves lighthouse country in their tourism marketing. There would be an opportunity there, I think, to draw some together and do what they are doing in Ontario in the Bruce Peninsula where they are being so effective with the tourism aspect.
We are all trying to figure out where the roadblocks are in the petitioning. My feeling, and I would like you to comment on this, is that getting the 25 people to start the process is one thing, but the next go-around is to present a business plan and be ready to commit to the ongoing maintenance forever of the heritage aspects of the light station. That is a pretty onerous task and would possibly scare people off right from the beginning.
Do you think it would be worthwhile to pursue some kind of a foundation to provide financial resources for this to happen?
Ms. Copley: There are many questions in what you have just said. Greetings from B.C., by the way.
We can look back at the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, which I believe this act was modeled on to a great extent, and past practices around other industrial heritage, such as cannery buildings on the coast, which we once had in the hundreds. We have almost no intact canneries left on the coast because, as you say, they were burned because there was a requirement, if I understand it correctly, for the site to be left as it was found and also for there to be no ongoing safety issues. A similar situation could play out here. With the protection of the act, I think there is potential to mitigate some of those circumstances but certainly not all of them. There are many at risk, as you say, in that regard.
For many communities and for many of the community groups that financially do not have the capacity to look after these light stations, particularly if they are remote and difficult to access, starting the process will be difficult. They will need some encouragement and something to enable them to do so. They will need to develop partnerships, and they will need some funding incentives. If it is a foundation, that sends a positive message, and it is a positive step in the right direction. However, it only addresses part of the question. I think the consultation is incomplete.
I return, again, to the time frame for the petitioning process. If there was a foundation, and if there was an ongoing ability to bring forward light stations on an ongoing basis, then I think people would experience less anxiety. If there was that open, transparent and available process with the incentive of funding, then yes, I see a lot more potential for positive results in the end.
Finally, the Heritage Branch itself does not have the funds to provide any kind of programming at this time because our budgets are limited as well. We would be supporting community groups and organizations in other ways, but primarily working through local government. We do not have the capability to support them through dollars.
Senator Marshall: I have a question similar to the line of questioning by Senator Raine. You said you received three petitions, but did you say that you had explored why there were only three? Will you do so? Is that something you have to do?
Ms. Copley: First, we have not received the petitions. It would be Parks Canada that received the petitions, or is about to receive the petitions. I am not entirely clear on that point.
To raise awareness, we are encouraging communities to come forward in the process now. Those steps are laid out in the submissions that I presented to you. There are four steps. I will not reiterate them, but it is very much a work in progress.
To date, of the 12 communities — and some of the light stations are in one community; in one case I think there are five in one area — from whom we are looking for responses, we have approximately five or six right now. In most cases, they are not aware of any community interest having been expressed in the light station in their jurisdiction. They have not been notified by any federal agencies. As this is of interest to us at the provincial level, we are asking them whether they have been formally recognized as heritage sites and whether they have been included on a community heritage register. Most of them have said no. That is what we know for now.
Senator Marshall: One thing that came out of the testimony earlier today is that this involves a big commitment not only in terms of finances but also in terms of human resources. Once you take over a lighthouse, you have a long road ahead of you.
Would you know who those three petitioners are? If there are three petitioners — and they have obviously rationalized whether this is a commitment that they could take on — it would be interesting to hear from their perspective what thought process they went through in order to come to the conclusion that this is something that they would like to do.
Ms. Copley: There has been quite a bit of media attention. I have saved as many of the articles as I could put my hands on. I am not sure I have captured all of them, but I certainly have a significant portion. Some of this has been reported in the press. The ones that I have knowledge of, which have either entered into or are about to enter into the petitioning process, are Point Atkinson Lighthouse, Sheringham Point and Sisters Islets. Do not ask me to locate them now. I can find them, but off the top of my head I am not sure where they are all located.
I know of one other for which a process has been under way for some time, the Amphitrite Point light station in Ucluelet. I believe that one is rolling out as a partnership of the local or regional government, the heritage society and some other citizen groups that I am not familiar with. That one is moving forward quite effectively. It does not appear on the list of petitioners that I received from Parks Canada, but I am personally aware of how that one is progressing. There may well be others out there, which is why we feel it is important that we get the word out to try to ascertain that.
Senator Marshall: While it would be interesting to speak to people who do not want to go forward to find out why they do not want to do so, it would also be interesting to look at it from the other side and determine the rationale for the people who are going forward and what their thought process was. It is kind of disappointing that there are only three.
Ms. Copley: It is disappointing for us, too. It is of concern in terms of the future of lighthouses, which is exactly why we are doing what we are doing.
The other important step we have taken — and we have been invited to do this, which is wonderful — involves my director, who has regular conference calls with the federal-territorial partners group. They have now formed a subcommittee to deal just with the lighthouse issue, and I have been asked to represent the branch on that subcommittee. We have gathered information from that subcommittee that is useful for those of us who are a little behind in the petitioning process because of the progress in other parts of the country. For example, our counterparts in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario are considerably further ahead in the process. It is useful for us to see how they have done it, with whom they have done it and how successful they have been in the process. That is extremely enlightening for us, and we can share that information with our local government partners and with the community groups that might be interested in pursuing the process. It is a bit of a learning curve for everyone, but what we can learn from those with whom we connect is important. We can pass that on and, hopefully, enable that process further.
Senator Raine: I do not know whether you have this information at your fingertips, but it would be good for us if you did. How many provincially owned historic properties does the Heritage Branch oversee?
Ms. Copley: None are lighthouses.
Senator Raine: I know that, but do you have some?
Ms. Copley: Yes. The province no longer operates our sites. There are approximately 12 or so, but I could be wrong about that; please do not quote me. Most of them are gated attractions, which are historic sites that charge admission. Some are not. Some are simply Crown-owned.
All of the sites that are open to the public and operated as historic sites are third-party operated. The branch no longer manages those sites directly. We have a stewardship role in the kinds of conservation activities that happen at those places, and we have a contract with the operators, but we do not operate them on a first-hand basis.
Senator Raine: What is the process for listing an historic place on the British Columbia Register of Historic Places?
Ms. Copley: I probably will not go into that a great deal today, but I can certainly send you more detailed information. Essentially, as I previously mentioned, the process starts at the local government level. As heritage conservation is enabled through the Local Government Act in B.C., the branch provides support for local governments to manage and conserve their own heritage resources. We have a values-based management process, which is described in some detail in your package, and the first step would be to get at the heritage values that represent the community values and what the physical expressions of those values is, that is the resources. That is what we encourage communities to consider first. Once they have made that decision, they should decide on a set of criteria. Then they go to their local government to recommend that those properties or sites or complexes or neighbourhoods or whatever be listed on the community heritage register, to create a community heritage register. That has to be done by the local government, so it is actually a legislative piece. The local government, by council approval or regional district board approval, creates the community heritage register. It is just the receptacle, where those places that are deemed to have heritage significance in the community or area are listed. It is done on a values basis.
Senator Raine: Are there any lighthouses on the British Columbia Register of Historic Places?
Ms. Copley: I could not answer that.
Senator Raine: I would think Point Atkinson.
Ms. Copley: I know of one in Stanley Park in Vancouver.
Senator Raine: Prospect Point.
Ms. Copley: I do know there is some consideration within the City of Victoria to nominate Ogden Point, I believe. That has not taken place yet. I believe there are very few, and there are some that are national historic sites as well.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for the presentation and for being with us tonight.
In your comments and also in the summary you gave to us, you mentioned that the Heritage Branch has taken steps to identify the reasons for the apparent lack of interest in B.C. Just a few minutes ago, you mentioned that you wanted to take advantage of learning from maybe New Brunswick and Nova Scotia because they have been proactive.
Do you feel that the Maritime provinces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, have been proactive because lighthouses have been in demand longer? In B.C. I think more lighthouses are still staffed, while in the Maritime provinces very few have staff, and they have not had any for a long time. Maybe the population became more aware of what they were losing because they were not staffed, and maybe in B.C. the interest is not quite there yet because they have not realized yet that some of these could be in danger of being lost. I would like your thoughts on that.
Ms. Copley: We are trying to discover that for ourselves, but I would say based on what I have heard from our federal-territorial partners that a greater number of the lighthouses on the East Coast are within communities or adjacent to communities. I suspect some of them have been there longer as well, and they are just part of the landscape. People are so used to them; they are very passionate about them and very close to them. As you mentioned, it is very much the case that in B.C. the 27 staffed lighthouses are still working lighthouses. They are very important. Some of the concerns I have heard through the process to look at staffing or de-staffing and also concerns that I have heard more recently have to do with safety. People just do not believe that we do not need those lighthouses, and they believe that the people who run them are important for providing weather data, communicating with airlines, rescuing, ad hoc rescues, environmental protection, and all kinds of useful functions.
In many cases they are also very remote, so access is difficult. People just do not go to them. Again, I have to go back to my notes, but it seems to me I remember reading that there are only three lighthouses of the ones that are being considered now that are accessible by road. Some are accessible by foot; some you have to fly there or take a boat. Therefore, they are just not in the community in the same way that perhaps some of the eastern light stations or lighthouses are. That does not mean that concern will not come forward. I think it will; it is just taking time. People are not sure how to respond.
There is also a little bit of concern that in the past these kinds of processes have been initiated and have come to nothing, so they might be a little jaded about that, and they probably need some assurances stating that there is an important reason for them to come forward, that there is a relatively manageable process to do that, that we will help them do that in as many ways as possible, and that you are interested in hearing from them and think that it is important.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for sharing that. I know with the committee travels that have been happening and with the report that has been given, it has been quite obvious that the coastlines in New Brunswick, where I am from, and the coastlines in the Maritime provinces definitely have different issues than the coastlines in B.C. Thank you again for being with us.
The Chair: Ms. Copley, thank you very much for being with us and being very helpful. We are encouraged by some of the things you say, particularly that there is a cross-country working group that is focusing on this, as I understand it. Does it have all the provinces and the territories?
Ms. Copley: I am not normally a participant on those calls. My director does most of that. However, with respect to this lighthouse subcommittee, I am representing the branch on that particular aspect of the group, and we have had one call so far. I cannot really tell you how it will play out, but certainly what I have learned so far has been extremely educational and worthwhile.
The Chair: Thank you very much for being with us.
Ms. Copley: I want to say that I am happy to clarify any of the information that you have heard today. We will send you anything that we get from here on in, if you would like us to do that.
Senator Raine: Ms. Copley, I have one more question regarding the lighthouse subcommittee you just talked about. Of what group is it a subcommittee?
Ms. Copley: It is the federal-territorial partners of Parks Canada, I believe. It does have representation by people likely known to you, such as Norman Shields, who is the manager of the Heritage Lighthouse Program, and Patricia Kell, the director of policy and government relations.
The Chair: Is that under the aegis of Parks Canada?
Ms. Copley: I believe it is, yes. It connects us with our counterparts in other provinces.
The Chair: Ms. Copley, thank you for being with us and for being so helpful. If you can send us more stuff, we will send you what we come up with too. We will do an exchange. Thank you very much for being with us. You have been very helpful.
I will draw the sands of time to a close. Is it agreed that we adjourn?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(The committee adjourned.)