For too long, the provinces and feds have taken tax revenue from the marine industry for granted and invest little (or none) of it back into boating infrastructure. Why is all that extra tax money ( road taxes ) boaters pay at the marine gas pumps not being redirected to marine infrastructure maintenance and improvements?

Recent surveys show Canadian recreational boating is a $20 Billion dollar industry and half the jobs created are here in Ontario. If you are spending a weekend, a two-week vacation or the summer on your boat, you are most likely spending all your leisure money locally and putting it back into our economy as opposed to vacationing outside Canada.

Unfortunately we do not have the same legislation in place as the State of Michigan where it is mandatory that all tax revenues from Marinas must be reinvested. As a result, you have over one hundred municipally funded marinas with state-of-the-art facilities, including launching ramps for trailer boaters. Here in Canada we face a potential shortage of both seasonal, transient slips and boat launch ramps as more prime waterfront land is acquired for private residences, condos and time shares.

While the province of Ontario invests millions in snowmobile trails to promote winter tourism and to keep snowmobilers from going to Quebec or the northern states, boating sites on the Trent-Severn Waterway and Georgian Bay have all but disappeared, or are simply falling apart. Back in the seventies and early eighties there was a network of overnight boating sites maintained by the MNR that provided excellent docking and kept boaters away from tying up in front of someone’s cottage. As a last-ditch effort to save these sites, the CBA suggested a nightly fee but that did not change the minds of Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. As an example, look at provincial parks on the water, i.e., Killbear, that want boaters to put a fee in an envelope if they come to shore but offer no docks or safe tie up facilities. There are shower facilities but boaters are tacitly discouraged from using them.

At the federal level we have seen the removal of many navigation aids, lack of infrastructure spending on the Trent-Severn Waterway and outside channel up Georgian Bay (which is funded by the GBA along with donations from groups like the CBA.) There is no excuse for Canada’s Coast Guard to not fund these from their own budget, especially since the outside route takes more traffic away from the small craft route, reducing shoreline damage from boat wakes. Look at the fees we now have to pay to use the Welland Canal!

These efforts are important to the future of Canadian boating. The new budget contains billions of dollars in infrastructure & bail-out funding. We need to see our fair share of this money invested in our recreational waterways and lakes. Aids to navigation, overnight boating sites, Georgian Bay Islands Nations Park, Thousand Islands National Park, the Trent-Severn & Rideau Canals are just a few areas that badly need upgrades and repairs.

We are counting on everyone’s support to make this happen, This might be an uphill battle but we are prepared to fight for the rights of boaters!

Please take a moment and create a letter to the Prime Minister's office supporting our cause.

Click HERE to generate an online letter