MANITOWANING—Assiginack council is petitioning provincial and federal government officials, along with the executive of the Norisle Steamship Society, to attend a meeting to discuss the disposition of the S.S. Norisle.
This issue was raised at an Assiginack Township council meeting last week.
Councillor Rob Maguire told council, “I shared this proposed motion with the society, and they were okay with it.”
“We are requesting a meeting to be held with our federal member of parliament Carol Hughes, our provincial MPP Michael Mantha and the executive of the steamship society to discuss the disposition of the S.S. Norisle and any measures that can be undertaken to mitigate risks to the community until the disposition is complete,” said Mayor Brenda Reid.
“We want to bring everyone to the table,” said Mayor Reid. “We can’t figure out how to get rid or do something with the ship. And we need to dispose of the ship from the waterfront somehow. When you have something, an issue that is bigger than the municipality can handle, you need to get some help.”
“We aren’t thinking anything specific for the ship, but something needs to be done with it,” said Mayor Reid. “At this point we can’t even get a salvage company to talk to us about getting rid of the ship. We are looking for any options or ideas of what we can do.”
“Maybe having our provincial/federal politicians and the steamship society, they can provide or do research or provide contacts we don’t have,” said Mayor Reid, who pointed out, “the guys from the steamship society have a lot of connections and maybe they can help us out with this. It’s time to move this along and hopefully by having this meeting we can get some movement on this issue. We are hoping to get a meeting held as soon as possible.”
As has been reported previously, at a council committee of the whole meeting May 2, the committee reviewed correspondence received from the Steamship Society. The committee appreciated receiving the correspondence but recognized that it did little to establish a timeline for removing the vessel from the waterfront or taking title away from the municipality. The committee also expressed concerns about sending the public works crew onto the vessel in its current condition.
Council agreed at that meeting that it was still looking at all options for disposition of the ship.
John Coulter, a member of the steamship society told the Expositor after last week’s council meeting, “It’s positive that the town wants to hold this meeting. We’ve been carrying a bit of a load on this, trying to get our separate proposal (for use of the ship) moving, which is no problem. But the council wanting to approach the government on its own is not a bad thing at all. This is a township initiative which is separate to what we have been doing. Whatever the township is going to do, getting government officials to help assist is important and good news.”
Mr. Coulter and Wayne Fischer, also of the steamship society, had explained in part in a letter to council dated May 2, “since our privileged invitation by the town in 2007 to assess Norisle for a potential repurposed operating future we have worked diligently to evolve a future for your important Canadian Heritage Ship which is the last of her type in Canada.”
As you are aware, our consideration that she would be a successful Great Lakes 4/5-star Canadian flag cruise ship was validated by a year-long independent study and to that end since 2007 we have received approximately one million dollars in government grants, industry support and donations towards preparation for drydocking and the required total repurpose refit. This has resulted in all the preparation work being completed that will save such work and financial investment during the refit period.”
“Although we have had positive and unfortunately negative events in our efforts to progress the Norisle initiative, we are now engaged with developing industry and government discussions that we trust will provide a positive path forward,” the letter reads. “Such initiatives require prolonged negotiations and development that are usually between multiple parties and in most cases the timing is beyond our direct control and the three years of the pandemic was clearly a challenge to such endeavours.”
“We are not in a position of determining the eventual success of such initiatives, but we are encouraged by the renewed progress to date,” the letter continues. “We have made important advances in developing a relationship with a shipyard that has assisted us in providing 2023 costs and indicated a willingness to provide assistance with the project and to assist in our fundraising. In regard to timing, we are not in control of an end point and although we cannot guarantee you that our long-term faith in Norisle’s future and the thousands of person hours and financial donation we have invested have been provided based on our believe in Norisle’s importance for future generations.”
