Visit www.taxpirates.ca to learn more about the millions of tax dollars collected at our marinas every season by the federal and provincial governments. For too long, the provinces and feds have taken tax revenue ( the 'road taxes' ) from the marine industry for granted and invested little (or none) of it back into boating infrastructure.

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!

Professional lobbyist, Tony Bernardo, has advised us that demanding the provinces and federal government re-invest a share of the gas taxes back into boating infrastructure is not impossible, provided it is pursued properly and presented to the appropriate Ministers (not middle-management civil servants who are only interested in building empires and do no more work than they have to.)

When you drop by our booth at the boat show we will be encouraging everyone to send a letter to send to both your provincial and federal MPs and copy others. Letters will be available at the booth and there is no cost to you. Did you know your MP or MPP’s must respond to all written correspondence? Did you know most emails are simply deleted?

These efforts are important to the future of Canadian boating. In January (once we know who is in charge in Ottawa) the next budget will be introduced and will likely contain billions of dollars in infrastructure 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.

If you know of any public facilities in need of repair or improvements, please send us the information and we will pass it on to the right person in Ottawa, including our Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who will have the final decision on where the money goes. You can also go to the CBA Ontario web site and see a list of Federal MPs and Provincial MPPS to contact. Please be aware that there is no postage when sending a letter to your MP.

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 visit www.taxpirates.ca to create a letter to the Prime Minister's Office