Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Sarrah Storey. I'm the mayor of the Village of Fraser Lake, which is a community in north central BC.

I'm in the Lakes District, an extremely beautiful place in rural northern B.C., which is right in the centre of British Columbia. If you're looking for us, we're just west of Prince George by an hour and a half. We're on the traditional territory of the Nadleh Whut'en and Stellat'en first nations.

The three communities and the region are facing massive economic downturns in mining and forestry. We are focusing on a variety of strategies, including tourism, to encourage growth and economic development. This will help us build a sustainable economy with or without industry.

That leads us into what we are doing with the lake that we live on and what is happening in our region with a level 5 drought as well. Right now we are seeing a level 5 drought.

We wrote a resolution in 2018 to deal with the water hazard buoys and water hazard issues we were seeing with the reefs on some of the lakes in our region, Francois Lake and Fraser Lake. I live on Fraser Lake, and François Lake is about 15 minutes from me. We passed that resolution at our area association. Then it went to the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, where it was passed again, and then went off to the FCM.

We have these hidden reefs within our lakes. They are unmarked and they're causing safety concerns. As you can imagine, the lake levels were considerably higher in 2018. Now with our level 5 drought, we are seeing some major issues.

Just to add context to this conversation, the dam closest to us, the Nechako Reservoir, which creates electricity, is at critically low levels right now. At the end of the summer this year, it was 6.6 metres under normal average levels, which is huge. It has come up over two metres with some heavy rain and snow lately. That's great, but it's still four metres under average levels.

When I first learned we could not put water hazard buoys on these dangerous reefs due to liability concerns, we had to do some research to learn how we could get that issue solved. Hence we built a resolution, which I'm going to read to you in case some of you do not have it. It's short, so it shouldn't take too long:

And whereas, the Village of Fraser Lake is concerned that unmarked water hazards pose a threat to health and safety of persons involved in motorized water sports on freshwater lakes and rivers in British Columbia;

And whereas, the installation and maintenance of navigational markers and buoys will improve the safety of persons involved in motorized water activities:

Therefore be it resolved that the federal government install and maintain water hazard markers on known water hazards to protect lives and property on water ways in lakes, rivers and streams.

When local residents realized they also faced liability issues, they removed any and all markers they had out on the lakes as well.

The Village of Fraser Lake has been committed to protecting residents and tourists on local lakes. With the idea of moving into more tourism on our lake, we want to make sure we are really protecting people. Unfortunately, the hazard markers and the liability they have, we necessarily can't always take that on as municipalities. The downloading that we are already facing is pretty tough. Protecting boaters with water levels that are receding each summer—hopefully that does change, but we don't know how it's going to work with climate change—should be strategized to protect lives and property, and not at the cost of local governments or private citizens. That is a strategy we would like to look at. Our ask is that the federal Government of Canada provide municipalities the means to protect lives and property on waterways without liability to them.

In Transport Canada's navigation protection program's guide, “An Owner's Guide to Private Buoys”, there's a quote I'm going to share. It says, “In the event of an accident involving a private buoy, the owner(s) may be held liable for any resulting damages. This is why you should think about getting liability insurance coverage.” Municipalities like mine cannot necessarily afford to take this on, and I'm not sure what the capacity is for local governments to maintain water hazard buoys on these dangerous reefs.

If anybody wants a picture, I have a few pictures that I have created over the years of some of these reefs. They're in the middle of these large lakes, and you don't know they're there. I can share those with anyone who would like to see them.

I'm going to leave it there and give some time back.