CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Cruise Ship Visits to Cape Merrow Debate

On summer mornings, a white wall of steel dominates the view from the wharf in Cape Merrow, a Nova Scotia fishing village of about 900. On peak days, two ships anchor in the bay and as many as 5,000 passengers are ferried ashore, more than five times the population. A plan before the village’s councillors would limit arrivals to one ship daily and impose a $6 harbour levy on every disembarking passenger.

Mayor Colleen Barteaux denies any antagonism toward tourism. The wharf, washrooms and sewage system, she contends, were engineered for a village, not “a small city that appears at nine in the morning and vanishes by five,” while residents absorb the deterioration through property taxes. The cap concerns safety as much as comfort: on two-ship days, ambulances have struggled along the main street.

Rafi Haddad, whose café and gift shop stand steps from the wharf, derives roughly 40 percent of his summer sales from passengers and expects the cap to cost far more than the levy yields. Yet he concedes the crowding has become difficult to defend, having watched neighbours abandon their own post office in July. “A fee I could tolerate, if it’s earmarked for the wharf and washrooms,” he says. “A cap is different. Cruise lines plan itineraries years ahead, and a village that refuses them on Tuesdays may be dropped altogether.”

Dr. Ingrid Solberg, a Halifax scholar of coastal tourism, has observed comparable disputes elsewhere. Per-passenger charges almost never discourage visitors, she reports, since companies quietly absorb them into ticket prices. Caps can succeed, though only when negotiated with the industry and combined with efforts to distribute visits across the season. Communities announcing limits unilaterally, she cautions, “tend to discover how little bargaining power they actually have.”

For retired fisherman Wendell Price, whose family has occupied the harbour for four generations, the economic reasoning misses the point. He endorses the cap unreservedly but distrusts the levy. “Once each passenger represents six dollars, councillors will start counting them as income, and someone will soon propose a bigger wharf,” he predicts. The village, he fears, could become a stage set: “Pretty to look at, but nobody really lives here anymore.”

After twenty years in Cape Merrow, I can confirm the mayor isn’t exaggerating; on two-ship days I don’t attempt the drive. When 6. Choose…lunch counters sell out by noonemergency vehicles are left crawlingthe last launch leaves people strandeda horn wakes everybody at dawn, something has to give. Still, I doubt the levy is the answer. If Dr. Solberg is right, the companies will simply 7. Choose…send their travellers elsewhererefuse to pay altogetherlobby to have it reducedbuild it into fares, and the crowds won’t thin.

Worse, I share Mr. Price’s fear that council will come to see every passenger as 8. Choose…a cash cowa safety hazarda welcome guesta burden on taxpayers. Mr. Haddad deserves credit for his candour, given that passengers represent 9. Choose…most of his annual incomescarcely any real profita healthy slice of salesthe post office’s main trade. Before voting, council should 10. Choose…keep only the levyearmark the levy for washroomsdouble the levysit down with cruise lines. Otherwise we may get the worst of both worlds: fewer ships, but no fewer complaints.