Motorized Snow Vehicles
Amendment Act, 2000, Bill 101, Mr
Jackson
Loi de 2000 modifiant la Loi sur les motoneiges, projet
de loi 101, M. Jackson
Tourism Thunder
Bay
Mr Ken Boshcoff
Ms Patricia Forrest
Town of
Beardmore
Mr Eric Rutherford
Township of
Schreiber
Mr Bob Krause
Mr Jeff Dicaire
Beda's Canadian
Lodge
Mr Pat Beda
Ontario Federation of
Anglers and Hunters, Zone B
Mr Neil Wiens
Northwestern Ontario
Sportsmen's Alliance
Mr John Hay
North of Superior
Snowmobile Association
Ms Nancy Tulloch
Thunder Bay Adventure
Trails
Mr Brett Rushton
Mr Tom
Quinton
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Chair /
Président
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente
Mrs Julia Munro (York North / -Nord PC)
Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk PC)
Mrs Marie Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain L)
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton PC)
Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North / -Nord PC)
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Mr Dave Levac (Brant L)
Mr Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina ND)
Mrs Julia Munro (York North / -Nord PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Gilles Bisson (Timmins-James Bay / -Timmins-Baie James
ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Mr Joseph Spina (Brampton Centre / -Centre PC)
Also taking part / Autres participants et
participantes
Mr Michael A. Brown (Algoma-Manitoulin L)
Mr Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North / -Nord
L)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Viktor Kaczkowski
Staff /Personnel
Ms Lorraine Luski, research officer, Research and Information
Services
The committee met at
1303 in the Valhalla Inn, Thunder Bay.
MOTORIZED SNOW VEHICLES AMENDMENT ACT, 2000 / LOI DE
2000 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LES MOTONEIGES
Consideration of Bill 101, An
Act to promote snowmobile trail sustainability and enhance safety
and enforcement / Projet de loi 101, Loi visant à
favoriser la durabilité des pistes de motoneige et à
accroître la sécurité et les mesures
d'exécution.
The Chair (Mr Steve
Gilchrist): Good afternoon. I'd like to call the
committee to order as we commence our second day of hearings on
Bill 101, the Motorized Snow Vehicles Amendment Act, 2000. We're
pleased to be in Thunder Bay, our second stop in northwestern
Ontario, and we're pleased to be joined here by a couple of our
colleagues from the north.
TOURISM THUNDER BAY
The Chair: I
am told our first presentation, Tourism Thunder Bay, is ready to
go. Could their representatives come forward to the witness
table. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee. It's good to
see you again.
Mr Ken
Boshcoff: It's good to see you. Welcome to our city, our
region and our district. At the outset, I must thank you for
having these hearings to allow the public to have a say. I know
that we in Thunder Bay and the surrounding area are very pleased
that you have included us to hear the divergent viewpoints, and
we appreciate that very much.
My name is Ken Boshcoff, and
I'm the mayor of the city of Thunder Bay. With me today is Pat
Forrest, our manager of tourism. We're here today to express the
view that a new source of sustainable, operational funding for
snowmobile trails in and around our community is urgently
required and that we believe Bill 101 will provide that
sustainability.
Tourism is already our
community's second-largest industry, but to date most of this
economic activity, in its importance, has occurred during the
summer months. There is, however, tremendous potential to develop
our winter tourism, and snowmobiling holds the key to that
potential.
There is considerable public
support to establish Thunder Bay as a national sports capital.
Our track record is impressive. Thunder Bay has already
successfully staged numerous high-profile events including the
1994 World Nordic Ski Championships, numerous national curling,
diving and swimming events, Skate Canada, the Canada summer games
in the 1980s; innumerable national children's events of all kinds
and international soccer tournaments, and indeed our reputation
for organization and hospitality is exemplary. I could go on and
on, but I think you get the point.
We believe that snowmobi1ing
offers great potential to become a key component of a major
winter sporting event in our community. We have already been
approached by other communities that would like to join with us
to stage city-to-city snowmobile events. With so much support
already in place, all that is needed to make this work is
committed volunteers and great trails. You would actually be
amazed at the frequency with which people approach us to join
with them in staging winter events such as this, and also
snow-machining aficionados who have great plans and ambitious
ideas to do this. So we know the organizational capability is
definitely available.
We have tremendous admiration
for the work of our local and regional snowmobile clubs. In our
community, where volunteerism flourishes, the work of these
dedicated people stands out. I know they would be delighted to
work with us on such an event if they had the time and resources
to do so. Until now, however, almost all of their energies have
been focused on raising funds to keep the trails open.
The citizens of Thunder Bay,
and visitors and tourists alike in the winter, have to commend
Thunder Bay Adventure Trails for building the system to the high
state at which it now is. They have laboured long and hard over
the past number of years, not only through fundraising but
through community hearings involving the community and the
district, and now we believe we have a very fine system. If we
can let them operate it without the burden of always having to be
dependent on the vagaries of the weather, then I believe that
indeed we can get somewhere.
That's where we feel Bill 101
will bring financial stability to our clubs and provide them with
more freedom to work with us to develop winter tourism. I know
today that the actual mechanisms of funding are going to be discussed. That is not really
what we are trying to influence, but we do know that many of the
groups and organizations have expressed concerns to us in our
tourism department and to city council, and we only hope you will
be fair with them and give them justice.
We thank you for hearing our
concerns. We know you understand the tremendous potential that
snow-machining and the trail system have, not only for
northwestern Ontario but indeed for our whole province, and we
know that the potential for us here has not even begun to become
realized. We are asking for your assistance on this.
We congratulate you and the
committee for your work on Bill 101. It is an important step
forward.
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Ms Patricia
Forrest: As Mayor Boshcoff mentioned, my name is
Patricia Forrest and I'm the manager of Tourism Thunder Bay.
Tourism Thunder Bay is a city division, and it's responsible not
only for tourism marketing and visitor services but also for
tourism development. As such, we have worked closely with our
local club, Thunder Bay Adventure Trails, over the years.
I have been in my position
for the past 10 years, and throughout these years I have had the
privilege of working with the numerous volunteers of our local
and regional snowmobile clubs. It's been my observation that the
clubs have faced tremendous obstacles in their struggle for
sustainability. I have shared their frustration as they've worked
so hard to find the resources that would enable them to complete
the trails network and to keep them open and safe.
Thunder Bay Adventure Trails,
our local club, has also consistently demonstrated a huge
commitment to tourism. Though the development and maintenance of
tourism trails has placed a huge burden on them financially and
also on their volunteers, they have always strived to work with
us to advance snowmobiling tourism, and that has been greatly
appreciated.
There are hundreds of
thousands of snowmobilers in the US Midwest and other key market
areas who would love to take a snomobiling vacation in our city
and region if we had the trails built and if the clubs had the
resources to keep them groomed. As Mayor Boshcoff mentioned,
tourism is our second-largest industry. Our new long-range
tourism strategy, Giant STEP II, pointed to snowmobiling tourism
as one of our very highest-ranked products, provided again that
the necessary network of trails was in place and that they were
able to be groomed consistently.
This year our local
snowmobile club had an especially difficult time financially.
Mayor Boshcoff alluded to problems with the weather. I think we
only had about four weeks of good snow. They are very vulnerable
to that, and of course sales of permits were down. Tourism
Thunder Bay made the decision this year to actually divert money
from our marketing budget into the club to help them groom the
tourism trails and keep the trails open. This was a really
radical move for us, and one we would have preferred to avoid.
However, it was plain to us that if we did not divert money from
our marketing budget into the trails to help keep them open, we
wouldn't have anything to promote anyway. So we now have very
little money left to promote winter tourism. We are confident
that this was the correct move but one we hope we wouldn't have
to make again.
I am hopeful that Bill 101
will enable us to put our tough times behind us and work together
to successfully promote snowmobiling and winter tourism. I'm
aware from my discussions with the local club that there are
still a number of concerns and outstanding issues to be resolved.
I hope these can be resolved quickly so that we can get on with
the business of building a vibrant winter tourism industry.
I thank the government for
its interest in tourism in general and snowmobiling in
particular, and I thank the hearings committee for allowing me
the opportunity to present my views.
The Chair:
Thank you both. That leaves us time for one quick question from
each caucus. This time we'll start the rotation with the
Liberals.
Mr Michael A. Brown
(Algoma-Manitoulin): I am just delighted to have you
here this afternoon. Yesterday we were in Kenora. One of the
issues that was raised by the groups in Kenora was the
uncompetitive nature of pricing for snowmobile trails in Ontario
versus pricing in Manitoba, Minnesota and North Dakota. They
presented a lot of numbers that said that folks were not coming
here to our part of the world because of the fees; I think they
were something like $10 in Minnesota. Of course, in Minnesota,
gas tax revenues from snowmobiling are given to the snowmobile
clubs to assist them.
I wonder if you believe our
present pricing under this situation is conducive to
accomplishing the goals you've just outlined.
Ms Forrest:
Our experience with the US snowmobiler is that I think there's a
trade-off in that their trails are quite congested. They don't
have a lot of the scenery that we do, and again it offers a
different experience for them. So there is a bit of a trade-off
in that they appreciate the lack of congestion on the trails.
We've had a fair bit of
success in marketing to US snowmobilers. We've had some problems
in that we have a difficult link south; it's not a very direct
link, so again we're not enjoying the benefits we might because
of the trail not being completely in place the way we'd like to
see it. But the comments we have from American snowmobilers are
that they really appreciate the fact that the trails are not
crowded and that it offers a different product for them.
Mr Boshcoff:
Northwestern Ontario essentially has to turn its distance factors
into opportunities. That probably is reflective of much of the
costing part of this. What we hope to do, not only in Thunder Bay
but throughout northwestern Ontario, is ensure that the
infrastructure is attractive enough-that is, the hotels, the
restaurants, the entertainment and the nightlife-to compensate
for any of those pricing things so that they have a quality
experience. We believe that, with the co-operation you've
seen in northwestern
Ontario, the potential is great for doing that.
Mr Gilles Bisson
(Timmins-James Bay): I hail from the city of Timmins, so
I well understand the importance snowmobiling plays in our local
communities when it comes to the dollars brought into those
communities during the winter months.
I'm only concerned about one
thing. I understand why we're doing this. There's no general
opposition to mandating the permits when riding on OSFC trails. I
heard in your presentation that you see this as a way of being
able to strengthen the amount of money clubs will have to build
trails, but I don't think this is going to generate the kind of
revenue we really need to make sure we are able to give the clubs
the dollars they need to develop the trail system that we can
then go out and enjoy. I think you alluded to that in your
presentation. You said that the city actually put some money into
the trails, which is not normally the circumstance. We don't see
a lot of that, so I commend the city.
I'm wondering if you have any
numbers, or any idea of the numbers, that Bill 101 will generate.
I still believe the government is going to have to play a role in
providing money directly to the clubs on top of what's happening
with Bill 101. I hope you're not arguing that we don't need that
other pot of dollars. I hope that's not what you're saying.
Mr Boshcoff:
We'll clarify that that is exactly what we are not saying.
Mr Bisson:
OK. I just want to make sure, because these guys have a way of
reading what you said.
Just one quick comment: Is it
their fault we had no snow last winter?
Interjections.
Mr Boshcoff:
For the record, Mr Chairman, the weather is a federal matter.
Mr Bisson:
I'm with you on that one.
The Chair:
I'm sure Hansard got that.
Mr Garfield Dunlop
(Simcoe North): A quick question: When you're talking in
your report about making it more of a sports capital of Ontario,
have you done projections or studies to back what you want to say
as far as the numbers you made that it might be possible to bring
into this area during a perfect season?
Ms Forrest:
How many we could attract to a major sporting festival?
Mr Dunlop:
In a perfect world, with good weather all winter and good
marketing-
Ms Forrest:
How many snowmobilers would come if we had a good season? Is
that-
Mr Dunlop:
Yes.
Ms Forrest:
Yes, the local clubs have projections of that. I don't have them
with me right now, but I know we fell short in our tourism
numbers in the past couple of winters, having to do with
incomplete trails and lack of snow. But yes, the clubs can give
you that information.
Mr Boshcoff:
Recognizing that if we agree that weather is a federal
responsibility, the solution to attracting people is a
partnership concept. The province and the municipalities have a
great deal of opportunity in combining. So when a municipality
such as ours sets a goal of wanting to be a sports capital, based
on a long record of organizing, of achievements in many different
sports from hockey to curling to anything you can name in the
winter, including ski-jumping and cross-country skiing, it also
combines with what we are calling our city of festivals idea,
that there is a lot to do in our community.
Through the Northwestern
Ontario Municipal Association, we've also begun to do some
regional partnering in terms of identifying the region in that
festival sense, which means that although we've already got many
activities from April to October, the more we can generate in the
wintertime will give us that kind of balance. We view the
potential of snowmobiling as essentially untapped and, at this
stage, unlimited. We have the entire infrastructure for tourists
considerably underutilized in the winter months.
The Chair:
Thank you both again for taking the time to make your
presentation and kicking off our hearings here in Thunder Bay.
All the best.
Mr Boshcoff:
Please enjoy our community.
Mr Bisson:
As of today, you can bet on it.
The Chair:
I'm sure many more people will be enjoying Thunder Bay's
hospitality.
1320
TOWN OF BEARDMORE
The Chair:
The next presentation will be from the town of Beardmore. We have
august presentations here today: two mayors in a row.
Mr Eric
Rutherford: Good afternoon. Before I begin I will give
you a little memento, so that you'll know where Beardmore is.
This is a snowman pin.
Members of the committee, I
thank you for this opportunity to come forward and address you
today. I might recommend, though, that you get a map of Ontario
up somewhere. As a retired teacher, we always have to have our
concrete materials so we know where we're focusing. I have one
here, a road map, so if we do need to refer to it, we can.
The situation I'm bringing
forward today is indicative of the town of Beardmore. My town is
a community which is about 18 miles long and six miles wide. It
does contain some snowmobile trails.
I'm mayor of that town, but
I'm also coming forward as a transition board member of greater
Greenstone, which may or may not be the community that will be
involved in the near future, depending on the outcome before the
Supreme Court of Canada. That new community will be 120 miles
long and about 36 miles wide. Seeing as we don't have a crosstown
bus, the snowmobile might become a very important method of
transportation and the trail network will take on an additional
perspective.
I think I can speak on behalf
of small-town northern Ontario. We have troubles in smaller
communities organizing the clubs and having the criteria to have
them go forward. I believe
it's a 50-member obligation to come forward with before you have
a legitimate club that will be recognized and, in turn, can apply
for the funds for operation of a groomer and things like that. We
do have a small group of volunteers in our town who have worked
hard at maintaining a local trail network, which is very pleasant
to travel on, but we are located on what we call the missing
link. That's the TOPS trail link between Nipigon and Geraldton.
If we were up and running as a legitimate club, we'd have at
least 100 miles that we'd be responsible for grooming, because
the link between those two communities is greater than 100
miles.
I say to you, as members of
the committee, there has to be some special consideration in
place for the smaller community places on the map with big areas
of responsibility. Just as the MTO maintains highways 11 and 17
through the great distances of the north, we'll have to have some
special trail maintenance or dollars so that those gaps can be
filled and properly serviced for the use of all the citizens of
Ontario or Canada or North America. I suppose those from Europe
will be attracted to this area, too, if we have a good trail
network up and running.
In point 3 in my presentation
I outline the importance of the local, the district and the
provincial picture. The corridor along Highway 11 between Thunder
Bay and North Bay is one we've really got to get into place
running properly, because we will be able to funnel people
through that area in both directions. It's one that many of our
municipal politicians-in fact, I dare say all of them-really want
to get involved in supporting. We realize fully the potential
that that link can offer to us.
I outline in our regional
picture, too, that we do have Lake Nipigon, which Beardmore is
the gateway to, which is 90 miles long and 45 miles wide and has
four feet of ice on it that doesn't melt until May. I think Joe
was down just when it melted one year. There is a snowmobile
opportunity for people to really experience on that body of
water, and well past the season when everything else has
melted.
In my fourth point in the
presentation, I outline my points about Bill 101 and I ask: Will
it solve the problem or does it create a problem? While it may be
fair in the south, I don't think it is in the north and here are
my reasons why. I might be off base in some of my thoughts, so
tell me if you think so.
My initial thought is that
the fee is a little too high. If we want someone to come through
that door and we're going to charge them $150, they're probably
not going to come through the door. But if we charge them $25 to
come through the door and get them onside inside, then we can
realize the extra dollars we might need afterwards. That's my
point there.
I really strongly feel that
our volunteers have been doing a great job trying to maintain
these trails, but they're working to their limit right now. The
work they do is to the benefit of others, and even to charge them
that high fee I don't think is fair. Many trail users are from
outside the area, and I don't fault them for coming into our
area, in fact, we welcome them here. But I stress that point.
I feel that the Ministry of
Northern Development and Mines-and here I put in the point, let's
change the word "development" to "survival", because I think it
gives us a truer picture of that ministry and what it's trying to
do. I think of it as the ministry of northern survival and mines,
because the north is in tough times and this ministry has to come
through to help it. I feel that that ministry should be
partnering with municipalities to fund and assist more directly
with the operation and maintenance of the trail network. Perhaps
I'm off base when it comes to the bigger cities, but I think I'm
on base for small-town northern Ontario.
Small northern clubs do not
meet the membership requirements for recognition and funding by
the OFSC. I've said that already. This, in turn, allows them no
chance to purchase equipment such as groomers to carry out their
work.
In point (g), I outline that
operation costs far exceed any membership revenues. If you've
only got 10 or 12 people in your club, the revenue from the
membership sales doesn't amount to much.
Trail user fees are paid by
visiting users at other points of entry and don't go to clubs
conducting necessary trail maintenance. I think that's maybe a
problem facing a number of places across the north, where
visiting groups of hundreds of snowmobilers are paying their
fees, but we have to get it back to the areas they are actually
snowmobiling in.
While we can construct and
maintain our local trail network, we need help with the TOPS
trail network. I am saying that on behalf of Beardmore; that's
the main trail going through.
In point (j), I outline that
extra duties of acting as trail wardens are difficult in
small-town settings, where if you have 10 or 12 members and they
have to go out and chase or arrest or charge their friends, you
create a scenario that's negative rather than positive. We're
trying to welcome people on board and get them to pay their fees
in a voluntary fashion.
I've outlined some solutions
on the second page. I say in point 1 that a lower trail permit
for northern residents similar to the lower northern vehicle
licence fee of yesteryear, eg, $35, might be in order.
In my second point is the
flow of funds from large southern clubs to smaller northern ones.
If you have a club with thousands of members, they are realizing
many thousands of dollars, and they're having a good time
spending it and are probably spending it properly and
appropriately. But perhaps there is room for some of those extra
dollars to slide into the north, where they are really
needed.
In my third point I am
recommending special funding for crucial link communities on the
TOPS trail, such as Beardmore. For example, I say that the
province could fund a groomer, new or used, to be stationed in
Beardmore, which, in turn, would be housed and fuelled by the township of Beardmore, and
then the volunteers would put it to use keeping and maintaining
the trail.
I really feel that
municipalities have to partner in this. We do this when we
operate arenas. We don't expect our hockey team to build the
arena, but when it comes to using the arena, we expect them to
pay a fee for the service. I think we can look at this in a
similar fashion.
1330
My fourth point is short-term
trail permit dollars distributed to clubs along the routes used
by the holders. If we have visitors from out of country, let's
find a way of passing the dollars they spend on their permits
back to the communities they travel through.
In my fifth point I recommend
a positive approach. Let's put the trails in order and then
pursue user-fee increases. We still have some building to do out
there. There are challenges, be it with bridges or with the
grooming of the trail itself.
I also flag the negative news
ad campaign in regard to the illegal use of trails. It's possibly
creating a backlash from a number of snowmobile trail users. If
we continue to advertise and threaten that you will be charged or
arrested, this seems to get people's dander up. I think we have
to try to bring them on board rather than challenge them in a
negative fashion.
I also look to more direct
support from MNDM, the Ministry of Tourism, the MNR and the MTO.
All these agencies can help out, whether it's MTO planning their
bridge crossings for highway traffic to also be able to carry
snowmobile traffic or MNR providing assistance in mapping and
layout of trails and helping with the issues. Tourism, of course,
is always there to bring us forward when it comes to advertising
the area and the region, and MNDM with their funding.
In closing, I say that we are
facing volunteer burnout problems due to overwork and worry,
because there is a hell of a responsibility that our snowmobile
members are putting on their shoulders when it comes to
maintaining that trail network. Why should they carry the whole
load-desperate fundraising in order to carry on? They actually
spend their whole year just trying to keep things rolling and
going, and this causes the burnout.
Snowmobiling itself can turn
the economy of the north around. For the town I reside in or the
sister communities of the region, we know that well. Provincial
and municipal governments have responsibilities to see this
through. I recommend that a joint committee be formed to address
this challenge and perhaps support the snowmobile groups in their
endeavours. It could consist of representation from the following
sectors: the provincial government, municipal governments, OFSC
and general public representatives. Also included in there should
be the First Nation community, because we are travelling adjacent
to or through many reserve areas and there is a chance for those
groups to realize revenue just as well as the municipalities.
I thank you for your time,
and I'll entertain any questions you have.
The Chair:
Thank you, mayor. We have time for a relatively quick question
from each caucus. This time I'll start with Mr Bisson.
Mr Bisson:
Thank you very much, mayor. Let me get to the point, because I
have the same problem in Timmins-James Bay in regard to smaller
communities that don't have the membership base to get TOPS
funding through the OFSC system.
The question I have for you
is: Are you suggesting that the government should amend the
legislation to either force the OFSC or find a way with the OFSC
to lower the threshold so that they can become clubs and get some
of the money they need to buy groomers and do the kind of work we
need to do, or do you see that more the responsibility of
northern survival and mines? I'm starting a trend here with
you.
Mr
Rutherford: I would say northern survival and mines can
get in there initially, because they have funding they can bring
into the picture to allow things to happen. The OFSC is already
overburdened with the general operation of the system, and I
haven't found a negative person there yet. In fact, we've got
some excellent support from Tom Quinton and others as we've tried
to go forward with our endeavours. So they're onside.
I think we've got to get
together and see where we can wiggle this through to solve the
problem in the missing link or missing links.
Mr Bisson:
So it would need to be some form of special program within
northern survival and mines to fund the smaller clubs and not to
burden TOPS or the OFSC itself.
Mr
Rutherford: Something like a strategic groomer stationed
in a small community setting, subject to recall if something
breaks down somewhere else in the system. But rather than having
it in Sudbury, it could be in Beardmore.
Mr Bisson:
Where is this town Sudbury?
Mr
Rutherford: I'm not sure, sir.
Mr Bisson:
You're trying to forget that one.
The Chair:
It's down south.
Mr
Rutherford: There is a large groomer distributor located
there.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Bisson. Mr Spina?
Mr Joseph Spina
(Brampton Centre): Thank you, Eric. Good to see you
again. Thank you for, yet again, another snowman. I want to ask
you: Did you paint the one on the side of the town yet?
Mr
Rutherford: We have a new snowman constructed and we
have a 30-foot-long "Gateway to Lake Nipigon" sign that you're
going to have to come down to see before the snow flies. That
gives you four weeks to get there.
Mr Spina:
You're planning for a long snow season, Eric.
What I wanted to ask you
was regarding a couple of issues. One is the fee structure,
particularly to promote tourism, and the other is funding for
operations for northern and smaller clubs.
The first question is with regard to the fee
structure. Do you think a more flexible fee structure would help?
I think there's a one-day permit now. There was a seven-day
permit, and I know at some point there was a three-day permit. Do
you think those would help at all in promoting tourism, Eric,
because obviously a one-, three-, five- or seven-day fee would be
a reduced fee from the full year?
Mr
Rutherford: It could when you're bringing people in, but
I'm looking at the people in the community itself. We have a
mixture of seniors, trappers, young people and First Nation
people, and if you want those people-say the 20 or 30 who are
going to become the backbone of your club-to come out and work
and charge them $150, then they're not too excited about it. But
if the fee is within reach, then they don't mind paying it and
also working. When you join a small club, you're really taking on
work, where if you join a golf club or a curling club in a large
city centre, it becomes a very relaxed atmosphere that you enjoy
because there are many people to do the jobs. But in the north,
we have to do all of them ourselves.
Mr Spina:
So if we were able to generate enough revenue within a mandatory
permit structure to help sustain the trails and also, perhaps,
help to reduce the amount of volunteer burnout-in other words,
reduce the amount of volunteer time-and maybe have some cash to
help pay people to groom the trails, would that go towards
achieving the objective?
Mr
Rutherford: Yes, it would, but I still feel we need the
lower fee to get things up and rolling. Then, if we provide a
quality service, we can perhaps expect a higher amount of revenue
from it afterwards.
The Chair:
Mr Gravelle.
Mr Michael Gravelle
(Thunder Bay-Superior North): Two quick questions, if I
may, Mr Rutherford. The $150 fee: you've pinpointed, quite
frankly, really well a number of the concerns that are out there
about the legislation and what isn't there. What do you think
will happen if they don't adjust the $150 fee? Most people think
it's very excessive. We know we can drive our own vehicles across
North America for much less than that, so this is a huge fee.
Just in terms of your own community, what do you think will
happen if that fee is maintained at $150? Do you think everybody
will pay it, or will people just ignore it?
Mr
Rutherford: People will ignore it, and the snowmobile
club that currently exists in our community, which is not
recognized by OFSC, would not charge that fee. They would
probably levy a $10 or $20 fee, and the people paying that fee
would use the trail network they've maintained. If there was a
TOPS trail going through, they would probably just chug along on
it as well, and someone from a faraway town would have to come to
arrest them.
Mr
Gravelle: That is why I asked the question. I've had a
lot of people express to me the concern that they won't be
intending to pay at all.
Mr
Rutherford: What it does is create a negative. We're
wasting our energy fighting over this and doing nasty things
instead of saying, "Everybody, let's get together and do it,"
rather than squabble over this-
Mr
Gravelle: And you think that could perhaps be
accomplished by having an adjustment in the fee structure or some
adaptation as well for the traditional users, I presume?
Mr
Rutherford: Yes, I think it could. Then, when people are
on board and the positives start to roll, we will have a real
functioning organization we can be proud of.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Gravelle, and thank you very much, mayor, for
taking the time to drive down and make your presentation. We
appreciate it very much.
Mr
Rutherford: In closing, I say to this committee that if
you're still underway during the winter months, it would be
really great to plan a snowmobile trip from Kenora to North Bay,
which you could head up. And as you travel across the north,
various municipalities and clubs could join the entourage. We
could really make some hay out of this and advertise that fact.
Perhaps if we started in Kenora and got to North Bay with
actually thousands of people, maybe the Premier of the province
would even greet us there and host a dinner. So think of that.
Thank you, sir.
The Chair:
Thank you.
Mr Brown:
Mr Chair, just a question for the ministry, if we could just have
them research it for us. I would like to know how many more
permits they believe will be sold under the mandatory system.
1340
TOWNSHIP OF SCHREIBER
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from the township of Schreiber.
Mayor Krause is our third notable luminary kicking off our
proceedings here today. It's good to see you. Welcome to the
committee.
Mr Bob
Krause: Good afternoon. I'd like to thank you for
allowing me the opportunity to speak to this bill. My name is Bob
Krause. I'm the mayor of Schreiber, and this is Jeff Dicaire, who
is our economic development coordinator. For those of you who
don't know where Schreiber is, it is 200 kilometres east of
Thunder Bay on Highway 17. It appears that we're left off the map
all the time lately. They don't seem to want to have us there,
but we holler loud enough and I'm big enough that they get to
know where we are anyhow.
I would like to thank this
government for their interest in snowmobiling, as it has become
such a large industry in Ontario, especially in the north. Here
in the north, we are becoming ever so dependent on tourism for
our survival, and being able to promote our area year-round has
been helpful. Tourism, at one time, was just in the summertime,
but now it's becoming year-round. I can foresee that we will be
having our tourist information centres open year-round as well.
It's very important what snowmobiling is doing to us.
Schreiber is in the planning stage of building a
large interpretive centre. Our interpretive centre is to the tune
of about $13 million, so it's a large project, and it will be a
summer and winter operation. One of the aspects taken into
consideration for the location of this centre was the TOPS trail,
which runs right by the interpretive centre. The TOPS trail was
built by the Lake Superior Family SnowGoers, who have put
thousands of hours into it. They've done an excellent job, and
we've taken advantage of trying to locate our interpretive centre
right alongside of it. It'll be running right by us. That
indicates the importance of snowmobiling in our community.
I believe it is time for
the government to take a more active role in helping maintain the
trail system that has been built, with government financial help,
by the thousands of volunteers across the province. For the
marketing efforts to continue there must be a continued influx of
funding dollars to balance the effort from the volunteers. We
must also ensure that any revenue derived from proposed mandatory
trail permits continue to be spent on trails for safety and
sustainability reasons.
You definitely have a
challenge ahead of you, as you must ensure that the system is put
into place to ensure the sustainability of our trails while
keeping it affordable and fair to all parties-local snowmobilers
and tourists alike.
Northwestern Ontario is
fast becoming known as a snowmobile haven, and if all parties do
not work together to make the industry attractive and
sustainable, we will be left behind in an industry that can
provide such an economic spinoff to our communities. I don't
think the magnitude has been anticipated. Snowmobilers contribute
a great deal of dollars to our local economy by purchasing fuel,
staying in motels, eating in restaurants etc, and this bill must
address the problem facing the industry and help to get over the
hurdles facing us.
Here in northwestern
Ontario, we have some of the most beautiful, yet challenging,
terrain in which to build and maintain trails. For that reason we
must ensure that the permit dollars received are distributed
equally to all regions.
The volunteers who have
created these trails now require the support and partnership of
the government, and you must work together to ensure the
sustainability of these trails for all to enjoy. The trail system
is there now, and we need to take advantage of benefits by having
everyone work together. This will become a major attraction for
the province and its people to be extremely proud of.
The proposed legislation is
a good step in the right direction and I'd like to thank you for
providing me the opportunity to come here today.
The Chair:
That leaves us lots of time for questions. This time the rotation
will start with the government, Mr Dunlop.
Mr Dunlop:
Thank you for coming so far to make this presentation. By the
way, Schreiber is on the snowmobile map?
Mr Krause:
It was left off when they brought forward the work that they were
doing up in northern Ontario. As well, it was left off of a
couple of tourism maps.
Mr Dunlop:
Just a couple of very quick questions. One, you mentioned your
interpretative centre?
Mr Krause:
Yes.
Mr Dunlop:
I was wondering if you could explain how that was funded, and
second, I'd like to know how you feel about the fees for the
OFSC.
Mr Krause:
The interpretative centre that we're planning on is in the
planning stages and we're now out trying to look for dollars. I
believe Jeff here can elaborate a little more on that.
Mr Jeff
Dicaire: We've just completed the feasibility study for
our interpretative centre which has declared that it can be
feasible and sustainable to run on its own, so we're out lobbying
the heritage fund right now. The feasibility study was funded in
a joint effort by Fednor and the heritage fund. We're obviously
approaching those people at this point in time, as well as some
private investors, so that we can try and put our ducks in a row
to get going on this. We understand that tourism is important, as
everyone has been reiterating, and that's one of the aspects that
we're hoping to take advantage, of along with the heritage
locally that we have in the railroad industry and some of the
marine heritage and everything else that happens in northwestern
Ontario.
Mr Dunlop:
Sorry, I thought it was already under construction. You're
looking for funding now?
Mr
Dicaire: We've got the site. The site has been chosen,
and now we're going after the funding to get it done.
Mr Dunlop:
The other question was: I was wondering how you felt about the
permit fees that are in place?
Mr Krause:
The permit fees: I feel that they are going to have to try and
keep them under control, because in small communities, as you
know, snowmobiling is very important. We have a lot of people who
have three or four snowmobiles. You have one for yourself, your
wife and two or three kids. They all might have a snowmobile,
because we can leave my house, go out the back door and I'm gone.
That's pretty costly snowmobiling for a family if we had to buy a
permit for each machine, so the permit fees have to be kept where
you can afford to buy several permits in one family.
Mr Spina:
Thank you, Bob, for coming forward today and giving us your
comments.
With regard to the fees,
right now, as you know, the fees are set by the federation at
their annual general meeting on a vote by the 200 delegates of
the 281 clubs at their convention. If the province becomes
involved in the mandatory permit status or issue, as is part of
this bill, the minister will have the final say as to whether
those fees are acceptable or even set the fee. That's the way the
bill is worded now. Do you feel that the federation should retain
that autonomy to create those fees at their annual general
meeting with the approval or not of the minister?
Mr Krause: The minister and the
federation are going to have to work together to set these fees.
I believe it's not one-sided; they should be working together to
do this.
Mr Spina:
There's currently an equalization formula for distribution of
some of the funds that the federation has from some of the
wealthier clubs to some of the not-so-wealthy clubs. Do you think
that this formula is working right now? Do you have a feel for
that at all?
1350
Mr Krause:
I couldn't say at this time.
Mr Spina:
Thanks, Bob.
The Chair:
Ms Bountrogianni.
Mrs Marie
Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain): Thank you for your
presentation.
Yesterday in Kenora, we
heard a lot from trappers and other traditional users of the
trails who felt that it was unfair that this fee of $150 be
applied to them. They felt that there shouldn't be any fees
applied to them, or a very minimal fee, because they built the
trails in the first place, and for various other reasons. What is
your opinion on that?
Mr Krause:
I believe that the people should be able to continue to use those
trails that they have already built. Now, if they're using the
trails that are built by the snowmobile clubs and what have you,
then they would have to pay toward that fee.
The Chair:
Mr Gravelle.
Mr
Gravelle: May I say, just in terms of Schreiber being
left off the map, it actually happened three times. I think it's
a good opportunity to have the government members here to explain
that it really was establishing a tourism map: the minister's up
here to announce highway construction and leaves Schreiber off
the map, and other communities as well. I hope that won't happen
again. I think it's something that we have to keep talking about
it. It's a shame we have to keep talking about it.
Mr Spina:
Thanks for the promotion, but there's nobody here in cabinet,
Mike.
Mr
Gravelle: But I know you have a great deal of influence,
and I'm sure Mayor Krause won't mind my making reference to that
because it upset us all.
How important, in terms of
Schreiber in the region, is snowmobiling in terms of your
community? Can you give us a real sense of that, what impact it
has on your community?
Mr Krause:
Snowmobiling is very important to us, and it's going to be
especially important in the future. Motels in the wintertime drop
off because of tourism, and snowmobiling will help these tourist
outfitters, and what have you, continue to survive.
We had a case a couple of
years ago where some people came into town snowmobiling for a
couple of days. We welcomed them, took them out and showed them
the trails. It wound up they stayed for a week, went home for a
couple of weeks, came back and spent another three weeks
snowmobiling around Schreiber, where they bought gasoline, ate in
the restaurants and stayed in the motels. It's stuff like that
that's going to make or break some of these places that depend on
tourism and it's very important.
Mr
Dicaire: Just to drive that home a little bit, some of
the local business people are seeing enough of an advantage that
one motel owner has already set up a barrel sauna in his parking
lot with a hot tub. Looking at catering specifically to
snowmobilers has really been a strong part of their marketing
plan. They're building a shed at the back so that the
snowmobilers can come in and work on their machines in a heated
environment when they're coming through. The businesspeople are
starting to see the advantages and the benefits that can be
derived from snowmobilers coming through. As we said, the TOPS
trail runs right through our community so we're a natural. We're
just a nice distance away from Thunder Bay to make it a good hard
ride in a day, but we can make it.
Mr
Gravelle: I think we're going to hear a lot, obviously,
about the amount of the fee, the $150. It's an important issue to
sort out, and I know that the OFSC is really concerned with this
as well in terms of getting it right. But my question is, if the
fee is too high, and the fact that we have had two winters that
haven't been the best for encouraging people, what impact do you
think that could have? My concern is that it could have a major
impact. If the people perceive that the fee is too high or that
they're being forced to pay for something that they shouldn't
have to pay for in the first place, it could have a really
negative impact. Have you calculated that at all, Jeff or
Bob?
Mr
Dicaire: Any of the experiences I've had with the
tourists coming through, or anyone I've talked to over the
telephone who plans on coming and wants to discuss the fee, once
they realize how the fee is based, how the system actually works
and they realize what the trails are like, the amount of work
that the volunteers put into the trails, not too many people have
a problem paying that amount.
The problem that you'll
find is with the traditional users, the local people who have two
or three sleds; they're going to have to make a decision on
whether they want to use the trails or not. It's my
understanding-and I don't want to speak for the OFSC; they'll
speak here later-that they have the same vantage point: they also
don't want the traditional users having to pay on trails that
they've paid for before. As long as we keep all parties working
together to a common goal, I don't see this being a problem. I
think we can work this out.
Mr
Gravelle: I think that is the trick.
Mr Bisson:
I've got two questions. The first one is in regard to the act.
One of the things this act says in short terms, outside of legal
terms, is that if somebody takes your snow machine, takes off
down the trail and gets caught, it's the snow machine that gets
fined. Most of us have a couple of machines at home. If one of
your kids or a neighbour's kid, a nephew or somebody, jumps on
the machine and goes down the trail, it's the machine that gets
the ticket. Do you see that as being fair, or should we amend
that section of the legislation to ticket the person who has been caught, and
if that person didn't make sure there was a ticket on, then it's
the person who gets charged?
Mr Krause:
I believe the person should get charged.
Mr Bisson:
You? It's not a trick question. We get into this every now and
then in legislation. I know we've been down this road before,
when we were the government, and I was very uncomfortable with
it. Now I see that this government has adopted the policy that
they were opposed to when we were in government, and I'm a little
bit confused because everybody's changed position on this. I
really have a problem with that, because the nature of
snowmobiling is that often your kids are going to take the
machine to go out on the lake for a ride and they cross the trail
to get somewhere and, whammo, dad's just got himself a $100 fine.
I know what's going to happen to that kid when he gets back home,
but that's another story.
Mr
Dicaire: That's the whole thing, but I agree as well
that it's got to be the person who's travelling. If they're old
enough to possess a licence and be travelling on a machine, then
they've got to take some responsibility.
Mr Bisson:
The other part of the legislation under 17.1 deals with the issue
of a person who is told to stop by a police officer and doesn't.
The fine is a minimum of $1,000 and up to $10,000 or six months
in jail. Is that excessive? I'm thinking, yes, there are cases
where if the person involved is drinking or they've broken the
law, I can understand why we'd want to have something as severe
as that-it's probably in keeping with the motor vehicle act, I
would imagine-but again in the case of the 15-year-old son or
daughter who takes the machine and says, "Oops, I'm about to get
caught," you're with a $1,000 fine, maybe $10,000, depending on
how the judge feels, or there's jail time, is that excessive?
Mr
Dicaire: I don't believe it's excessive at all. I've
been on the trails a lot myself and I've seen some of the
"animals" who drive snowmobiles. If people are running they seem
to ride a little more erratically, and when they come around some
of the corners that we have in northwestern Ontario and come up
some of the blind hills and you meet a family head on, there have
been enough deaths in snowmobiling lately that they have to make
it so that people take it seriously.
Mr Bisson:
Here's a question for the parliamentary assistant: I take it that
section 17 is in keeping with the motor vehicle act, right?
That's where that comes from?
Mr Spina:
Yes. What we're doing is bridging the infractions, if you will,
on the snowmobile much closer to the Highway Traffic Act. Very
similar infractions would be bridged to the actual driver's
licence so that if there was a suspension with one it would
equally apply to the other.
Mr Bisson:
The last question is about the amount of the trail permit. There
are some people who feel that's excessive. Is that your view, or
is that a fair assessment, $150 for the trail permit?
Mr Krause:
At this time, knowing the amount of work these people have put
into it and the terrific cost of doing this, it's not really. As
Jeff said before, once you realize what these people have spent
to do this work, $150 is not bad. But you get people who look at
$150 and say, "What am I getting for it?" A lot of times those
are the people who don't even know what a snowmobile trail looks
like.
Mr Bisson:
I have another question but I'll wait for the OFSC to show
up.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for making a presentation. Just so you don't
think it's only one level of government, I noticed last year that
Northumberland county left Cobourg off its tourism map. It only
happened to be the biggest city in the county-surely an oversight
on all parts.
Thank you very much for
coming all this way to make your point. Good to see you again,
and best of luck on that interpretive centre. I remember talking
about it at AMO last year. Good luck.
I'm told we've had a
cancellation at the 2 o'clock spot and two of the members have
asked if we could have a brief recess. I'm not going to go the
whole 20 minutes but I'll give you a 10-minute recess. Apparently
the media have made a request to speak to two of the members. The
committee will stand recessed for 10 minutes.
The committee recessed
from 1400 to 1412.
BEDA'S CANADIAN LODGE
The Chair:
I call the meeting back to order. Thank you all for your
indulgence. Our next presentation will be from Beda's Canadian
Lodge. Good afternoon. Welcome to the committee. I take it you're
Mr Beda?
Mr Pat
Beda: First, I just want to say thanks for having me as
a speaker and I do kind of feel like a fish out of water here
because my two concerns on Bill 101 are, basically, how it's
going to affect me as a sportsman and how it's going to affect me
as a tourist outfitter. I've got a couple of pages put together
here and I have a couple of questions and I'd be more than happy
to answer any.
Section 49 of the Public
Lands Act states, "any person has a right of passage on a road
other than a private ... road." Approximately 90% of the trails
in northwest Ontario are on existing public forest roads. Many of
these public forest roads were built over existing trails that
trappers, hunters, fishermen and prospectors used for years. Bill
101, as it is written, gives the OFSC land tenure and prohibits
those of us who have used these old trails for years from
accessing traditional hunting and fishing spots. Many of these
roads were paid for by the public and are supposed to be open to
the public under section 49 of the Public Lands Act. Why should
the OFSC have exclusive use of the public forest roads where, in
the past, there has been multiple use? If I'd like to ride the
trails, I'll gladly buy a permit. My paying tourists, if they
want to ride the trails, will buy a permit.
There is other winter tourism than snowmobile
riding. I had been successfully marketing my product for years
before the snowmobile trail came into existence. I didn't need a
groomed trail before it came and I don't need it now. Organized
snowmobiling was funded by the government to promote tourism, yet
the Ontario federation has held the government ransom by
threatening a $300 fee on non-residents unless they get their way
with the government. And now you want a piece of my action from
my clientele. I don't feel that's right. I've got 21 clientele
this winter lined up for ice fishing-strictly ice fishing. If
they have to buy a permit to go ice fishing for the short,
approximately three quarters of a mile of groomed trail that they
use, they're not coming. Although the business has been in the
family since 1939, my wife and I just purchased it a year ago. If
I lose that clientele, that's four months' mortgage for me; it's
detrimental.
Nothing in Bill 101
addresses traditional users or tourist outfitters. Basically,
that's all I have to say. I do feel that I could take questions
and give you good answers because I've worked the industry both
sides of the border. I did belong to Adventure Trails for three
years. It didn't work for me for recreational riders because we
don't have the same products at Shebandowan that they have in the
immediate Thunder Bay area.
The Chair:
That does leave us lots of time for questions. I'm sure there
will be many. This time the rotation will start with the
Liberals.
Mrs Lyn McLeod
(Thunder Bay-Atikokan): You're at Shebandowan. You're
not getting a lot of tourism value directly from snowmobiling
itself.
Mr Beda:
Initially, when the trail was pushed out there and I got on with
the club, it was a run for the money; it was a new place to go.
It sounds trivial to some of you guys from the south but a good
weekend was 60 sleds and four or five during the week. For me it
wasn't feasible; I did not get a return on my money. After three
years, I dropped out of trail riding and resumed with ice-fishing
clientele.
Mrs
McLeod: Can you explain why the necessity of the permit
would directly affect your ice-fishing clientele?
Mr Beda:
The bill, as it is written, does not address any traditional
users. It's plain and simple that anybody who uses any section of
that trail will have to have a permit. These groomed trails were
not constructed by the snowmobile clubs. They ran a groomer down
a road that our tax dollars had already paid for and were
abandoned by the logging companies. When they came and groomed
those trails, we didn't have a problem with them because we could
coexist. And now the general public who ice-fishes and hunts and
traps and prospects, we're feeling like we're being pushed out by
squatters. We didn't complain when they came.
Mrs
McLeod: But your clientele would use portions of a trail
in order to access the particular spots-
Mr Beda:
I'm sorry?
Mrs
McLeod: Your particular clientele, the ice-fishing
clientele, in the wintertime would use portions of the snowmobile
trails in order to access the sports where they're fishing?
Mr Beda:
Yes. I would rather say that the portion of the trail that
they've been using is now groomed by the snowmobile club.
Mrs
McLeod: I think those are all the questions I have.
Mr Beda: I
would like to add, if the snowmobile federation had a good
product, they wouldn't have to force it on people. And
furthermore, if you've got something you think is good, you
should give away some free samples. If you go to Minnesota-if
you're licensed here, you're good to go. I've had positive
comments from Americans on our trail system and I've had some
negative comments, from, "Can't find our way on the trail because
it hasn't been groomed in weeks," to lack of signage, to the
cost. I think if you had a good product, you'd get more of the
general people of Ontario on board for what you're trying to
do.
Mrs
McLeod: Maybe I'll actually ask one small question if
there's still a moment. Has there been any direct conflict-I
don't mean interpersonal conflict-between the snowmobile users
and the ice fishing clientele who would be using a portion of the
trail? Has it caused any problems?
Mr Beda:
No, there's been a very pleasant co-existence until now. I'm
afraid that because of the lack of publicity over the past summer
about what's trying to go down here, things could explode this
winter. I expected the seats to be full today, but according to
the OFSC Web site, they wanted this kept pretty much under wraps
until it was all tight and done. I've got that copied off the
Internet. I think the public should have been more informed, to
get more people fully aware and get more people on your side.
Mr Bisson:
I hear part of what you're saying. I don't agree with the way
you're trying to position the OFSC. There are a lot of good
volunteers who are working to promote tourism in our area and I
have a bit of a problem with the approach, but I understand and
respect that you have your view.
My question is on the issue
of those who traditionally use those old roads to access lakes.
How would you make that work? If the law says you have to have a
trail permit to ride on the trail, and somebody who's going to
your establishment, going out ice fishing, uses four or five
miles of the trail to get there, how are you able to police who
is going fishing and who is not? Do you have any suggestion how
that could be done?
Mr Beda:
Yes, I do.
Mr Bisson:
I have some sympathy for what you're saying, but it would be
fairly difficult to do.
1420
Mr Beda:
I'm in contact with some of the conservation offices in the area.
It's pretty evident when somebody's going ice fishing, they're
travelling with a certain amount of gear. If they're not
travelling with any gear, they're snowing you. I don't know how
you would put how much
gear into a law, but the people in charge of enforcing it would
know if you're snowing them or not.
Mr Bisson:
You're asking us to see if there is an amendment that can be made
for anybody who's utilizing the trail for strictly those
purposes. They're not out trailing, they're trying to get to
their trap line, they're trying to get to a lake to do some
fishing within reason; not like I'm going down 80 miles to get to
my lake. I think that would be a different situation. You're
looking for some sort of amendment to cover that off, right?
Mr Beda:
Absolutely. There's a fair number of local residents who fish the
same lakes that I send my tourists to.
Mr Bisson:
I guess I raised part of the problem in my own thinking out loud
about this, because what do you do with a person like me who goes
fishing? That's one of the things I do when I snowmobile, but I'm
going like 80 miles back on a trail somewhere. Is that considered
sledding or is that considered fishing?
Mr Beda:
If you've got gear with you, you're obviously going fishing. I
don't know of many recreational riders who-
Mr Bisson:
All right, let's bring that one step forward. Not that I want to
defend the government-God knows I don't want to do that-but if
all I've got to do not to get a trail permit is put some fishing
gear behind my sled, I'm trying to figure out legally how you can
deal with the issue. I agree with you; those people who are not
primarily using the trails for trailing, but rather they're
trying to carry out another activity, if there's a way of
drafting an amendment that covers that, I'd be prepared to
support it. But I have a problem doing something blanket because
I know what people will do. All my friends back home would say,
"Oh, Jeez, I've got five fishing rods. I'll keep them in the back
of the sled and have a great time." I'm trying to figure out how
you get past that.
Mr Beda:
It's kind of like a couple of vehicles down the road. If there's
a private vehicle with people in it, they might be on a trip, but
if there's a truck, they're obviously working or hauling
something; a similar situation.
Mr Bisson:
Then one of the things I'd ask research is if we can look at
seeing if there's some way of drafting an amendment that would
deal with the concern he has but doesn't make it so that people
can use it as a loophole to get out of paying their trail
permits. Most of the members of the committee would, I hope,
agree to look into that. I see a nod from the parliamentary
assistant. I take that as a yes.
One other question before
you go, if I have time, Chair?
The Chair:
Very briefly.
Mr Bisson:
Then I may not have time.
The Chair:
No, go ahead.
Mr Bisson:
OK. Under section 7 of the act, it basically says that at all
times you must carry a trail permit or your driver's licence when
on a trail or on public land. That touches back to the issue you
talk about, which is that a person who goes out fishing or a
trapper who goes out trapping has to have their driver's licence,
and/or if they don't have a driver's licence, a snowmobile permit
to drive off the trail, or the conservation officer can charge
you. Should that be amended?
Mr Beda:
I'm not sure I fully understand your question. Can you repeat
it?
Mr Bisson:
I'm not sure I understand it myself.
Mr Beda:
There you go.
Mr Spina:
Time's up.
Mr Bisson:
Time's up. I think I'll have to come back to it, Chair, or do you
want me to try to explain it?
The Chair:
If what you're asking is, should you have to have a driver's
permit with you-
Mr Bisson:
Off the trail.
The Chair:
-off the trail, on otherwise public land, as a reference point
for a police officer or a warden, I think Mr Beda probably might
have-
Mr Beda: I
definitely think you should have to have some sort of
identification. I'm not sure if I'm fully in favour of the
licensing. I have grandchildren who are two and three now and
when they've five, six and seven, I expect to have them down on
the lake in front of our establishment maybe doing 100-yard loops
with a snowmobile and, the way that law is written, they aren't
going to be able to do that. That's kind of a tradition for
anybody who's been into snowmobiling. So yes, there need to be
some amendments there too.
Actually, I would like to
know who is representing the Ministry of Tourism here. Would that
be you, Mr Spina?
Mr Bisson:
You're just about to hear from him.
Mr Beda:
May I ask a question of you?
Mr Spina:
Yes.
Mr Beda:
The question I have is pretty simple. It may seem provocative,
but it's not. I don't understand how you can give away
exclusively by land tenure something the government has already
sold to me, which is my tourism licence. It states that I am a
resource-based tourism outfitter who uses a significant amount of
crown lands and/or natural resources. It doesn't exclude the
snowmobile trails.
Mr Spina:
Sorry-it doesn't exclude the snowmobile trails?
Mr Beda:
My tourist licence does not exclude snowmobile trails. It's
resource-based, so you're giving away free to the OFSC something
that you've sold to me already, something that I consider mine; I
paid for it.
Mr Spina:
Technically, just to answer the question, you're paying a fee to
use the system, and in effect, people who use the sanctioned OFSC
trail system are also paying a fee. The difference is you're
paying it to the government and they're paying it to their
snowmobile clubs and their federations. It's under a land use
permit system. It's not the same, but it's parallel. That's the
answer to that issue.
I wanted to talk about the
"right to crown land" issue that you addressed earlier in your
comments. I'm happy to talk about that, because under the policy
of access to crown land in the province of Ontario, the MNR has
been involved in all of
the meetings on the drafting of this bill. In fact, we've had 10
different ministries involved in the internal discussions on this
bill. If we are going to proceed with mandatory trail permits-and
I say "if" because the bill is only in first reading at this
point; that's why we're here having public hearings, to hear the
issues coming back to us-the MNR wants to make sure that whatever
we come out with, it fits within their policy of access to crown
land.
The snowmobile federation
gets access to crown land under land use permits, so they get
issued LUPs for sections of the trail, which permit them to build
the trail for their use. Under that right, if you will, they get
the right to charge the users of that trail system a fee. The
difference is that you get a tourism permit to operate your camp;
you pay a fee to the province for use of that crown land. So
there is a parallel there.
To tie the two together,
which addresses your issue, if I've got three quarters of a mile
of trail that was a traditional use and I've got people who are
going to be accessing it and you've got people who are going to
be accessing your ice fishing camps in the winter or whatever,
why should they have to pay the full fee? No argument. Right now
the federation, under its own autonomous infrastructure, has
exemptions for some traditional users-trappers, loggers, bait
fishermen and some of the operators.
What may be tacit
permission, in other words a co-operative verbal agreement with
your local snowmobile club, really is endorsed by the federation
itself. In passing, if we get to the stage where we introduce the
mandatory trail permit system, what we want to ensure is that
those rights are still and continue to be protected, except
you'll be even more protected because now it would not only be
set in law, but would be set in regulation.
Did you read the act?
Mr Beda:
Yes, I did, and actually I didn't see "traditional user" anywhere
in the act. That's why I'm here today.
Mr Spina:
Let me refer you to section 9 of the bill. It amends section 26
of the Motorized Snow Vehicles Act. I'm going to paraphrase this,
but you'll see it in three different paragraphs in section 9:
regulation-making power is provided for authority to create
classes of motorized snow vehicles and to exempt such classes
from any provision of the act or its regulations; regulations may
also be made general or particular and different classes of
persons may be identified for exemptions from the act or
regulations.
This clause in the bill
permits classes of permits to be issued. The one difference that
could happen under this system is this: instead of just riding
the system, you may have to go and get a sticker for the sled,
but you wouldn't be paying a fee for it because it would be an
exemption sticker for that limited territory in which you would
be using it.
The question I would have
is, if your sleds were exempted in the area where you use them
for your business, do you think it's fair that if you were beyond
that regulated area where you had the exemption, the user would
pay the trail fee, normally?
1430
Mr Beda:
Not if they're going ice fishing, because technically some of my
guests go as far as about 72 kilometres to reach some of these
lakes and they could be riding 40 kilometres of trail. The
concern I have is, where you said "different classes of trail"-I
would hope that before this becomes law-
Mr Spina:
Not different classes of trail; different classes of snow
vehicles and different classes of individuals would be identified
in regulations.
Mr Beda:
That would be fine. However, I would hope that before the bill
passes those are defined in the bill, because being a businessman
I don't like, "I'll pay you next year," or next whatever. Do you
understand what I'm saying?
Mr Spina:
Yes, because one of the things we are struggling with here is
this: how definite do we become in the bill itself in terms of
defining specific users, or can we work with the description in
the bill of classes of vehicles versus classes of individuals,
and then defining those vehicles and those individuals in the
regulatory structure that follows the bill?
Right now, for example, the
trail groomers are lumped together with the sleds. Under the
current 1972 Motorized Snow Vehicle Act, that means if you drive
a motorized snow vehicle, you've got to wear a helmet. Tell me
the last time you saw a trail groomer wearing a helmet.
Technically, that person driving the tractor is breaking the law
because 99.9% of the time-in fact always-they'll be wearing
nothing but a baseball cap or maybe a toque. In other words,
they're breaking the law under the old act. That's why we're
trying to expand it to define classes of vehicles.
We're also looking for your
more commercial users: hydro guys in the corridor who are
maintaining the lines, there may be municipal employees,
TransCanada Pipelines, that kind of stuff. We put loggers and
some of the traditional trail users in there. Where we need help
from you is how you would recommend-and I don't expect you to
answer it now, but if you can put some thoughts together with
some of the others; I know the Ontario Federation of Anglers and
Hunters is also very keen on this issue. We would be interested
in hearing from you how you define an area or an individual so
that we can describe that in either the bill or the regulations.
That's what we would appreciate your input on.
Mr Beda:
Let me say this from a personal standpoint, just as this
gentleman over here asked me, "Do you think people would try to
snow you by saying they're going ice fishing?" If I were to go
trail riding with a group of people, I don't think I would bother
or want to be one of the guys flipping the coin to see who's
going to pull this trailer to make it look like we're going ice
fishing. If I'm going riding, I'm going riding. If there are
people who are cheating the system, they will eventually get
caught. Certainly the
OFSC will get more revenue out of it, but at the same time
provide for these traditional users.
I don't think classes of
vehicle would work for my operation. I don't rent snowmobiles; I
rent cottages. The clientele bring their own snowmobiles. They've
got a fishing licence they're carrying with them; they've got a
fair amount of gear they're carrying with them. Shebandowan isn't
the kind of place where you just drive up with your minnow bucket
and your hand auger and your jig pole and walk in; you're taking
enough gear to sustain yourself for the day and maybe overnight,
should you break down. So it's fairly easy to identify who's
actually ice fishing and who's not; who's trapping and who's not;
who's prospecting and who's not.
I would hope that, before
this bill goes through, there will be some provisions for
traditional users, because the public's been kept very much in
the dark about this. I got a thank-you letter from you here in
April for my comments, and not a single person I talked to this
summer who's an outdoorsman was even aware of this stuff going
down.
Mr Spina:
This thing has been out in the field for six months. The
discussion paper was sent out back in January to 150 people. The
150 are people who sit on many boards of various large
organizations, whether it's the parks board, cottage
associations, whatever, as well as snowmobile organizations. It
wasn't a secret document. They had full right to distribute this
discussion paper for feedback before we could even begin to
consider whether or not the government was going to move forward
in this issue at all.
The feedback we got was
enough information to motivate us to move forward. That didn't
resolve the issues, but once we did begin to move forward, the
proposed bill was publicized. I don't know what else we could
have done other than put full-page ads in every newspaper in the
province. It's the normal way that bills are publicized. It's
been on Web sites. That's why we're having the public hearings,
Pat.
Mr Beda: I
understand. One of the things you could have done is-the
government knows where to find us when they send out our
snowmobile registration renewals, so they certainly could have
found us to send out these proposed changes.
Mr Spina:
You want to know the irony of that, Pat? MTO won't release that
list. I can tell you that for a fact. They deem that confidential
information. But that's a good point; thank you.
Mr Beda:
In closing, and it's my own personal view, and I could get into
why I feel this way, and I worry that others in the public would
feel the same way I do, but I do feel that organized
snowmobiling-I won't say the OFSC or Thunder Bay Adventure
Trails-do have some public relations things to overcome. There is
some negative feedback coming, and there is some stuff on paper
that shows why people feel the way they do.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Beda. You made one comment that I would like to
reflect on very briefly, about this winter having problems. I'm
not going to suggest, as committee Chair, that around here we
have the power to necessarily stop anything or make guarantees,
but I'll tell you that, based on past practices, it would be
extraordinarily unlikely that anything we do here would be
reflected in law in time for this season.
One other thing that I
didn't mention at the outset today, just to draw it to people's
attention, is that this is only about the fourth or fifth time
that we have ever held hearings after first reading of a bill.
First reading is really-you just read the title of the act and
you table the bill. Traditionally, hearings take place after
second reading, and by that point all three parties have
basically hardened their positions. One side's right, the other
side's wrong, and it's very tough to get the kind of compromises
and to genuinely seek input with an open mind.
We have found so far, in
the four other bills that have gone through, an extraordinarily
different scenario. I mentioned yesterday that Mrs Bountrogianni,
who was one of the Liberal members on the Mental Health Act that
went through, saw first hand that if we have these sorts of
hearings earlier in the process, we can go back and reflect not
just once, but twice, on what we've heard. It really does give us
an extra kick at the cat.
I've been very encouraged
by what we've seen in the first reading process so far. I
wouldn't want you to despair that a lack of feedback so far
necessarily means one thing or another. We genuinely look forward
to hearing suggestions as specific as we can get from people in
the course of these hearings. Then we have the time to go back,
all of us, and reflect on that and the suggestions we make for
amendments before the bill even goes back for second reading
debate.
I want you to have perhaps
a slightly higher comfort level than you might have had with past
government-and not just our government-any government
initiatives.
Mr Beda:
One of the main reasons I was concerned about what could
transpire this winter is because of the number of people in
recent months that I've talked to that are unaware, who would be
going out there ice fishing this winter and all of a sudden
getting a ticket and a confrontation, mainly due to the fact of
fishing regulation changes of a year and a half ago. It pitted
outfitters in my area against western region outfitters who
didn't have to clean their fish holes. I wrote a letter to the
government saying, "I hate those guys and I don't even know
them." That wasn't right. Within a matter of weeks, from all the
complaints they got, they said, "We can't have this in-provincial
citizens' fighting," and they made changes. I don't know if you
guys have looked at the long-term effects here of what
"traditional use" means to us northerners as opposed to down
south.
The Chair:
I think we're hearing the message loud and clear. I want you to
be encouraged by that.
Thank you very much,
sincerely, for taking the time to come and share your thoughts
with us here.
Mr Beda:
Thank you for having me.
1440
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF ANGLERS AND HUNTERS, ZONE
B
The Chair:
That takes us to our next presentation, the Ontario Federation of
Anglers and Hunters, Zone B.
Good afternoon, and welcome
to the committee. We have 20 minutes for your presentation.
Mr Neil
Wiens: Good afternoon.
I'd like to thank you for
giving me the opportunity to be here in front of you today. This
round of public consultation is long overdue concerning these
recommended changes to the Motorized Snow Vehicle Act.
Many of the concerns that I
will express on behalf of myself and the Ontario Federation of
Anglers and Hunters have been echoed by the previous speaker, and
I'm sure you will hear it from them in writing. They echo some of
the same anxieties that are or will be put forth to you by
individuals or organizations representing trappers, prospectors,
cottage owners and hunt camp owners. These groups of snowmobile
riders have been accessing much of northwestern Ontario-in fact,
most of Ontario-for many more years than the Ontario Federation
of Snowmobile Clubs has been in existence. Since the inception of
the groomed trail program, there have been conflicts between the
snowmobile users that cross our frozen crown land in pursuit of
the pleasures of trail riding versus recreation and
employment.
There are clearly two
different classes of users. The group that I represent has been
around since the snow machine was offered for sale to the general
public. We are the traditional users of the vast network of roads
and trails that cover crown land throughout the province. Our
snow machine is a tool. We use it to enhance or simplify our
access to hunting and fishing areas. We use these machines to
access trapping areas, for prospecting and to reach our cottage
or camp. The snowmobile is a means to an end. For recreational
riders, the snow machine is the end. The pursuit of their
enjoyment starts and stops with this motorized transport vehicle.
They're different purposes altogether.
When the trail network was
initiated, many of the routes chosen for improvements were trails
or road networks that had been available to traditional users for
years. In fact, many of the traditional users regularly
maintained those sections of roads and trails over which they
travelled-certainly not to the extent of the Ontario snowmobile
clubs, but maintenance just the same. There was no consultation
when these traditional trails were taken over for part of the
routes that are now managed and groomed by the snowmobile
federation clubs. Now these same traditional users are being
asked to subsidize a program for which they have no direct need
and which is attempting to infringe on the pursuit of the
enjoyment of our pastime or livelihood. This was wrong before
these proposed changes and it is no less wrong now. You must find
a way to continue the currently allowed exemption from the permit
system that is in place for traditional users.
I don't currently own a
sled. My son has a late-model machine and has owned snow machines
for many years. He has indicated to me that to force this extra
cost on him will be enough to move him away from snowmobiling.
This is a sentiment that I have heard from other anglers and
hunters.
At a time when the Ministry
of Natural Resources and groups like OFAH are trying to encourage
people to take up hunting and fishing, this bill will add to the
difficulties we are facing with recruitment drives. Ice fishing
and winter hunting are wonderful activities, but the pocketbooks
are only so deep and it seems that there is a never-ending flood
of regulations that would inhibit the pursuit of these pastimes
by making them ever more costly to enjoy. The expense of a trail
permit to traverse areas that have always been, in the past, open
to our crossing for a purpose other than simply riding the trails
is as unwarranted as the need for groomed trails to fulfill the
reason we are on the snow in the first place. The very title of
the act is a bit of an enigma to me: "to promote snowmobile trail
sustainability and enhance safety."
I mentioned earlier that
there has been an allowance in place for an exemption from the
permit requirement for traditional users who must use part of the
Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs trail system in order to
reach their destination. I mentioned some conflicts. Overzealous
trail wardens can have a detrimental effect on safety. Anglers
and hunters are sometimes going to their cottages and they're
made to feel like lawbreakers if they're stopped on the trail.
This has the potential to make someone push the limits of speed
in an effort to cover that part of the trail they must use in the
hope that they'll get off the groomed trail before anybody finds
them on it.
Parts of many of these
trails here in northwestern Ontario were kept open by users who
passed through in all seasons: anglers and hunters in the winter
on snow machines, and in the summer, on all-terrain vehicles or
in conventional trucks and four-wheel drives. They worked at
keeping access routes clear of fallen trees and encroaching
brush.
As an angler and hunter, I
also have a concern about how this act and supporting regulations
will be used as a precedent when another special interest group
or perhaps even the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs itself
proceeds to declare or obtain ownership of a network of trails
and roads across the province through the land use permit
process. Will there be the potential of further infringing on
traditional crown land use by anglers and hunters and others who
access parts of this province on trails and old road networks by
way of an all-terrain vehicle during the snowless parts of the
year?
As I said before, it's
clear we have two entirely different groups who would use the
vast network of trails and roads across crown land. They should
be treated differently in the regulations pertaining to who
should be assessed a fee. Anglers and hunters are not looking to
the Ontario Federation
of Snowmobile Clubs to subsidize the special purpose account that
is used to manage our fish and wildlife. Do not penalize us for
wanting to continue to enjoy our favourite pastimes.
The Chair:
That leaves us plenty of time for questions. This time the
rotation will start with Mr Bisson.
Mr Bisson:
Thank you for your presentation. I think you echo what a lot of
us in northern Ontario were feeling over the last number of
years, that the traditional use we've had for the outdoors,
everything from hunting to camping to fishing or whatever
activities we have utilizing the outdoors, seems to be falling
more and more under some sort of regulatory system. The latest
attack now is 21-day camping. God knows you can't go camping in
northern Ontario with your camper for more than 21 days without
being ticketed. The spring bear hunt has been banned etc. I hear
what you're saying, and coming from northeastern Ontario, I tell
you, that's the message we're hearing loud and clear over
there.
I want to come back to the
comment you made, and you echoed the comments of the previous
presenter. Do you have any suggestions-not word-wise-to guide
this committee about amendments we could make to the act so that
it doesn't capture those people who traditionally use the
outdoors for those other activities, who are not sledding? Do you
have any suggestions? Have you given it any thought? I think
there is some support here.
Mr Wiens:
Anybody who is using it for a purpose other than sledding is
going to have a machineful of equipment that is certainly going
to be easily identifiable for purposes other than just joyriding
on the trails. You're not going ice fishing without an ice auger
in the northwest, because the lakes aren't open; you're not going
hunting without a rifle; you're not trapping without some gear
with you; you're not prospecting without some gear with you. It
doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at what's on the sled and
say, "Yes, I know where this person's going."
Mr Bisson:
But how do you prevent the situation happening if somebody-I've
got a carrier in the back of one of my machines. I throw a
knapsack in there with all the paraphernalia to go ice
fishing.
Mr Wiens:
Are you going to carry a five-foot ice auger in the back of your
machine? You're not going to enjoy yourself much. You're going to
find that you're not going to use the trail for joyriding if
that's what you're going to be carrying.
Mr Bisson:
I might use an axe or I'm going to uncover an existing hole or
whatever. I'm just trying to figure if there's any thought. I've
asked the committee research people to see if they can come up
with some language in legal terms, and I'm just hoping somebody
has some ideas or suggestions as to how we can get at this issue.
From what I'm hearing here from all members of the committee-I
can't speak for the government, but certainly we on the
opposition side-I don't think we want to see that captured under
the act. We have the same concerns as you have.
Mr Wiens:
There is an exemption that's provided for those traditional users
right now, and it may well have to be expounded on a little bit
more. Mr Spina mentioned that there was the potential of issuing
permits to people who are using them for reasons other than
simply trail riding. I'm not sure whether that is the issue. It's
something that groups like the Ontario Federation of Anglers and
Hunters, and trappers' and prospectors' associations, may well
have to give some thought to and provide some more information to
you.
As I say, up here in the
north, it's cold enough in the wintertime that chances are you're
not going to open a hole with an axe unless you've got an axe
with a long handle on it. Most people who are trail riding don't
want to be burdened with unnecessary equipment behind them. They
are out there to enjoy themselves. They're not going there for
another reason.
Mr Bisson:
To the Chair of the committee: do we have to put that in the form
of a motion?
The Chair:
No.
Mr Bisson:
It's sufficient, and we'll get the work done. OK.
The Chair:
I don't know whether research is particularly the vehicle you
want to go through. I think you'll find that yesterday the
parliamentary assistant had already made a commitment to ask the
ministry to come back with something.
Mr Bisson:
I just want to make sure we look at that issue.
The other one is the same
question again, and that is, should people have to have a
driver's licence or a snowmobile licence to be driving a machine
off the trail system?
Mr Wiens:
I think that would be a good idea. Snowmobile permits for
children who are less than 16 years old and things like that,
with snowmobile courses for the safety aspect, are certainly a
good idea. I happen to disagree with the portion of the act that
says a liquor infraction on a snow machine is going to lead to
your driver's licence being restricted, but that's a personal
issue.
Mr Bisson:
OK, that's it for me. Thank you.
1450
Mr Spina:
There are a couple of things that I wanted to respond to. I
reiterate what Gilles was saying and what I said earlier to Pat
Beda. You made a bit of a comment in your response to Gilles
about how the definition of an exemption or an exempted person
should be. Right now, as you know, there are some exemptions and
there are some definitions. One of the reasons this section 9
that you heard me read out earlier was actually put into the bill
was in response to Rick Morgan's input as a part of our original
consultation process.
Mr Wiens:
I think it has to be in the bill itself right from the outset,
not a regulation that can be changed at some later date.
Mr Spina:
OK, that's a fair comment, thank you, but never at any point were
we asking that the anglers and hunters be subsidizing the trail
system.
Mr Wiens: That's exactly what they
would be doing, Mr Spina, if they're forced to pay for a trail
permit to use a portion of a trail to access areas where they
want to hunt and fish; to use a groomed trail over which they had
travelled for many years prior to the network of trails that is
being managed by the snowmobile clubs.
Mr Spina:
This is where we need your assistance to help us try to define
what a traditional user is. Are you suggesting to me-and I'm
asking you; I'm not trying to be a smart guy here-that if
somebody wants to go fishing, they can get on the trail system
and go anywhere in this province and they should have an
exemption? Is that what you're suggesting?
Mr Wiens:
Very few of the trails are going to exactly access the lakes that
people want to go fishing in, but you may have to traverse a
portion of that trail to reach a lake that's got some fish in it
to go fishing. But at some point you're getting off the trail to
go fishing. You're only using it to reach a destination, for a
purpose other than joyriding.
Mr Spina:
This is what we are asking the federation and all its members and
all its delegations, in all of the places that we are going to be
having these public hearings, because it's clearly going to be a
repetition, worded differently perhaps by individuals. That's
fine. We understand that and we welcome that, but what I'm saying
is that if you communicate this back, we're happy to hear your
concern. Tell us how we can more accurately describe that, if we
proceed with mandatory permits at all.
Mr Wiens:
What's the time frame that you're looking at?
Mr Spina:
You've probably got at least three or four weeks.
Mr Wiens:
Thank you.
Mr Spina:
I say that because that's likely when we'll get into the
discussion of amendments to the bill. That's all I'm saying.
Mr Wiens:
The point I'm trying to make, Mr Spina, is that I want to make
sure it's clear that there is an issue with traditional users and
they have to be taken into consideration. I think you've heard
that and you've echoed to me that you've heard that.
Mr Spina:
Oh, yes. Section 9 of the bill was actually created in response
to those comments. That's what I wanted to assure you of.
Also, I think the last
point you mentioned was the fish and wildlife fee fund.
Mr Wiens:
The special purpose account.
Mr Spina:
That's a protected trust. MNR is at the table with any move that
we make on this bill. It is their responsibility not only to
protect the crown lands in the traditional way they have been
mandated to do in terms of public access to the system, but it is
also their responsibility to protect the individual categories of
users that they license, and that includes all of you, all of
them and anyone else who has a licence.
Mr Wiens:
That's what I was driving at there, and perhaps you missed the
point. Currently anglers and hunters must purchase an Outdoors
Card. We're not asking the snowmobile operators to purchase an
Outdoors Card to enjoy the great outdoors. The money from the
Outdoors Card goes to the SPA, the special purpose account.
Mr Spina:
No argument. I hold one. Anyway, thank you.
Mr
Gravelle: Neil, it's good to see you. I think it's
important for the committee members to understand that you're
representing a large number of people.
Mr Wiens:
About 82,000 people at last count.
Mr
Gravelle: Exactly. I think that's important. It is a big
issue.
The question I have, which
actually isn't much different from Mr Spina's, is to try to find
some way of defining who would be exempted from actually having
to buy a permit if mandatory trail permits go through. What the
committee is learning is that the whole issue of the traditional
user is extremely important. It's one I've spoken about a great
deal in the Legislature over the last six months as well, let
alone the fact that I think the cost of the permit may be too
high in some areas.
Mr Wiens:
I think, Mike, rather than a definition of the traditional user,
it's a definition as to what use the snow machine is being
put.
Mr
Gravelle: How would you define that, then?
Mr Wiens:
How do I put it? It's a means to an end rather than an end in
itself.
Mr
Gravelle: Again, we need to find some way to make this
work.
I guess my question
ultimately ends up being that there are some who are simply
opposed to this legislation. They feel it basically just
shouldn't be going forward at all because of what it actually is
required to do. And there are some of us who would argue that the
government should be providing just straight funding to the
snowmobile clubs in terms of the economic return they have, and
they shouldn't be expected to get their support through trail
permits. I'm sure the government has heard that as well, that
there needs to still be pure government support for that.
Could you find a way to
define the traditional users of snowmobiles in a manner where you
would be prepared to say you could support the goals of the
legislation, which are obviously to provide sustainability for
the snowmobile federation? It's a funny question.
Mr Wiens:
I think there are an awful lot of good things in the bill, don't
get me wrong, and I think it's a good idea to promote exactly
what it is you're trying to promote, but not at the expense of
the traditional users, as I've argued. Yes, I think the support
is there, but the exemption has to be clearly in there for the
traditional users.
Mr
Gravelle: I'll be honest: it's been a very tricky issue
for myself as a northern member as well. Certainly I'm sensitive
to the needs of the snowmobile federation and have spoken to
them, but obviously I've also had contact with a great number of
traditional users who are concerned that they're going to be hit
when they shouldn't
be, and justifiably so. I think the key to this happening is
finding that balance and compromise, and it needs to be pretty
clear. Finding that clarity is the trick right now.
Mr Wiens:
One of the scariest things, when I talk to some of the anglers
and hunters who use snow machines to access areas up here, is the
promotional material that the clubs have used. I can't speak for
how their ads ran down in eastern Ontario or things like that,
but last winter when they were trying to promote the snowmobile
trails up here, it seemed that it was more by intimidation than
anything else. The message is, "Don't get caught on our trails,
because we've got 2,500 wardens out there who are going to catch
you." That was the message: "Buy a trail permit. If you're on the
trail without one, you're dead meat." That's the wrong message.
That's poor marketing. As far as I'm concerned, that's not
marketing correctly. But again, that's an issue they're going to
have to deal with.
Mr
Gravelle: That's a very good point, Neil.
Mr Wiens:
But what's happened is that it's gotten the anglers and hunters
saying, "I don't want to use that trail if I don't have to," and
yet they've come and usurped the trail that we built in the first
place, because it's going over the best piece of crown land to
get from point A to point B. That's where some conflicts
come.
Mr
Gravelle: Absolutely. The point you made earlier about
the negative aspect of the campaign, saying, "We're going to get
you"-Mayor Rutherford of Beardmore made that point earlier as
well-"You try this out, we'll catch you," was perhaps not the
approach to take.
Obviously the fact is that
you represent a great number of hunters and fishermen in the
province and your point of view has got to be listened to very
strongly and we've got to find that way of framing it. As it's
been said often here, we are at a very early stage. The Chair
made a reference to that. There's an opportunity to make some
changes and I hope we are able to do that so that it will satisfy
everyone. It will be tough.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Wiens.
Mr Wiens:
I'll leave a copy of this with you, if you care.
The Chair:
I would. Thank you very much.
1500
NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO SPORTSMEN'S ALLIANCE
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from the Northwestern Ontario
Sportsmen's Alliance. Good afternoon and welcome to the
committee, Mr Hay.
Mr John
Hay: Probably some of what you're going to hear from me
has been said already by the last two presenters, but that's too
bad; you'll have to hear it again I guess.
By way of introduction, my
name is John Hay and I'm the public relations director for the
Northwestern Ontario Sportsmen's Alliance. One of my jobs is to
make presentations to committees like this.
On behalf of the alliance
and its members, unfortunately I will be speaking against Bill
101. Our arguments will illustrate that Bill 101 in its present
form is discriminatory, exclusionary, morally wrong and actually
unprecedented. An arbitrary land claim such as this is probably
not legally supportable and possibly an infringement on rights
and privileges we already enjoy.
We should be cognizant that
this is a land claim by the trail proponents for exclusive rights
to certain amounts of crown land. This claim is presently being
facilitated by the provincial government. I have some
philosophical problems with that; right now I'm not going to get
into those. A successful claim on these public lands will empower
a private special interest recreation group to charge fees on
public land and enable them to levy fines for trespassing on
public land. I have a problem with the phrase "trespassing on
public land." It seems to be a little bit of an oxymoron to
me.
My personal and
professional history includes being active in the labour
movement. One of the many valuable lessons I learned came from a
man called Dr Eric G. Taylor. He's a very astute and
well-respected man in labour issues on both sides of the
bargaining table. Doc Taylor had some interesting ways of dealing
with proposals and whether you should bring something forward. He
had three tests for them: is it reasonably practicable, is it
morally sound and, finally, is it legally defensible? I am at a
loss to see where Bill 101 could pass all three of these tests,
if any.
Is it reasonable to allow
one segment of the public exclusive rights to use certain crown
lands from one end of the province to the other? There is not a
lumber or timber company that has the clout to even dare to apply
for a land use permit of this magnitude. It's only nine metres
wide but it encompasses the whole province and would continue to
grow with the expansion of the trails. I believe the
unprecedented claim to crown land will be the thin edge of the
wedge and we would end up with tollgates to fishing lakes and
hunting areas by other groups that would make such claims.
I want to bring to your
attention a recent advertisement in yesterday's paper that boasts
24,000 miles of sled trails. A related article in the same
publication deals with our local snowmobile club and its
contributions and trail maintenance program as a pitch for
tourists to use the trails. A selling point is the cost for a
non-resident trail permit. If there is something wrong with the
newspaper article I took this from, possibly someone could
correct me on it, but I'll take the quote out of the paper, "The
fee for a permit is $30 but that covers a whole family for a
year" to use the snowmobile trails. A family of two riders with
two machines would have to pay $300, and the way the legislation
is worded now, they would have to pay that $300 to cross the
trail once to go fishing, and it may have been on land that they
originally cleared or that has been traditionally used. I would
challenge any of these
committee members to defend that as being reasonable.
Is it reasonable to
effectively fence off large tracts of land that cannot be
crossed? The trail system is a network now and it effectively
fences off crown land that, unless you buy a permit you cannot
even cross the trail to get to. The bigger the trail gets, the
more extensive the trail gets, the more extensive that exclusion
becomes.
As an example, would it be
reasonable for a yacht club to claim a body of water exclusively
for its members' sole use? Do you consider it reasonable that the
yacht club be empowered to fine individuals who previously
enjoyed the body of water for swimming or canoeing because they
did not belong to the yacht club? Consider a boating club wanting
to claim Ontario waters for members only. This is exactly what
the bill will do. It will prevent rightful and lawful use of
crown land unless you belong to the right club.
I believe the government
has erred seriously in bringing forward this piece of legislation
as it stands. It is contradictory to some of the principles in
this government's Lands for Life process-and I was fortunate
enough to sit on one of the round tables-which made it clear that
lands would be available to all users. During some of these
deliberations with Lands for Life in the round tables, special
interest groups lobbied very hard to get some exclusive privilege
or exclusive right to the resources. These proposals were not
accepted by the round tables, as borne out in the recommendations
to the minister and further evidenced in the ensuing Living
Legacy document.
I believe it would be
morally corrupt for the government to proceed with this bill. The
government made a commitment to all the citizens and they must
live up the spirit and the letter of that commitment. I hope it's
not the same type of commitment that we received from the
Ministry of Natural Resources. I had a letter from Mr Snobelen
dated 30 days before the end of the spring bear hunt that the
bear hunt was going to be there for good.
The mandatory trail permit
is a money grab. I won't mince words on that. They do need the
money. There are reasons and there are costs involved, and I
appreciate those. But more than once the provincial government
has bemoaned the federal government's gun legislation as a cash
cow. The only subtle difference is that instead of the funds
going directly to the government, they will subsidize an
exclusive small segment of the population.
Is it morally correct to
allow one group of recreational users exclusive domain over
portions of crown land? Is it morally correct to force
individuals to purchase trail permits in case their outdoor
activity may cause them to cross a club's trail? To the best of
my knowledge, these trails use some existing roads that were
there for many years at no additional cost to the users. This was
before the advent of organized snowmobile clubs. I believe
snowmobilers would be vehemently opposed to the addition of $150
to each permit to go to the SPA to enhance my hunting and
fishing.
Restricting access flies in
face of the Living Legacy with its many references to terms like
"for all to enjoy." I didn't read any caveats in the Living
Legacy that said "if you're affluent enough and belong to the
right club."
This is forced association,
hence the term "mandatory." We have a Charter of Rights and
Freedoms in this country that guarantees certain rights and
privileges. All of the learned committee members, who are
probably more constitutionally aware than I am, would agree that
you should have freedom of association without penalty or loss.
Additionally, I say, you should have the freedom not to associate
without penalty or loss. Clearly there would be a loss in
northwestern Ontario, especially for not belonging to the
snowmobile club and paying the fee.
The provincial government
routinely challenges the federal government's gun control
legislation. I do not see a lot of difference between the two
bills. Both have a mandatory component, both are a money grab
with no cap, both call for the loss of a previous right and
privilege for non-participation or a significant fine, and for
all intents and purposes, especially with the questions I've
heard, it's practically unenforceable.
I mentioned previously the
publications that said there are 24,000 miles of trail between
Kenora and Sudbury. I take offence to the radio ads last winter
that threatened that 2,500 wardens would get us for being on the
trail without a permit. Since most of the trail up here would be
public or crown land, and it took 2,500 to patrol the trail as it
was, how many more trail wardens would they need to patrol the
other 90% of the trails up in this part of the world? Again,
unenforceable.
I believe this is a flawed
piece of legislation as it stands. The legislation, for lack of a
better word-up here we have had some problems with not being
represented or consulted-is bankrupt of any true consultation. At
this point, because we're here, this is just comment.
Consultation should have been before the bill came out. A lot of
these problems may have been resolved; a lot of these questions
may have been resolved. There were a lot of groups which would
have liked to have had a better chance and, yes, a full-page ad
might be necessary.
I'll make reference to Doc
Taylor again. If he was here, he would say simply, "Don't put the
bill forward," as he would any proposal in our labour relations.
If it doesn't meet the three tests, we don't put the proposal
forward.
1510
I must ask in the strongest
terms that you drop or amend this bill significantly, and do it
immediately. The government has a moral obligation from previous
commitments on the use of public lands not to go forward.
I offer our organization's
participation in any meaningful dialogue and true consultation on
this and any issue dealing with the use of our natural resources
to solve some of the problems that we've had so far.
I would like to thank you
again, Mr Chairman and members of the committee, for allowing
myself and my organization to appear. I am quite prepared and
willing to answer any
questions or respond to any comments you have.
The Chair:
Thank you. That gives us about two and a half minutes per caucus
for questioning. This time we'll start with the government
benches.
Mrs Julia Munro
(York North): Thank you very much for coming here today
to provide us with your ideas. I just wondered if you were here
to hear the presenter ahead of you.
Mr Hay:
I've been here since the beginning.
Mrs Munro:
What I wanted to ask you was, would you support the definition
that he used in identifying traditional users? He talked about
the fact that the critical issue in his view in that area of
definition was those who use the trails as an end in
themselves-that is, recreational-as opposed to those who would
use a trail as a means to doing something else. I just wondered
if you would agree with that kind of distinction in users.
Mr Hay:
That question has been asked probably three or four times of
different speakers since I've been here. I have a problem in that
it seems there is a predetermined end to this bill that, "Yes,
we're going to have mandatory trail permits, so how do we define
a certain user?" I have a real good suggestion. I think it's an
excellent suggestion to solve the problems and solve the
identifying of a user and all these things, and it only takes one
word: drop the word "mandatory."
Mrs Munro:
So you're suggesting, then, that you would-
Mr Hay:
I'm suggesting that we go right to the root of the problem.
Instead of trying to paint and name and number, you don't have
that problem if it's not mandatory.
Mrs Munro:
Thank you.
Mr
Gravelle: John, you're taking a very strong position on
this and a very clear one, which is helpful. How strong do you
think the support is for the position you're taking? Do you think
that if things go forward, for example, and there aren't
sufficient amendments, people will actually ignore this
legislation? What do you think the possibilities are? One, how
much support do you have for what you're saying? How many people
are you representing, in a way? Do you think people will ignore
it unless there are some very significant amendments?
Mr Hay:
Our membership in the sportsmen's alliance is over 1,000 and it's
all northwestern Ontario members. We poll our members, we talk to
our members and we have quite a good dialogue, and all the
feedback I've gotten from this is, "This stinks." Whether it
would be challenged or someone is going to just up and drive down
the trail and hope they get stopped, I don't know. People get
their backs up around here when they're pushed into a corner. I
wouldn't recommend that anybody do that, but if someone was fined
for crossing a trail to go to his trapline or crossing a trail to
go to his camp or crossing a trail to go fishing or even
marginally using the trail, I think our organization would have
to seriously consider supporting this individual legally. If it
went through as it stands now, we would seriously have to
consider supporting any court challenge.
Mr
Gravelle: If I may, one more question, Mr Chair. I
presume, like everybody else who's got some concerns about this
legislation-and we certainly have heard a fairly consistent
theme, although yours may be the strongest today-you're sensitive
to the needs of the snowmobile clubs themselves, though, that
there's a need for some kind of financing. Is there a solution?
Obviously they need some support to continue to do what they're
doing. Do you see a solution to that? When you're talking in
terms of a court challenge, that's if there aren't significant
amendments or if people are put in a position where they're-
Mr Hay:
Correct. The last thing I think any of the organizations, mine or
the federation of snowmobile clubs, has got is any money to go to
court. In being sued, the lawyers get all the benefit; there is
absolutely no benefit to us. Somebody might win on principle.
That would be the only thing.
Mr
Gravelle: These clubs are in a bind; they need
money.
Mr Hay:
The best solution is to have the government involved. The
province itself benefits from the work that these volunteers do
and the province benefits from the trails, and the municipalities
benefit from the trails. All levels of government and all
stakeholders that benefit should be part of this. I think the
provincial government should be funding a lot of what the trails
people need and find a formula that's fair to the smaller groups,
the smaller clubs, so that they can get some funding and get the
trails maintained.
Mr
Gravelle: Yes, that's certainly my feeling as well.
Mr Bisson:
Actually, you've been quite clear; I have no questions.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Hay. We appreciate your taking the time to come
before us here today.
NORTH OF SUPERIOR SNOWMOBILE ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
That takes us to our next presentation, which is North of
Superior Snowmobile Association. Good afternoon and welcome to
the committee. We have 20 minutes for your presentation.
Ms Nancy
Tulloch: Thank you very much for having me here today on
behalf of the snowmobile association. My name is Nancy
Tulloch.
NOSSA, or the North of
Superior Snowmobile Association, is a newly formed organization
set up by the volunteer snowmobile clubs of district 16. These
clubs recognized the need to further develop their relationship
with one another and consequently formed the association. The
mission statement of NOSSA reads, "NOSSA by its collective
resources of leadership, expertise and partnerships is dedicated
to market, support and assist the community-based snowmobile
clubs in their efforts to attain sustainable, reliable and safe
snowmobile trails in a professional manner throughout the Ontario
Federation of
Snowmobile Clubs-district 16." The clubs represented by NOSSA
span from Thunder Bay through to White River, including the
highways 11 and 17 corridors.
On behalf of NOSSA, I am
here to speak in favour of Bill 101, keeping in mind that four
main components must be met in order to make mandatory permits
successful. These components are: final authority needs to be
granted to the OFSC, especially in regard to permit revenue; OFSC
mandatory permits must be an absolute and enforceable requirement
on all OFSC trails; we recognize the need to provide reasonable
accommodation for traditional access on crown land; and
OFSC-trained wardens must have the authority under the Motorized
Snow Vehicles Act to enforce mandatory permits.
Volunteers are the backbone
of this organization that provides higher quality of life for
residents in northern Ontario. Volunteers see to all aspects of
organized snowmobile development, starting with trails, to
ongoing upgrading, administrative roles, groomer operating,
maintenance, work permits, land use permits, insurance and so
much more.
It is time to reward these
hard-working people with a mandatory OFSC permit to show that
their hard work hasn't gone unnoticed and to ensure that all
riders taking advantage of OFSC groomed trails be required to
have an OFSC permit and thus pay their portion to ensure the
trails are maintained for local and touring riders.
What is required of
volunteers? Long hours that many times go unnoticed or
unappreciated. The volunteer club of the Lake Superior Family
Snow Goers, based out of the communities of Schreiber and Terrace
Bay, recently upgraded a portion of trail to bypass a swamp. The
base cost of the project was over $10,000. The money which came
from trail permit sales, local club fundraising and the Northern
Ontario Heritage Fund Corp doesn't depict the reality. Volunteer
hours were necessary.
A project priority list had
to be developed. A project budget had to be designed. A
construction company had to be contacted and scheduled. An MNR
work permit had to be obtained. A volunteer had to go and flag a
new route through the bush. Volunteers had to schedule other
volunteers to work shifts in the bush. Volunteers were necessary
to oversee the work of the contractors to ensure that the trail
was being developed as per the permit and the wishes of the club.
A volunteer was required to report in to the owner of the
construction company to provide hours of work. A volunteer was
required to pay the contractor. If the volunteer hours are broken
down to $20 per hour, the actual project total would be in the
neighbourhood of $16,000, and this is just to reroute one portion
of trail. Volunteers were the ones to generate funds to pay the
contractor, but that is not enough. It is also necessary to have
them volunteer even more time because, in reality, their
fundraising efforts and the trail permit sales do not bring in
enough money. OFSC mandatory permits are needed.
1520
For years, various
governments and agencies have attempted to promote the snowmobile
trail system. There were 96 non-resident full-season, 91
seven-day and 49 one-day permits purchased in this district alone
last season. All these permits were sold to residents of the
United States, who assumed that the trails in all of Ontario were
up to a certain standard. The volunteers are willing to do the
trail work, but it is unreasonable for them to fully support the
system when it's others who have the most to gain.
A few volunteers may see
tourism as increased traffic on already overworked trails, but
most volunteers look at snowmobile tourism in a different light.
They believe tourism will aid in the support of communities in
need and that tourism provides them with the opportunity to
showcase the trails they have spent hundreds, if not thousands,
of hours dedicated to. In order to have a product that we can be
proud to market, OFSC mandatory permits are necessary, if not
critical, to organized snowmobiling, especially within the
boundaries of northern Ontario.
With OFSC mandatory
permits, if 1,000 more permits are purchased by local residents
through district 16, the revenue to the local clubs would amount
to approximately $100,000. This money could then be leveraged to
provide dollars to see to trail upgrades and development and
eventually to fully market the trail system. This marketing could
provide us with added permit revenue from the over 700,000
registered machines in the US Midwest. Assuming this is the case
and we attract another 1,000 permit sales equaling approximately
$100,000, it would at least provide volunteers with the knowledge
that some funds are available to make their product what they
really want it to be.
There is a shortfall in the
user-pay system. One reason is that at the present time we cannot
warden on all OFSC trails, making it nearly impossible to enforce
permits. Land use permits are seldom granted for crown land, and
you can be assured that the residents of northern communities
know where these areas are and are constantly riding there, much
to the chagrin of the dedicated and hard-working volunteers. The
government itself should want to put a stop to this, as in the
past government dollars have been spent on promoting a set of
tourism trails that are not fully up to potential, caused in part
because residents and non-residents alike have opted not to
purchase an OFSC trail permit but have continued to ride on OFSC
trails.
Mandatory permits need to
remain in the hands of the OFSC, with the participation of the
government. Snowmobile clubs are asking for a way to ensure that
all snowmobile trail recreational users pay equally for the
system.
Volunteers of snowmobile
clubs do so for the betterment of their local club and community.
If the government insists that mandatory permits be in their
hands, volunteers would not retain this sense. How many people do
you know of today who volunteer to upgrade highways and maintain
government equipment?
Would landowners be as apt
to provide land use permits to the government as they are to
local snowmobile
clubs? The threat of expropriation would be a strong one, which
is probably unwarranted, but landowner fears must be addressed. I
would imagine this is a can of worms that is better left
untouched.
Snowmobile clubs require a
new source of funding to continue to operate tourism and
recreational trails. One way to do this is by the provincial
government fully supporting Bill 101, with the understanding that
the legislation must provide the commitment of an OFSC mandatory
permit.
We recognize that
accommodation must be made for traditional access on crown land,
but then the question arises, who and what is a traditional user?
Will every member of a community come forward wanting this
status? I don't believe so. Many anglers and hunters see the
benefit of groomed snowmobile trails to carry out their
recreational activity and will buy a permit in support of such.
Those who only use the trail network in limited areas and have
used this portion of trail for years should be provided that
access with a special permit outlining their parameters. This
permit would not allow them total access to all the trails in
Ontario, but access to the traditional ones they have used and
will continue to use.
In another case, cottagers
have in the past made their own trails to access camps. These
trails in many areas have grown and developed and snowmobile club
volunteers are now grooming and maintaining them. Should these
cottagers be made to buy a full permit to travel only a portion
of groomed trails to their camp? No. Again, they should be
provided with a limited travel permit, allowing them to access
their camps but not providing them with full access to the entire
trail system.
Limited access permits
should be determined by the local snowmobile clubs. In many cases
in northern Ontario, the club volunteers already know where John
Smith's trapline is or where Jane Smith has her camp and how she
accesses it. The snowmobile clubs are the most knowledgeable as
to where the snowmobile trails actually are in relation to lakes,
rivers, camps, cottages and such.
The snowmobile clubs in
District 16 believe in the importance of working together with
the previously defined traditional users. Many of these are
permit-purchasing members of local clubs and hard-working
volunteers as well.
The only difference between
the system we have in place now and a system with mandatory OFSC
permits is the fact that proper enforcement would be made
possible. Living in a northern community myself, it would be
necessary for the police, STOP officers, conservation officers
and OFSC-trained wardens to be able to enforce the proposed
legislation.
In the northern districts,
police officers do not have the equipment at their disposal to
fully enforce the trail system. We provide our officers with
vehicles to attend to our city and municipal streets and
highways, and in order to enforce the trails they would need to
have snow machines. This added cost to taxpayers could be
avoided, as OFSC wardens are ready and willing to take on the
task at hand to ensure OFSC permits are affixed to all snow
machines on OFSC trails. The legal issues, including
registration, insurance and impaired driving, would still be in
the hands of the police but the legality of having a trail permit
could be monitored and should be monitored by OFSC wardens.
It seems that the
communities that are surrounded by the most crown land and have
the smallest population centres from which to draw permit revenue
are the ones that have the hardest task of enforcing permits. The
time has come for all parties to work together for the betterment
of snowmobiling quality of life and tourism.
In conclusion, for 30 years
snowmobile trails have been developed, built and maintained by
volunteers. These volunteers recognize the enjoyment their time
and dedication has brought to their fellow community members and
families. As community-oriented individuals, they also understand
the benefit to their community businesses that benefit directly
from snowmobiling. Motels, gas stations and snowmobile
dealerships all see the direct economic impact, especially in a
season where many of these establishments have a hard time to get
by.
Communities also see the
benefit. It is hard, in many northern communities, to keep a
business going throughout the winter, yet many community members
depend on these local businesses for employment and the
necessities of life. Organized snowmobiling goes hand in hand
with the development of strong communities. Now is the time for
the provincial government to recognize this and provide the
volunteers with Bill 101, including the component of OFSC
mandatory permits.
Once again, I thank you
very much for the opportunity to speak today. I'll address any
questions.
The Chair:
That leaves us about two and a half minutes per caucus. This time
we'll start with the Liberals.
Mr
Gravelle: Thank you very much, Ms Tulloch. It's really a
good illustration, I think, of what the volunteers actually do.
Your example of the Lake Superior Family Snow Goers is a perfect
example of some of the things you do in terms of building the
bypass around the swamp, and it has to be done. It's important
and it helps out everybody. It's very clear that you obviously
are supportive of the mandatory trail permits, for the reason
that you want to have some kind of funding.
I appreciate very much, and
I think everybody does, your efforts to try and deal with the
traditional users issue. It seems that you have come up with an
idea in your presentation, which is, in essence, they could be
administered by the local club. I'm not sure you're 100% going
that far in saying it, but it seems to me that you came pretty
close. Because you know the area and the people, that might be a
way of finding a legitimate way of doing this. That's the
question we've been coming to all the time: how do you find a way
to fairly do it? Do you think that is the way it could be
done?
Ms
Tulloch: I think that is the route that probably has to
be taken. The discussion previous to my presentation talking
about, if they have the equipment with them obviously they're
going fishing or prospecting or whatever-that's an awful burden
to put on a police officer, for them to have to try to make that judgment
call as to, are they going or aren't they? You're going to run
into more difficulty. They're going to be laying fines and then
you're going to have these people going to court, trying to fight
them in court. Is that really necessary if we can find a way to
administer a non-fee permit through a local snowmobile club or a
district office and have it done through that route?
1530
Mrs
McLeod: Just to follow that up, given the fact that
there's already some tension between traditional users and
snowmobilers, would you have some concerns that there might be a
fair bit of conflict in snowmobile clubs actually administering
it, given the fact that the snowmobile clubs need some money,
they need to issue many permits, so the traditional users might
think it's not in the interests of the snowmobile club to give
too many exemptions and there could be a fair bit of conflict
around that?
Ms
Tulloch: I imagine there probably would be and maybe
another route to take would be having the snowmobile clubs and
municipal representatives form a committee to see to this. I do
believe that in the area I live in, which is Schreiber, our
traditional users, trappers etc, work very well with the
snowmobile clubs, so I don't see that we'd have the same problems
as maybe other areas.
Mrs
McLeod: You all have to live together on Monday
morning.
Ms
Tulloch: It's a small community and we can't be at each
other all the time.
Mrs
McLeod: I guess the other question I would have is, I
have some awareness of how often dangerous a conservation
officer's work is and I'm a bit concerned about the suggestion
that OFSC-trained wardens would be the enforcement officers. I
guess you're assuming paid people, not volunteers, at that point,
but even then is it not asking a fair bit of people who might not
be in the position that conservation officers are to deal with
conflict situations in the bush?
Ms
Tulloch: Honestly, I don't think so. From a personal
standpoint, I'd be more than happy to go out and volunteer my
time to warden the trails without any fear of what would happen.
Generally, people aren't out there to cause problems. If conflict
did arise, there would be training in place that you'd know what
to do, how to do it and when to leave the scene. The wardens
would not be there to enforce anything but the permits, so I
don't think the conflict would necessarily be as strong, as long
as there was good publicity of the fact that you have to have a
permit on these trails.
Mr Bisson:
I like your suggestion in regard to a non-fee permit, that the
traditional users would have to apply in order to utilize the
trails. That seems to work and you're able to administer that a
little bit easier. I think that's a good suggestion the committee
can work with.
The other issue, I guess,
to ask is-there are two parts to this question-do you see this
legislation actually creating a whole bunch more revenue, other
than increasing the trail permit cost to me, the snowmobiler? Do
you really see this leading to more money in the coffers, and if
so, what do you estimate it is? Because I already go out and get
my permits and I'm just wondering, what are we going to end up
with at the end, as clubs?
Ms
Tulloch: There is going to be added revenue that will
come in from mandatory permits. What the total amount is I really
couldn't tell you. Not only would it be from local riders, but
non-resident riders. I don't know how many are out there riding
without permits at this time.
Mr Bisson:
That was my next question: Do we have a sense of that? Do we have
a sense of how many people are utilizing the trails and don't
purchase permits? Is it 10%, 20%, 30%?
Ms
Tulloch: Sorry, I can't answer that.
Mr Bisson:
I've got a request. I'm a two-machine person, but I'm the only
rider in my family. The other machine is for a friend or somebody
who shows up from out of town on a weekend. It's my old machine
that I never bothered getting rid of. A lot of us, around
campfires and other establishments, will sometimes talk about
this issue of having a tiered system of permits for that kind of
situation, not where my wife and I are both avid snowmobilers and
we both pay our tickets and maybe, rightly or wrongly, we pay the
same price. But for those types of situations where you keep a
second machine for occasional use, are you contemplating or would
you contemplate some sort of amendment that would allow that to
happen?
Ms
Tulloch: Personally I wouldn't. One snowmobile is going
to do as much damage to a trail as another. Whether you're using
it on an occasional basis or not, that's your choice.
Mr Bisson:
But you know what I'm getting at. You have two machines-a
short-track and a long-track. For different reasons you want to
use different machines, and you have to pay two trail permits,
even though you only use one.
Ms
Tulloch: But what happens in the case where you've got a
family that's saying the same thing, yet they've got both
snowmobiles out on the trail on a continual basis? To try to
monitor that, I think, would be a nightmare.
Mr Bisson:
I take it your answer is no.
Ms
Tulloch: No.
Mr Bisson:
We're just going to have to work on this issue for my reasons.
Thanks a lot.
Mrs Munro:
Thank you very much for coming here today to give us your
views.
One of the continuing
questions through the presentations that we've heard is the issue
of use as a defining issue in terms of a permit. I certainly like
the suggestion you have provided in having a permit that allows
for a different kind of use.
But I guess my question,
first of all, is: Would you see that as a good definition, that
the end the snowmobile is being used for should be a way of
defining the categories?
If I can just help you, you've talked about the
need for traditional users. You've implied by that that you
recognize there are people who use the trails for specific uses.
All I'm asking is, would you use that definition of "end"-is it
recreational or is it a specific use?
Ms
Tulloch: I guess that depends on the way we look at
traditional users. Are they historical traditional users, or if I
buy a new camp that I have to access by a groomed snowmobile
trail, do I now become a traditional user?
Mrs Munro:
That's exactly why I asked the question.
Ms
Tulloch: That's going to be very difficult. We have a
cottage ourselves, and we have more than one route to get there.
But if I choose to take the trail, should I be required to buy a
permit? That is very difficult to answer.
Personally, I feel that
they should be required to buy a permit. Traditional users-we're
talking trappers, prospectors, who have had those lines for a
number of years-should be provided access. I don't know exactly
how all that works, but I'd hate to see numerous people go out
and get traplines or prospecting licences just so they don't have
to purchase trail permits. I honestly can't see it happening, but
I guess the possibility is there.
"Traditional use" is still
a real stumbling block, and I can't honestly give you a perfect
answer.
Mrs Munro:
I do appreciate the complexity of the issue, and that's why I
asked. I think you'll know from the previous discussions we've
had in explaining the fact that this has only had first reading
and it is the purpose of this process here to get that kind of
feedback from you. I think it is a question that there needs to
be some understanding, particularly the kind of example you
provided. If that has been a traditional use, ie getting to a
cottage or camp, does that mean a new person has a different, or
the same, opportunity? I think we need to hear from you-plural-on
responses to those kinds of issues.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for taking the time to come before us today.
We certainly appreciate your comments.
THUNDER BAY ADVENTURE TRAILS
The Chair:
That takes us to the Thunder Bay Adventure Trails presentation.
Good afternoon and welcome to the committee.
Mr Brett
Rushton: Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I
welcome you to Thunder Bay and district 16 of the OFSC.
My name is Brett Rushton
and I am marketing director for Thunder Bay Adventure Trails, as
well as operations director for district 16 of the OFSC, which
runs from White River to Thunder Bay. I also sit on the OFSC
trails committee, as well as being an OFSC driver-trainer. But
mostly, I just love to snowmobile. I average between 4,000 and
5,000 miles a year riding on the trails.
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When all is said and done,
I'm a volunteer. Last year I volunteered between 1,700 and 1,800
hours, between snowmobiling, air search and rescue, Canada
Trust's Friends of the Environment committee and in my own
community. This type of involvement is not uncommon among
snowmobiler volunteers. We do it because we love this sport of
snowmobiling and we usually volunteer in our other interests
also.
I stared snowmobiling in
1977, and in 1984 I bought my first permit. It was an OTBA trail
permit, which was the Ontario Trail Builders Alliance, and rode
in the Muskokas. By 1987 I was asking questions like, "Who is
paid to cut the trails and make them smooth?" I was astonished to
find out volunteers did it. I got so much enjoyment out of
snowmobiling I decided it was time to do my part. It started with
brushing and signage and within a few years I was on the board of
the local club. In 1995 I got a job transfer, by choice, to
Thunder Bay and it did not take long to become involved at the
local club.
I have snowmobiled all over
Ontario, at least 10,000 miles though Quebec and across Canada as
part of Rendezvous '98 ride, so believe me when I say I know the
mindset of the touring snowmobiler.
Thunder Bay Adventure
Trails snowmobile club has 2,000 members and grooms over 750
kilometres of trails. District 16 has nine clubs, approximately
4,000 members and grooms about 2,800 kilometres of trail.
District 16 is the largest district in the OFSC. The OFSC has 281
clubs, 115,000 members and grooms approximately 49,000 kilometres
of snowmobile trails.
You may ask, who is the
OFSC? I will tell you: it is 281 local snowmobile clubs and their
members and we make the decisions of our own destiny. Our mandate
is to build and maintain organized, safe and environmentally
friendly snowmobile trails. We have built, and groom, some 49,000
kilometres of trails. We, the OFSC, have been in business for 34
years. In 1989 we amalgamated with the OTBA to form one
organization and one voice for snowmobiling in Ontario.
We have built this sport
into a billion-dollar industry in Ontario on the backs of
volunteers. Yes, there are some paid people in the sport, but the
majority of the work is done by volunteers. Last year, 73 Thunder
Bay Adventure Trails volunteers logged 7,000 volunteer hours. Of
that, 20 people logged over 5,200 hours. The same scenario
happens all over the province, so when I tell you that volunteer
burnout is a serious problem, you can see why. Our most precious
assets are our volunteers and our landowners.
We also appreciate the
businesses that support us. Our revenue is based on the user-pay
system, which means every person who rides our trails should buy
an OFSC permit. Last year we, the OFSC, took in approximately
$13.8 million in permit sales, but this covers only about 50% of
the cost of building, maintaining and grooming the snowmobile
trials. Volunteers must make up this shortfall with their labour,
resources and fundraising at club and OFSC level.
The problem is only
compounded in underpopulated areas with even more limited
volunteers and resources. This must somehow be reduced so as not
to break the backbone of this industry: our volunteers.
What does "mandatory permits" mean to the OFSC?
It simply means that anyone riding groomed OFSC trails must have
a permit. It has been misunderstood that it is every registered
sled in the province; this is not what we want.
We, the OFSC, have asked
the government for their help, to make OFSC mandatory permits
enforceable, even on crown land. We support an OFSC mandatory
permit but the final authority of handling and revenues must
remain with the OFSC. OFSC mandatory permits must be an absolute,
and easily enforceable on OFSC trails.
However, we do recognize
that reasonable accommodation must be made for traditional users
on crown land. Trained OFSC trail wardens must have the authority
under the Motorized Snow Vehicles Act to enforce mandatory OFSC
permits. Another way the government might help is to give up a
portion of the revenue from the snowmobile registration fee, as
they do in Quebec.
Impacts of tourism: First,
I would like to thank Thunder Bay Tourism for its help over the
years, not only in Thunder Bay but in our district. We appreciate
that they can see the big picture. We know the impact of tourism
is great. Wawa says the impact last year was $3 million and I
understand it was $20 million in Timmins. One needs only to ride
the trails in Muskoka on a weekend to see the impact, where some
businesses are busier in winter than they are in summer.
The purpose of a snowmobile
club is to groom and maintain trails for its permit buyers, most
of whom are local. We realize that touring snowmobilers are a
great benefit to the businesses, but not all the businesses
contribute to the local club. So tourism can be a two-edged
sword.
The effects of tourism on
snowmobiling are twofold. OFSC permit sales are based on "Buy
where you ride," but when a person from Muskoka comes up to
Marathon to ride because of lack of snow, overcrowded trails or
just for different scenery, the majority of the permit dollars
remain in Muskoka where they bought the permit, which puts a big
strain on the small resources of the Marathon club.
Someone from another
snowmobile club brings in very little revenue to the local club.
They bring good dollars to the businesses along the way. I know
for a fact, based on a 200-mile day, the touring rider must spend
between $180 and $200 a day. The constants are accommodation,
food, fuel and oil and the fact that a snowmobiler brings little
else with them other than a wallet. An out-of-province rider
offers a permit sale to the local club as well as the $180 to
$200 a day to the businesses. If the districts share their
out-of-province permit sales, all clubs can win.
The north shore of
Superior's main market lies south of the border, where there are
approximately 800,000 registered sleds in Michigan, Wisconsin and
Minnesota. Many of these people have complimented us on our safe
signage, good grooming and uncrowded trails. We have an awesome
product in northern Ontario: our vast wilderness. It is quite
possible to see moose, deer, lynx, mink, wolves, owls, eagles and
hawks along our trail system.
The economic impact has not
reached its full potential in this area due to the lack of a
proper border crossing to and from the United States in
Minnesota. One problem lies in the municipality of Neebing, where
I happen to reside. They have passed a bylaw banning organized
snowmobile trails within the municipality, thus preventing us
from reaching the international border crossing at Pigeon
River.
The other problem lies at
Gunflint Lake, the Canada-US remote border crossing southwest of
Thunder Bay. Currently it is only legal to cross into Canada with
a remote border crossing permit. We are desperately trying to get
a telephone reporting system in, such as the one at Lake of the
Woods. We would certainly appreciate any help the provincial
government could offer.
The current and past
governments have invested approximately $24 million in
snowmobiling, but these dollars were at 50 cents, meaning the
clubs had to match the money to get it. This was done in many
cases with operational dollars and has severely strained most of
the clubs. My own club had to turn back $200,000 this year
because we couldn't come up with the matching dollars. We are one
of the larger clubs in the province with over 750 kilometres of
trail to groom and we have had to lay off both our paid
employees. This puts a greater strain on the volunteers.
Some of the expenses we ran
into: a grooming tractor and drag, $150,000-our club owns three;
a 300-foot-plus bridge over the Pic River near Marathon, which we
plan to build this year, $600,000.
With the province
downloading many operations, why take on the administering of
permits? Please leave this up to those that have been doing so
for 34 years. I hope you can read the emotion in my voice for
this great sport of snowmobiling.
I leave with several points
to consider: the final authority on all matters and processes
relating to OFSC mandatory permits must remain with the OFSC,
especially the use of permit revenues; the OFSC mandatory permit
must be absolute and easily enforceable; we must recognize the
accommodation for traditional access on crown land; and trained
OFSC trail wardens must have the authority under the MSVA to
enforce mandatory OFSC permits.
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These are some notes I've
made along the way in your questions. The permit price, currently
at $120 for the early bird and $150 for the regular season
permit, is cheap. Unless we see more dollars and not just this
mandatory permit-this will bring in some more dollars, but there
needs to be some operational dollars to keep that price as cheap
as it is. As for a family membership-I know Gilles mentioned a
family membership-I sit on the trails committee and we review
this year in and year out. We would love to do so. We don't have
the resources to be able to do it at this time.
As an organization ourselves, the OFSC trails
committee, under the direction of the board of governors of the
OFSC, has been looking into reworking the trail matrix. The trail
matrix is how we designate dollars from the permit dollars that
each club receives. We have three factors that make this work. We
take the total kilometres of a club, their permit sales and the
season length. We must have checks in place with a trail
audit-we've done it this winter-and groomer logs so the data is
100%. That's how we determine what monies the clubs receive. We
hope at next year's convention to unveil the new matrix with
these checks in place.
As far as tourists from the
United States coming into Ontario snowmobiling, I've spoken to
many of these tourists on the trail and at US shows. They are
quite astonished when you first hit them with a $120 permit, but
when you explain to them exactly what that goes to-and we don't
receive any gas tax or revenue from registration, which most of
those states do-they really don't have a problem with that $120.
Most of them are quite pleased with what they see when they get
up here.
In Minnesota, I have had a
lot of dealings with the past president of MnUSA, which is the
Minnesota United Snowmobile Association. They currently get gas
tax and some registration money. But on their money there are
strings attached, and the government tells them how they can
spend that money, which is very difficult. With an organization
such as the OFSC, which has been around for 34 years, we know
where the money needs to be spent.
I thank you for your time
and welcome any questions.
The Chair:
We have time for a very brief question from each caucus. This
time it will start with Mr Bisson.
Mr Bisson:
My question is very simple. Should we have looked at, rather than
doing it on the permit side, mandatory permits, going to revenue
streams by way of fuel tax and registration fees, or should it
have been a combination of them both? I'm just curious.
Mr
Rushton: In my opinion, a combination of both.
Mr Dunlop:
Thank you very much, Brett, for that very comprehensive report.
I've got a bit of a conflict on snowmobiling. I have a son who is
something like yourself. He's really into the volunteering,
although I think this group of young guys, the volunteers just
south of Muskoka, do it because they love to build bridges and
bulldoze trails, out all summer and that type of thing.
One of the things I was
curious about, when you talk about the economic benefits of the
snowmobile industry, is why you don't include things such as the
actual construction of snowmobiles, the manufacturing of trailers
and trucks. The guys I see snowmobiling who are hauling
snowmobiles up to Kapuskasing are spending a lot of money in the
industry as far as their trailers, their trucks, and the money
they spend year after year on basically brand-new equipment,
almost on a yearly basis. I'm interested if you have any comments
on that.
Mr
Rushton: I agree with you. The reason it's not in there
is time. I could have spoken since 1 o'clock on snowmobiling.
Yes, I agree with you, there's a huge impact. A billion dollars
in Ontario probably doesn't touch upon everything, for sure.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: Thank you for your presentation. My
question is, what advice would you give the government, and if
you haven't got the answer right now, what is the government
thinking with respect to solving the problem of the Muskoka
example? You buy your permit in Muskoka but you use the lands up
here for snow trailing and the money remains in Muskoka. Do you
have advice for the government on how to administer that? If not,
which is fair at this point, what discussions have taken place on
the government side to end this unfair distribution?
Mr
Rushton: As I said, with this trail matrix, we are
addressing part of that right now, but I definitely would say we
could use some more operational dollars to help out the other
areas in the province. The small communities are in a tough bind,
the Beardmores and the Longlacs. It's a tough go when you don't
have much money or many businesses that could contribute. We're
very lucky in Thunder Bay that way. There's a huge volunteer base
of businesses.
Mrs
Bountrogianni: May I extend that question to the
government for a very small answer? Have you had discussions on
this at any level on the distribution of the fees if this passes
into law?
Mr Spina:
Yes. If I may, Mr Chair, one of the elements of the discussion is
that if the province is going to have the final say in the
setting of the fee structure, then it also wants the
accountability to be clear right back to the minister, as opposed
to just within the federation. Their current structure now is
quite comprehensive and fairly complex. They assign a point
system, as was described yesterday-in fact, I think you alluded
to it today, Brett-of categories of clubs in terms of need and
then they redistribute their funds. This is just a simple way of
describing it. They redistribute the funds according to the need
on that point system. It's fairly complex. We haven't gotten into
it that deeply as government ministry people, but clearly what we
want to see is that if we get into mandatory permits at all and
the minister is responsible for the fee, then we want to ensure
that there is an equalization formula there that will benefit the
smaller clubs.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for taking the time to come before us and
making a presentation today.
TOM QUINTON
The Chair:
That takes us to our final presentation of the afternoon, Mr Tom
Quinton. Good afternoon and welcome to the committee.
Mr Tom
Quinton: Always leave the best to the last. You will
also be pleased, because I think it's going to be the shortest
presentation.
My name is Tom Quinton. I'm
just making a brief presentation in as a volunteer and, may I
also add, as a traditional user for the last 30 years.
About seven years ago, while traveling by
snowmobile to my cottage north of Schreiber, I experienced
something that has profoundly affected my life ever since. For
the first time, I was sledding on a 16-foot-wide groomed trail.
For 25 years previous to this, I had been snowmobiling on small,
local bush trails normally infested with monstrous moguls, which
confined me to my local area. I immediately went out and
purchased an OFSC trail permit. I was astounded by what I came
across. Not only were the trails now groomed, but many new trails
were built. Then I came across the bridges. At this time I
realized that I must get involved to keep this system
functioning.
I've been a volunteer all
my life in many organizations. Little did I know at this time to
what extent I would become involved over the years with organized
snowmobiling. Since 1993 I have served my local club in many
executive positions, as well as spending hundreds of hours
preparing and grooming the trails in our area. At present I sit
on the board of the OFSC as governor for district 16. I'm still a
full-time volunteer and I hope to continue in this role
I commend the government
for bringing forth Bill 101. I fully support the changes
reflected in all the safety matters of the bill. My only concern
in regard to enforcement is the fact that a trail warden should
be able to enforce the trail permit, as do police and
conservation officers.
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My main concern with Bill
101 rests with subsection 2.1(5), where it states: "The minister
may give authority to any person to issue trail permits and ...
may authorize and fix the fee to be retained by the person." The
OFSC has fixed the fee and issued trail permits for about 20
years and must continue to do so. As an OFSC volunteer, I find it
totally unacceptable that our permit, which has been the backbone
of organized snowmobiling in the province, could be totally
controlled by the government or given to another user group. We
have, and must continue to have, an OFSC-controlled permit. I'm
sure that I speak for thousands of volunteers in our 281 clubs
that if the day comes that we don't control our permit, then we
as volunteers will simply walk away.
Our system has been built
by volunteers and sustained by them. Please give us the tools to
build and sustain the best snowmobile trail system in the world.
Yes, we need mandatory permits; however, the issuance, fee and
enforcement must be largely controlled by us, the OFSC
volunteers.
I thank all those
responsible for allowing me the time to submit this oral
presentation.
The Chair:
That certainly allows us time for a question from each caucus,
starting with the government.
Mr Spina:
Mr Quinton, I'm just trying to make sure I clearly understand
what you're saying here. You want mandatory permits but you don't
want the government to control how they're set, how they're
implemented and how they're enforced?
Mr
Quinton: Not totally. The key word there is "totally."
When I first read that clause, "The minister may give authority
to any person to issue trail permits," I shuddered, because
that's taking away what we have been doing for the past 34 years.
We did not ask for that; we asked for some sort of
sustainability. Yes, the OFSC and the government have to work
together on this, and I understand that the final judgment
perhaps has to come from the minister. But I'm very concerned
that what can be read into that is that our trails could be given
out to some private groups for personal gain.
Mr Spina:
Tell me what difference this may or may not make if the whole
mandatory permit section of the bill was deleted in terms of
legislation but it was-clearly the federation has the authority
now within its own constitution. Essentially, you have a
mandatory trail permit system now; it's just not enshrined in
legislation. If that was removed and Bill 101 went forward as
strictly a safety and enforcement bill, would that make a
difference?
Mr
Quinton: Would that make a difference to what?
Mr Spina:
To achieving what the federation would like to see achieved.
Mr
Quinton: No, not totally. As a federation and as a club
and as a governor, I'm still in favour of mandatory permits. But
if we, as the OFSC, must have control over those mandatory
permits in terms of initially stating what the fee will be and
where the funds will be disbursed, if the mandatory section is
taken out of this bill, would the bill be a total disaster? No. I
fully support, and I haven't heard anybody speak against, the
safety parts of the bill. I fully support that.
Mr
Gravelle: Tom, it's been great that you're making your
presentation this afternoon. Especially because you are the last
presenter, I want to even explore some other aspects of
funding.
Certainly it's very clear
that, like all snowmobile clubs or districts, you need the
funding in order to continue to do what you want to do, which I
presume is in essence why you're supportive of trail permits,
particularly mandatory trail permits, as a means of having some
guaranteed revenue.
I was watching when Brett
was making his presentation recently too in terms of the
government's 50-50 funding. I recall being very involved in the
fact that when there were 50-cent dollars available to snowmobile
clubs it was really difficult for smaller organizations to access
that because you had to raise the dollar in order to make a
dollar. So there were real problems, the point being that you
need to have some kind of guaranteed revenue.
Is it fair to say that we
should be looking perhaps at other ways of gathering revenue?
There are other jurisdictions where a certain percentage of gas
tax, for example, goes towards this process. There is something
that the province of Quebec does-a portion of their permit fee.
Is that something that we should be discussing as well? There's
no question that today the controversy has been, how do you
enforce the mandatory trail fees, and who should be using them
and who shouldn't be
accessing them? So I thought we'd use this opportunity to get
your thoughts on that. Should we be looking at other ways of
providing funding to the snowmobile clubs that do all this
extraordinary amount of work?
Mr
Quinton: Yes, we should, and I think that has been
addressed by past speakers in support of that. But if I could go
back to the first part of your question, you mentioned about
"mandatory." I like to interpret "mandatory" as being fair: If
you travel the trails and if you use the trails, then you should
pay for the trails. I understand the traditional user. I'm a
traditional user. I have been a traditional user for years. I
helped build the trails initially. But the trails are much
different today than what they were 20 years ago.
Mr
Gravelle: It's part of what you said, I guess. Yes.
Mr
Quinton: It's the OFSC members who mainly support and
keep those trails in good travelling condition.
I hear by the deliberations
today and I've heard for years in regard to traditional users,
most traditional users are permit buyers. They support what we
do. The traditional users are the backbone of a lot of our clubs.
With any club there are a few freeloaders. I feel very strongly
that freeloaders should be forced to pay by mandatory
permits.
Our trail system has been
built by hydro roads, some logging roads, not many, along the
north shore of Lake Superior. But most of the trail system was
built by our club. We had to connect all these different areas.
It's interesting to note that whenever we make a change on a
trail to go around a swamp, to fix a rough spot, the traditional
user I've never known to go on his traditional trails; he always
uses the new trail. I have a problem with that, but I understand
the traditional use and I know there has to be a lot of
discussion around some of those issues.
Mr
Gravelle: You're supportive then of what Nancy Tulloch
was saying earlier too-
Mr
Quinton: Very much so.
Mr
Gravelle: -which was that the local organization, which
knows the people, would have a much better chance of being able
to find a solution to the problem in terms of the people who are
truly traditional users. There would be less likelihood of abuse
or whatever if it was managed on that local or regional
level.
Mr
Quinton: That certainly works in small towns. I cannot
speak for, say, a large area like thunder Bay, a large club,
because between downtown Thunder Bay and downtown Shebandowan
you've quite a distance and I'm sure you're going to have some
differences of opinion.
Mr
Gravelle: I still maintain that the government should be
finding some way of having a portion of the fees going back to
the club, simply on the basis that it's clear that this is an
extraordinary economic boom for the province. We know it's great
in terms of the tourism industry, and I don't think it should be
left simply as something that's there for the mandatory permits
to actually be the total funder for the process.
The Chair:
Mr Bisson?
Mr Bisson:
I have no questions, other than a business matter, because they
have already been raised by the other caucuses.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Quinton. I appreciate your bringing your
personal and governorship perspectives before us here today.
Mr
Quinton: Mainly personal.
Mrs
McLeod: May I ask a very quick question? I know you're
packing up to get to the airport. I apologize, because when local
members sub in, we go over ground sometimes that's already been
gone over, but I just need personal clarification. I think Mr
Spina said that under current regulations a mandatory trail
permit is required for both residents and non-residents?
Mr Spina:
Current regulation of the OFSC. It's within the OFSC.
Mrs
McLeod: But not under provincial legislation.
Mr Spina:
No, it's not a provincial, it's an OFSC-
Mrs
McLeod: So it's an expectation of the clubs, as opposed
to a requirement by provincial regs.
Mr Bisson:
Chair, as you know, tomorrow I'm not going to be able to be in
Timmins for the hearings in my own community. Unfortunately, my
travel date has been moved up. As you know, I'm travelling to
Edmonton on other parliamentary business on behalf of my
constituents and my travel date has been changed by your minister
to a day earlier. So it makes it impossible.
I'd like to present the
committee with this letter that you can read tomorrow, and I
stand you on guard on record. You will read the letter when you
arrive in Timmins tomorrow, as I'm not able to do that. It's the
first time that's ever happened.
The Chair:
You get more flies with honey than vinegar. I take it you're
asking me to read that letter tomorrow.
Mr Bisson:
I am asking, but I want it on record.
The Chair:
I would be pleased to accede to a request to do that.
Is there any other
committee business? If there's not, thank you to all those who
made presentations today and to those who just came to watch the
proceedings. I'd certainly invite any follow-up comments,
questions, suggestions from anyone in the audience or elsewhere
in the community. We've got a few weeks before we go back to
Queen's Park and do the clause-by-clause consideration and we
certainly appreciate all the views that have been expressed here
today.
The committee stands
adjourned until tomorrow in Timmins.
