Tops On Kip's Christmas Wish List

[Kip Powick]

OTTAWA — If recreational boaters are horrified by the triple-digit fee increases Parks Canada is proposing for use of the Rideau Canal, just imagine how Marc Ackert must feel.

Ackert owns the Kawartha Voyageur, a 120-foot cruise ship that ferries as many as 47 passengers on multi-day cruises up and down the Rideau and Trent-Severn waterways. Last year, he bought commercial season’s passes and paid $5,200 in lockage and mooring fees.

But Parks Canada is proposing to eliminate seasonal lockage and mooring passes and move to a ticket system, with a charge for every lock station. Moreover, the commercial rate would be double the recreational rate. Ackert calculates that would jack up his costs to $111,000 by 2014 — an increase of 2,126 per cent.

By comparison, Steve Flewitt would get off lightly. Flewitt owns Ayling’s Boat Yard and Marina in Merrickville, and operates day-long boat tours on the M.V. Rideau King. His rates are “only” rising 1,100 per cent.

“Right now, we’re spending about $2,200 a year for mooring and lockage,” Flewitt said. “When we’re done with these guys and the new program, it’s $24,000.

“I don’t know where it’s coming from,” he said. “I’d be embarrassed to present this to anybody, even if they were filthy rich.”

Unless they’re substantially reduced, Parks Canada’s proposed fees will certainly sink the Rideau King, Flewitt said. They’ll also whack his marina business. “For people to come here from other places, it’s going to become cost prohibitive.”

Andrew Campbell, Parks Canada’s vice-president of visitor experiences, admitted Wednesday that the agency didn’t foresee that its proposed fees would have such a dire impact on commercial operators like Ackert and Flewitt.

“Sometimes when you do the calculations, you don’t take the Kawartha Voyageur into account,” Campbell said in an interview.

He said Parks Canada officials have already spoken to Ackert and other commercial operators. “We want to continue to sit down with that group, because we in no way desire to have people exiting the market. In fact, our dream would actually be to grow that market.”

If the proposed fees mean commercial operators can’t survive, Parks Canada will negotiate a different arrangement, Campbell said. One possibility might be a model that gives Parks Canada a percentage of gross receipts, as is done in national parks. “That way, we’re both in it to win,” he said.

Campbell said comments about the proposed fees have been flooding in since Parks Canada posted them on its website last Friday. Members of the public have until Feb. 18 to make their views known.

Many have already complained about Parks Canada’s plan to scrap seasonal lockage and mooring passes, which offer boaters a simple and relatively inexpensive way to use the canal.

Campbell said Parks Canada is revisiting the issue of a seasonal pass for lockages, with an announcement possible as early as Thursday. “We are taking a very serious look at it right now.”

But a seasonal mooring pass is a more complex issue, he said. Canal users have complained that some boaters buy them and tie up for the entire summer, monopolizing space at canal lock stations.

Bull $hit...there is a two day limit on all lock docks and it is enforced...there is no way anyone can stay all summer at a lock. If there is little or no traffic a boater may be able to snivel one extra night at a lock/dock

“It means that area of the dock is unavailable for people who are transiting through,” Campbell said. “We’re hearing from both sides on that.”

Fees at all Parks Canada sites have been frozen since 2008, and all will be raised over the next couple of years. But only the historic canals are facing large increases.

That has prompted many to ask why Parks Canada is singling out canal users for such harsh treatment. Some have even suggested that the agency would prefer to see operations on the Rideau Canal cease entirely.

But Campbell said that’s “absolutely false. There is no desire to have the canal not be well used and well travelled. Our goal always is to try to increase the number of people who are visiting our places.”

One reason the canal increases are so large, Campbell explained, is that boaters now pay less than 10 per cent of what it costs Parks Canada to provide boat services. By comparison, at national parks and other Parks Canada sites, “we’re recovering about 35 per cent.”

“We’re not trying to close that gap to zero,” Campbell said, adding: “Obviously, there are other economic benefits. We are in absolute agreement with that.”

Parks Canada is proposing to more than double its overnight mooring fee to $2 per foot and introduce a new $1-a-foot daytime charge. Campbell said that was prompted by complaints from marina operators that Parks Canada’s current low mooring fees were depressing the market.

$3.00/day per foot from Parks????......and.......so far...... NO SEASONAL PASSES available...Marinas are all close to $1.60/foot with all amenities that far surpass only a composting toilet

Overall, he said, Parks Canada is “trying to hit the sweet spot” by charging fees that will make canal operations sustainable without driving users away.

However, as currently proposed, the fees are clearly well outside of that desired sweet spot.

On Wednesday, Portland resident Russ Cluett emailed Parks Canada, informing the agency that the cost of a round trip voyage from Big Rideau Lake to Georgian Bay on the Rideau and Trent-Severn systems would increase six-fold if the proposed fees are approved.

At present, the couple can buy seasonal lockage and mooring passes and pay just $558. But under the new fee structure, they’d pay $3,696 in fees for the same trip, Cluett said.

“Does anybody actually believe that increasing the rates so dramatically will actually increase revenue?” he asked. “I certainly would not be taking that trip, or any other based on the proposed fee structure

[DEFCON]

Perhaps it's time for the government to acknowledge it's not at all good at business. Leasing out various operations on the canal to private interests might be a better approach?

[st27]

The rates stil go up...just not as much..

http://www.recorder.ca/2013/02/06/changes-make-season-salvageable

Not much incentive for the "average" boater to take a side trip from the US side of the islands up the Rideau or for Canadian boaters to leave the marina...like general aviation..not many new people getting into boating anymore.

[Kip Powick]

The latest.............

SEASONAL mooring rates double for 2013..................however....if one gets a mooring pass now, the rate is the same as 2012. In theory we have until March 31 to get the mooring rate for 2012 and use the pass in 2013. After March 31 the rate doubles to $20.00/ft.

If PC sends notices out that we "owe" more for 2013, everyone I have talked/emailed said they will return their passes and ask for a refund and go on the anchor.

Ordered mine 3 days ago.