The Town of Shelburne won’t be seeing any additional reimbursement for the MV Farley Mowat.
A request sent by the town for reimbursement of lawyer fees related to the derelict ship has been rejected by the federal government.
During their meeting last week, Council was presented with a letter from Minister Bernadette Jordan stating there was no legal basis for the federal government to cover the legal costs.
Mayor Karen Mattatall said they weren’t completely surprised by the answer.
“I can’t say we really expected that they would reimburse us,” she said, “But we said we’d ask because all they could really say is no, which they did.”
The town had been on the hook for harbouring and maintaining the ship since 2014, and had requested reimbursement of over $147,000 in fees associated with the boat – The town had since been reimbursed around $144,000 from the Ship Source Oil Pollution Fund.
However they were still on the hook for the legal fees, something Mattatall said they felt was misplaced on the town.
“Because the federal government had initially seized the ship and had allowed it to become derelict, that’s why we felt the responsibility of the legal fees should not be on us,” she said.
While Mattatall didn’t have the amount of the fees on hand, she did note they were not a substantial amount, and were paid in full quite a while ago.
