Fisheries Committee on Nov. 28th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

I call this meeting to order.

I want to thank our guests for being here with us today.

Mr. King, I appreciate your coming before us, along with your staff, to talk about the supplementary estimates (B). I guess you're quite familiar with the procedure here.

I'll turn it right over to you, Mr. King. Perhaps you could introduce your associates. I know your financial officer is going to make a brief presentation as well.

The floor is yours, sir.

[Matthew King, Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Good afternoon to everybody.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for inviting us to appear today to discuss the DFO's supplementary estimates.

Almost everyone is pretty well known to the committee here, but I'll make introductions for the benefit of the few new members we have.

We have the Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, Marc Grégoire—Marc will be taking questions on all coast guard issues this afternoon; associate deputy minister at fisheries and oceans, David Bevan; newly minted senior assistant deputy minister, ecosystems and fisheries management, Kevin Stringer; assistant deputy minister, ecosystems and fisheries management operations, Trevor Swerdfager; our acting chief financial officer, Denis Bombardier; and our acting assistant deputy minister, science, Dave Gillis.

Mr. Chair, before I begin, allow me to mention that our department is still in mourning after the tragic crash of helicopter 364, assigned to CCGS Amundsen in the Arctic in September. This accident caused the loss of Captain Marc Thibault, the helicopter pilot, Mr. Daniel Dubé, and Mr. Klaus Hochheim, a University of Manitoba scientist working on the ArcticNet project. I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to offer our condolences to the families.

Mr. Chair, the department's supplementary estimates are before the committee. Our department received almost $1.669 billion in main estimates for 2013-14. Our supplementary estimates total almost $118.8 million. If approved by the committee and then by Parliament, this would bring our total 2013-14 appropriation to approximately $1.788 billion.

As you mentioned, and as was agreed with the committee clerk, l'm just going to ask our chief financial officer, Denis Bombardier, to present only the highlights of our supplementary estimates. Then we'll look forward to answering questions on supplementary estimates or any other questions of interest to the committee.

Denis, you have the floor.

[Denis Bombardier, Acting Chief Financial Officer, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you, Deputy Minister.

I've prepared a short deck, so I'll jump right in.

I'll go to page 2. Today's goal, as our deputy minister mentioned, is to provide committee members with the key changes to our spending authorities.

As committee members will know, the supplementary estimates serve two main purposes. The first one is to seek authority from Parliament to revise the department's spending levels. The second one is to provide Parliament with additional information on changes in the estimated expenditures.

As members are aware, there are three supplementary estimates exercises for this fiscal year, supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C).

The department did not have any requests under supplementary estimates (A). Supplementary estimates (B) were tabled in Parliament on November 7, and supplementary estimates (C) will be tabled in February 2014.

I will go to page 3.

This page contains an overview of the initial position of the department, from the main estimates up to the votes that are anticipated at this point.

The department is submitting 29 positions altogether for approval, for a total of $118,797 million, which includes statutory appropriations. I will go over the table in order to give you a better idea of where we came from and where we are going.

On the left, there are the votes: vote 1, vote 5 and vote 10. A vote summarizes the financial needs of a department in specific expenditure categories. For instance, under vote 1, you have operating expenditures, that is to say, mainly salaries and operating expenses.

Vote 1 of the main estimates totals $1,119 billion. To that, we add the carry-over from the budget of $56.7 million. Then, you have supplementary estimates (B), which we are discussing today, of $63 million. This brings us to a total of $1.239 billion.

Under vote 5, capital expenditures, for instance for the acquisition of buildings, the main estimates total $360 million. To that, we add the carry-over of $54.5 million. Afterwards, there are the supplementary estimates (B) for $24.5 million, for a total of $439 million.

Finally, there is vote 10, grants and contributions. There are $59 million allocated to that item in the main estimates. To this is added $29.2 million in the supplementary estimates (B), for a total of $88.3 million.

The total before the statutory appropriations is $1.767 billion. The overall total, including statutory appropriations, is $1.898 billion.

Let us now have a look at page 4.

The amount in this year's supplementary estimates, set out in the table on page 3, may be considered a net amount. This amount has three major components.

The total request adds up to a gross amount of $122,322,659.

From that is deducted a sum of $6,210,318, which represents funds that were already frozen in connection with the cuts announced in Budget 2013. This $6-million amount is made up of two sub-elements, the first being the targeted review of expenditures announced in Budget 2013. That was the first year that component was reduced. The total cut for this year is $3.994 million. The second sub-element from the $6-million amount is the department's contribution to reducing travel expenses. That component was also announced in the 2013 budget. All of the departments have to contribute to that effort. The total amount requested was $42.7 million. The contribution of the department in that regard is $2.3 million.

The third amount is made up of funds transfers between votes as well as between departments. All of these transfers represent a net amount of $788,000. Since neither the department nor the minister are authorized to transfer amounts from one vote to another, those transfers must absolutely be approved in this fiscal year.

If we deduct the $6.2 million from the $122.3 million and then add the $788,000, we obtain the sum of $116.9 million, which is found in our table on page 3.

I will now move on to page 5. It provides you with an overview of the main elements in supplementary estimates (B).

The first of these elements is an amount of $46.1 million for the removal of fuel and other pollutants present on the Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski. This is an old American warship which sank in 1946 in Grenville Channel off the coast of British Columbia.

The second amount of $31.9 million is for the renewal of the Pacific Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative and the Atlantic Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative. Those funds were announced in the federal 2013 budget. $21 million is allocated to the Pacific Initiative and $10.9 million to the Atlantic program. Funding for these two programs was initiated in 2007-2008. The department obtained funding for five years, which was renewed in 2012 for one year, and in 2013 for one more year.

The third amount of $20.5 million is to be used to undertake the integrated engineering phases for three scientific vessels, and one oceanographic Canadian Coast Guard vessel. The three scientific vessels will cost $244 million in total, which is included in the financial framework. As for the oceanographic vessel, it represents an amount of $144 million, which is also reported in the financial framework.

The next amount of $7.3 million is for the improvement of the prevention, preparation and intervention system in case of hydrocarbon leaks from ships. This is a horizontal item, which is to say that several departments are involved. In this particular case, Environment Canada and Transport Canada are involved and receive funds. This program is the first phase of the implementation of the system. Other phases will follow over the next few years.

The next amount of $4.4 million is for the activities involved in protecting the Canadian Great Lakes against the invasion of the Asian carp. This item had been announced in the 2012 budget. The department obtained funding for five years. That includes initiatives such as prevention, intervention and control of the Asian carp.

The following amount of $4 million is allocated to the Recreational Fisheries Conservation Partnerships Program. That amount was also announced in the 2013 federal budget. The department obtained $10 million over 2 years, i.e. $4 million this year and $6 million next year. The purpose of this program is to provide support to local projects so as to improve the conservation of recreational fisheries in the country.

The next amount of $2.6 million goes to support the conservation measures for marine ecosystems, an initiative that is better known as Health of the Oceans. That amount was also announced in the federal 2013 budget, and it is also a horizontal item. This year, Environment Canada also obtained funds. The department was granted $23 million over 5 years for that program, which was launched in 2007. It was renewed for one year in Budget 2012 and for one more year in Budget 2013.

The following item may be described as recurring. Every year, we have access to these funds through supplementary estimates (B). This is an amount of $2 million from intellectual property royalties. The department has access to revenue that was generated the previous year, for such things as navigation charts or hydrographic publications.

The next amount of $1.5 million is for planning the acquisition phase for small ships, and search and rescue vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard. The total amount in the financial framework is $487.7 million, and will be used for the acquisition of a maximum of 21 ships. Consequently, 10 search and rescue vessels, and 11 small ships which may be used for scientific pursuits, for instance.

The last item on this page is $1.4 million for the definition phase of the helicopter fleet renewal project. That amount will be used to acquire up to 24 helicopters for the Canadian Coast Guard.

Afterwards, appendix A provides details on the elements I have just discussed and provides explanations on the transfers I spoke to a little earlier in my presentation.

I am available to answer your questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

We'll go right into questions now.

Starting off the seven-minute round will be Mr. Kamp.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing today. It seems like a while since we've had an all-male cast from Fisheries and Oceans coming to our committee, but you're welcome anyway.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

If I may, I'd like to begin by asking maybe three questions of Commissioner Grégoire.

One of the most significant numbers in the supplementary (B)s is the $46.1 million for the Brigadier General M.G. Zalinski operation. I'm just wondering if you can tell the committee a little more about that operation.

It was said that it's a ship that sank in 1946, which was a while ago, so why are we now, in 2013-14, addressing this situation? How did we determine that what we need to do costs $46.1 million? I guess that's a question, and then perhaps you can tell us what stage we're at in the operation to do this.

[Marc Grégoire, Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you, Mr. Kamp. It's a very good question.

In fact, this is quite a large project for the coast guard. This ship, as you mentioned, sank in 1956, so that is 67 years ago. The question is, why now? Why are we looking after it now?

The coast guard became aware of some leakage from the ship back in 2003. The first time, we hired specialized divers, who went down and plugged the holes, so to speak—there were rivets coming out—with epoxy, and that was fine.

Since 2003 we have had increased surveillance and monitoring by the first nations in the environment, especially the Gitga'at, who live in Hartley Bay, who have consistently told us when there were further leaks. Back in 2011-12, there were further leaks. In 2012 alone, we had to go in three times, and we spent about half a million—$550,000—just to close those leaks.

We hired a specialized salvage company to assess the hull earlier in 2013, and they gave us an assessment in March that said basically any time soon you could see a catastrophic failure, which would lead to a major environmental spill in the area of bunker C, which is this very nasty, dark black tar-like roof tar that was used at that time to make the engine work. We built a case following that to get down there to get the oil out of this vessel. The government gave us the money and we're going to access the money through supplementary estimates (B).

Your next question was why the $46 million. This is the budget that we had established at the beginning. There are a number of contingencies as part of that amount. I do not think, at this point in time, we will need the whole amount. In fact, I think we should be around $30 million—not likely above this, but it could be a bit. We still have a lot to do to demobilize.

Your next question was when the operation was going to end. We are now getting towards the end. The diving started at the end of October. We started to pump oil. The first weeks of diving were to prepare the site to assess exactly the quantity of bunker C in the hull. There are many tanks and the ship is upside down on a bank in Grenville Channel. It is a very difficult area to get to and a very difficult place to dive because of the heavy currents due to the tide.

We assessed back then that we could have anywhere from 20 tonnes to over 100 tonnes of bunker C. As of this morning, we're at 37 tonnes of bunker C, which is a significant amount when you think that people report a spoonful or one-tenth of a litre to the coast guard. That's 37,000 litres of bunker C we collected, plus we have collected over 210,000 litres of oily water. We're at the point now where we're just recirculating water in the tank to make sure it's pretty clean. We have had divers in the last couple of days who have been cutting holes in the hull; they've been going in and really vacuuming the walls in the engine rooms. We're really making sure that we're cleaning it as much as we can.

By the middle of next week we hope to have finished collecting the oil, and then we will start demobilizing—dismantling, basically—the temporary installation that we have done around the Zalinski and return it to a normal state. But it's a large operation, and we're thankful to the government for that money to do it.

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

When I was in Prince Rupert with the minister a while back, we had the chance to meet with Admiral Girouard, who is your new assistant commissioner for the western region. He was pretty gung-ho about what he called the incident command system. Can you tell us what that is and how the experience with this—if it's a new experience—might help us in the future?

[Marc Grégoire]

Indeed it will. You may recall that last March 2013, the Minister of Transport at the time, Denis Lebel, announced that the coast guard would be implementing the incident command system to reinforce our capacity to deal with crises, both environmental response crises and other kinds of crises.

We started the training, and this is the first occasion we have to test it. I will remind people that implementing ICS is one of the conditions from B.C. to build a world-class regime for environmental response. Basically the way we ran this with the incident command post in Prince Rupert is that Roger was our incident commander there, which means that the coast guard was the lead for the whole operation. Rather than conducting this operation in siloes with the other parties, we worked with everybody together in the same room. We had the coast guard, the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, the local first nations, the Gitga'at and the Gitxaala, the Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, Mammoet Salvage America, Environment Canada, and the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation. All of those people worked together in the same room. They collectively looked at all the issues, and then the incident commander made the final decision.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all the DFO officials. Thank you for being with us at committee here to answer our questions.

Commissioner, I'd like to follow up with a question to you. Since the closure of the Kitsilano coast guard station, I've heard from local mariners that the transition has been anything but smooth sailing. With the increased use of the hovercraft from Burrard Inlet, including additional travel time and greater expense to operate than the vessels used at Kitsilano station, I have to wonder how much money the government is actually saving with this closure.

In November, several boats near False Creek were destroyed in a wind storm. Thankfully, no one was hurt. If the Kitsilano base had still been open, could these shipwrecks and the resulting pollution have been prevented? I understand Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services were frustrated watching from shore this property damage occur in front of their eyes.

In April a man tragically died of a heart attack while aboard a freighter that was literally within sight of the former Kitsilano coast guard station. This was a tragedy. It also raised serious concerns about the wisdom of closing Kitsilano station and the realities of increased response times. Again, local paramedics used the strategically located Kitsilano dock for the rescue but were frustrated that coast guard officials took longer in the rescue than if the station had been open.

Given that the Kitsilano station was the busiest coast guard station in Canada and that no proper risk analysis was done before its closure, I'm not surprised that we continue to learn of incidents that may have gone differently had the government not put public safety at risk by closing this station. Although the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans chastised me for criticizing this closure, I believe it is my duty to continue raising these issues and holding the government to account.

My question today is about the estimated net savings of the $700,000 from this closure. What sort of unexpected costs or complications have arisen since the closure, and how have these costs changed the $700,000 net saving figure, or has this changed?

[Marc Grégoire]

It hasn't changed, but I'm glad to see that in your opening remarks you now acknowledge that the system is working. It's great to hear that from you, Mr. Donnelly.

The savings, the net savings that I mentioned last time we testified here, are $700,000 a year. They are what they are: net savings. They do include an increased cost of operation for the Sea Island base in Richmond and they do include the operation of an inshore rescue boat station at Discovery Island, a seasonal one, and they also include an increased grant to the RCMSAR of $100,000 per year, which they use to increase their training and their stance in the Port of Vancouver.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Grégoire.

I notice in the supplementary estimates before us today there are no new costs associated with a response to Justice Cohen's judicial inquiry and his 75 recommendations to protect Fraser River sockeye.

One of his key recommendations was that DFO create a new position in the Pacific region at the associate regional director general level with the responsibility for developing and implementing the wild salmon policy.

Has this or will this position be created?

[Matthew King]

The final report of the commission is obviously rich in details, many recommendations, and the department is continuing, as we make operational policy or program decisions, to bring as much of the Cohen analysis into our day-to-day operations as we can.

We haven't gotten into a situation where we are responding recommendation by recommendation, but on that specific recommendation, we believe that with the construct we have in the Pacific region right now, we can actually accomplish the same thing. So we're not contemplating adding that position at the present time.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Just to follow up, have you acted on any of the recommendations?

[Matthew King]

I don't have an exhaustive list with me, but there are a dozen I could provide the committee with at some point where we are continuing to either do what we've done in response to the recommendation or modify our activities to better reflect the recommendations. We continue to spend a fair amount of money on salmon in the Pacific region, $65 million a year and $20 million on sockeye, including $5 million on science.

I mention that because the science strategy we have had in place for a number of years to provide the information we actually need to manage the Fraser River sockeye stock is undergoing a review through our assistant deputy minister of science, to take in and look at what was in the final report and determine the degree to which we should change our plans and priorities to get at that analysis.

We're responding in our day-to-day activities the best we can across the breadth of the recommendations.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. King.

If you could provide the committee with that in writing, those 12 recommendations you say the department has acted on, I would appreciate that.

[Matthew King]

Yes.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

This summer we learned about internal government audits that showed the coast guard's capacity to monitor in response to a marine oil spill is severely lacking. Equipment is outdated and the coast guard lacks funds to properly life cycle its equipment.

This is extremely concerning to British Columbians, given this government's desire to increase tanker traffic on B.C.'s coast.

The estimates show a $7.3 million appropriation to improve oil spill response capacity. Can you please provide details to the committee on any progress made on these audit recommendations and how this $7.3 million will be spent?

[Marc Grégoire]

First of all, this amount of money goes mainly to science. so I'll have my colleague, David, give his explanation to you about what he's going to do with his part of the money.

Our part of this is to improve the aids to navigation. It's for prevention. This is used to improve the aids to navigation in the Douglas Channel to Kitimat. For this year we are in the phase of analysis and planning for new aids. In the coming two to three years, we will be installing new ways of navigation in that channel.

Maybe Dave can speak to the science portion.

[David Gillis, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Ecosystems and Oceans Science Sector, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you.

Yes, there is a substantial part of that total that is going to science activities on the west coast generally, and specifically in the Douglas Channel area.

I'll mention three main components.

We're doing research to better understand the fate and behaviour of products that might be spilled into the environment, were there to be such an event, so we'll be in a better position to provide advice to our colleague responders in the coast guard as to what the appropriate approach to deal with that situation would be. That's one important element of our work.

A second important element is that in order to again inform other questions related to spill response, it's important to have a good tool to help predict where a spill may move, where something in the environment may distribute itself to. In that regard, we're working with colleagues at Environment Canada to improve our oceanographic modelling in that area, and to be able to couple those movements of water with the atmospheric conditions, the weather conditions, if you wish, to provide a better picture, a more predictive picture, if I may, of where responders should be looking toward in terms of a response.

The third element is quite a large element: to better understand what resources and ocean uses, aquatic area uses, are in that area and would be in the path and need to be managed in a spill situation. So we have a component of our science program to help us better understand what the resource inventory in that area is. A component of that would be looking at ocean uses and uses of certain spaces. This is important information that would need to go to spill responders in order to better equip them to deal with the questions they have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mr. Donnelly.

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thank you.

I have a couple of questions about the recreational fisheries conservation partnership program and the new Fisheries Act.

Under the new Fisheries Act, partnerships enabled the minister to make agreements. So is the $10 million recreational fisheries conservation partnership program an outcome of the changes to the Fisheries Act?