Harbour in Transition:Competing Interests.

James Bay is one of Victoria’s harbour based communities and has taken an active interest examining harbour issues. 

 

The theme of Marg’s talk was, Harbour in Transition:Competing Interests.

James Bay is one of Victoria’s harbour based communities and has taken an active interest examining harbour issues.  Key to the perspectives from the JBNA is the dialogue about who manages the harbour and they declare that The Canada Marine Act is the parent act for our harbour, and in fact defines it.

Marg walked us through the differences between a Port Authority vs the criteria that applies for our harbour which is deemed a Public Port, noting that the overriding challenge is the mixed use of the middle harbour and the current practice of using it as an airport runway.  It is the view of the JBNA that current safety regulations governing civil aviation are not met and clarity around safety issues have been languishing in a draft safety standards policy for 14 years.  Further, it is their view that the draft does not provide equivalent safety relative to other airports.

No alternatives are proposed by the JBNA.   Marg responded to a couple of questions clearly stating that they want clarity on conflicting guidelines and an end to the 14 years of waiting for the vetting of Draft 326.