Fisheries Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I have 60 seconds left. I would like to hear Mr. Murray or Mr. Da Pont speak to this, because this concerns me.

[Commr George Da Pont]

I would like to talk specifically about the search and rescue program. Although the Auditor General has found management problems, some facts are worth mentioning. First, with regard to rescuing individuals at risk, our success rate is approximately 98%. This is one of the best rates in the world. In recent years, our success rate has not dropped.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Numbers are great, but I'd like to know what this 98% means?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We're going to our next questioner, Monsieur Da Pont. That question was overtime.

You'll have another opportunity.

Mr. Manning.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to zero in, if I could, on the special operating agency. In April of 2005, the former government designated that Fisheries and Oceans would have a special operating agency within their system. I guess this change was intended to form the coast guard into a national institution.

I noted in your comments, Ms. Fraser, that in your view the coast guard still operates largely with five regional coast guard operations, instead of with the one national institution that was supposed to come from the SOA. I'm just wondering if you could elaborate—and maybe Mr. Da Pont may want to speak on it also—whether this status has posed particular challenges to the coast guard transforming itself into a national institution, notwithstanding the unsatisfactory progress in some aspects of that.

It seems there was some thought process at the time that the department was large enough to have maybe several SOAs, instead of just the one, and that it might be better off in regard to management if it had to do that, because my understanding is that the coast guard right now is the largest SOA within government.

I'm just wondering if you would—

[Sheila Fraser]

I really can't comment on that, I'm afraid. I mentioned earlier that we always hesitate to talk about funding levels. We always hesitate as well to talk about how government organizes itself. It really should be up to government to decide how it wishes to organize and if a special operating agency is the most appropriate way to operate.

I don't know if it is the largest or not. Again, we haven't done that kind of comparison.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

I'm wondering, Mr. Da Pont, if you would like to comment on that, whether you see the SOA being the—I know that's what we're all striving for, to make it a national institution, but the fact that the Auditor General says we're still operating with the five different zones and—

[Commr George Da Pont]

Yes. Well, I think having SOA status and the framework that was put in place in 2005 give us a very effective tool to become more of a national institution. We're certainly not there yet, and we haven't made full use of that tool. But it's been in place only for a year and a bit, and the culture of having five regional coast guards goes back decades. You're not going to eliminate or overcome that culture overnight or in a year or two.

Certainly what being an agency does is it gives us a stronger identity within DFO. It gives us the opportunity to access some very special authorities relevant just to the coast guard, separate and apart from some of the departmental authorities. We have some, we are looking for others. It will give us, over time, the ability to become far more businesslike in terms of our relationships with the users of our services and developing a business plan, and the requirement that it be public, that it be with the board, is a good example of that.

But I think the biggest change in moving from five regional coast guards to one is there certainly are a number of management improvements that need to be done; there are certainly policies and procedures that need to be standardized. They exist. They are just different from one region to another.

Those are things that one can, over time, easily put in place. The harder part is the cultural change, for people to adjust to operating in a different way. I think we're making success in that, but realistically it's going to take time. It took decades of being five regional entities with lots of autonomy. It's not going to come together culturally in a year or two.

[Larry Murray]

May I just say that having come from a navy that has two navies, and it's always a tension, you have to be careful here as well, because actually there are some reasons why the five regionals...things are different. Some of the operations are different, and a cookie-cutter approach out of Ottawa isn't necessarily—

We need to be careful that we don't screw up that 98% number. However, we need to explain it and all that, but all that to say it's a high success rate in our key operational issues, and part of that is because of the way we operate. So we need to be careful in this stuff, that we end up with the right balance, and we're well short of bumping into too much national oversight on some of these things right now.

All I'm saying is operationally we have to be careful, because it's not entirely bad that people in Newfoundland take a different view and have a different set of imperatives than the people on the Great Lakes and the people in B.C. So this isn't just a question of “well, let's just roll on through here”, because the operational impact of doing it with a cookie-cutter approach out of Ottawa may produce something that has terrific management accountability but we can't save a frigging soul.

So we need to be careful about how we do this thing, because it's an organization that works at the coal face, but it does need to move into the 21st century.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

No, it's—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Murray. Thank you, Mr. Manning.

Mr. Cuzner.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I want to look at two numbers Mr. Murray referred to. The first one is the marine search and rescue success rate, which is 98%. That's very reassuring to a group that's looking at going out on the ice to witness the seal harvest in a couple of weeks. We hope you keep your A-game there.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I want to go back to another comment you made with reference to support for DFO science. Out of close to 90 surveys in the Atlantic zone between 2001 and 2006, only two were not done.

I think that's a pretty good record; that's pretty good business, if that's a fact. I would think the newspaper article was probably a result of the tabling of Ms. Fraser's report. When we look at the case study, it refers to how the science sector has been unable to complete many of its multi-species surveys because of problems with the vessels. Not able to complete many of their surveys—I wouldn't think that two would be referred to as many.

I'm just seeing the divide between what we're seeing in the report and then further down in the case study as well. The vessel programs have significantly affected ongoing research; it's impossible to complete surveys. That's strong wording in the AG's report, but it doesn't mesh with what we're seeing as facts.

Perhaps you could each shed some light on it.

[Larry Murray]

We're in the same corner as the AG. My concern in responding to it...and in fact we played around with the words on that yesterday. I think if you were to go to our scientists, they would be where the AG is for sure. The reality is that the media report said there had been no surveys done. That's really what I'm trying to correct here.

People have really busted their butts to take ships out that are pretty old, to get most of the surveys done in some manner. The reality is only two were not done. I would say many of the others--and we've been trying to get the detail on this, and we couldn't get it out of the science sector before today. That's not to say they started on time; it's not to say they could do as many sets as they wished to do. I don't have the ability--

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

In the window of opportunity that's necessary to do the science.

[Larry Murray]

Yes, so I would say in terms of that, it's not a discrepancy. What the Auditor General has noted in her report you would hear from our scientists.

My point is that people did get to see and do a fair amount of work on fisheries science. So the minister isn't flying blind. A fair amount of it was done. Once we've had a chance to delve a little more into the science sector, I'd be happy to try to give you a more accurate sense of what the impact was. I think it is an important question.

In putting these notes together, what we were trying to say is that fisheries survey work was done, and a significant amount of it. That's not to say the Auditor General's comments are inaccurate.

[Commr George Da Pont]

Mr. Chairman, I might say we did do some work and we did get some numbers that shed a bit more light on it. There were 89 resource surveys in Atlantic Canada; two were not done at all. Certainly, they were critical ones that were lost.

Of the others, 33 were affected by mechanical breakdowns—affected in the sense that the survey didn't take place exactly when it had been planned and had to be rescheduled, or affected by the fact that the survey had to be shortened or somehow adjusted. So that is very much in line with the Auditor General's findings. The numbers affected are significant.

Two were not done; about 50 did go as planned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. O'Brien, you had a comment.

[John O'Brien]

Just to follow up on the commissioner's comment, I think that's a fair statement.

The issue, as we understand it—and obviously we're not auditing the science program. The intention is to get the surveys done at about the same time every year, to use roughly the same equipment, to get the coverage the scientists desire to reach their conclusions. To the extent you don't get that done, the surveys aren't fully complete—the information isn't as accurate as they would like to have input into the decision-making. Over time, this creates a problem for decision-making.

“Not complete” means they were not completed as planned and not completed to meet the objectives set out at the beginning of the survey.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. O'Brien.

Who's next here? Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

No, you're at five minutes and 44 seconds.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

That was Mr. Cuzner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Oh, Mr. Blais, I apologize. I would never cut your time, ever.