National Defence Committee on Nov. 20th, 2014

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you for being here to help us understand the Coast Guard's role.

In previous testimony we've asked a lot about the threats to the Arctic as we think about the defence of North America. I would say 95% of the witnesses answered that the threats are not military threats, they are threats that have to do with melting ice due to climate change, increased vessel traffic, the security of people so the search and rescue aspect, the potential for pollution and spills, sovereignty, and so on. So that's a very important aspect of what you do with your icebreakers and other measures.

According to the Auditor General's office, the fall 2014 report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, there are no real performance measures for Arctic icebreaking services nor measures for when users requested service but it wasn't provided. Are those measures something that the Coast Guard is planning to put in place?

[Nadia Bouffard]

We received the commissioner's report and we are assessing it. We will be looking at what improvements can be made to Coast Guard services in the north.

You are correct that the qualification of the risk is not one of security in the north, it's everything else that we've talked about, including environmental, population, providing services, search and rescue—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Excuse me, I have about four questions so I hope the answer for all of them will not be that you're considering the report.

Here's another concern. According to the commissioner the Coast Guard believes that it has the resources to address current traffic levels even though there were deficiencies in response at times and so on. But according to the commissioner the Coast Guard noted that it does not have sufficient resources to respond to an increase in demand for services and we know that it's happening due to the ice melt. Does the lack of resources to respond tie into lapsed funding? What has been the total of lapsed funding for the Coast Guard since 2006? The lapse is what I would call planned clawbacks.

[Nadia Bouffard]

I don't have that figure with me, but I will start by saying that the increased traffic qualification perhaps is overstated today. There's no doubt that at some point we're going to have to look at what assets we have to serve and address the increased risk associated with increased traffic.

For the last two or three years, traffic in the north has gone from 250 to 350 voyages, compared to millions of voyages in the south. It's not a huge increase. There is no doubt though that with increased activity in the north that may increase in the future.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you. So that's a 50% increase, very roughly, in—

[Nadia Bouffard]

That's in a very large area.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Yes, and a 50% increase is significant. I would like a written response to the question of lapsed funding since 2006, please.

[Nadia Bouffard]

I would be happy to provide it.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

In terms of the services you provide, the icebreakers are important. Your two most capable icebreakers are scheduled to be decommissioned in five to seven years but they will be replaced by one. It seems as though you are planning for a reduced ability to provide support through icebreakers. Has there been an analysis of the risk you're addressing with the icebreakers and is it related to reduced risk, which would be strange given the traffic increase? Or is that a resources issue as well, replacing two with one?

[Nadia Bouffard]

I'm going to answer that generally, and then I'll ask Greg to provide some details.

Replacement of fleet is also supplemented by maintaining the current fleet in operation until we have the new icebreakers coming in. We don't consider the replacement of icebreakers coming in, like the polar, for instance, as reducing our capacity and our assets and our service.

I mentioned in our opening statement that the polar that we are building is going to be bigger and better and provide longer time service in the north.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

That does bring up another question that I wanted to address, which is in terms of icebreaker deployment time. Since 2011 the Coast Guard has decreased by 33 ship days the total time that it planned to deploy icebreakers in the Arctic. In addition, in two of the last four years, the Coast Guard operated one less icebreaker than intended due to maintenance issues—so it had old icebreakers—and it didn't meet its planned deployment time. If we already have missing planned deployment times, reduced deployment times, maintenance issues, and replacing two with one, can you explain how the Coast Guard will meet the security and defence needs in the north? Or is this a matter of inadequate resources to do the job you're being asked to do?

[Nadia Bouffard]

Greg here is responsible for setting up our annual plans every year in terms of what actually goes out, so I think he's best placed to provide you with an explanation of how we determine what's appropriate in terms of service.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

A very brief answer please.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

All right, I had another question I was going to insert, but go ahead with your answer to that.

[Gregory Lick]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, the Auditor General, through the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, did note those particular statistics that you outlined there. I think it's very important though to say that we are meeting our level of service in the Arctic at this point in time, at least within a few days here and there, or a few hours here and there. That's the important statistic to recognize here I think.

In terms of the number of vessels deployed to the Arctic, like a car we also have to look at maintaining those assets. These assets don't require a two-hour time in the garage type of thing. I think everybody can understand that. It requires months and months to maintain them. In the case where we are looking at vessels of the age and condition that ours are at this point in time, what we needed to do, and Madame Bouffard outlined it in her opening remarks, is extend their life to the point where we're able to renew their capability with a fleet renewal plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, that's time.

Mr. Bezan, please.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to welcome you both to the committee and thank you for being here. I have spent a lot of time on the Arctic, and it is a concern. As Canadians we all love the Arctic and it's an area that is undergoing some new opportunities and challenges tied to the situation up there. I had the opportunity to be on the Amundsen in Hudson Bay a few years ago and appreciate the great work that it's doing up there in mapping and environmental research, as well as having that presence pulling into Churchill and allowing people there to see the Coast Guard in their backyard.

Now we have touched on the replacement of the Louis S. St-Laurent. Can you talk about the new heavy icebreaker that's coming online to replace it and what capabilities it has versus what we currently have, and how that works into the protection of our international waterways and protection of our sovereignty? Also, could you elaborate on how this new icebreaker compares to those of other Arctic nations?

[Nadia Bouffard]

I'll start very generally, but Greg has the expertise with respect to the vessels. My understanding of the new polar icebreaker we're expecting by 2022 is that it will have the capability of spending longer periods of time up north. It is stronger and it has more capacity in terms of icebreaking. Those two combinations will provide a longer season of icebreaking and other services that the icebreaker will provide in the north.

[Gregory Lick]

Further to that, in order to get that longer season, both at the start of the season and at the end of the season...and we're talking about three months in total, about a month and a half at either end. That's the time period we're looking at in terms of a mission for that particular vessel. That requires a higher ice class in order for the vessel to actually operate in different areas and farther out than our present fleet can. That's another aspect that's important for the vessel to be able to go farther out into our Arctic domain.

In terms of your question on marine security, or the surveillance aspect of it, one thing we were very good at doing in this particular case was working with all of the marine security partners. Because of the idea—as we have outlined all the way through our testimony here—of the support element that our Coast Guard performs within our mandate, we worked with all our security partners, whether it was RCMP or whether it was Canadian Armed Forces, to outline what their requirements were for this type of vessel in the Arctic. Just as an example of one of the ideas, a very complex operation centre is on board the vessel, which will supply the partners with the communications ability, the surveillance capability, that they need and that they had outlined for us in terms of the requirements on the vessel.

That's how we built capability into the vessel.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Thank you.

We have also been building up at Nanisivik a new berthing and refuelling facility. How will that enable the Coast Guard to do more in the Arctic than we are currently doing?

[Nadia Bouffard]

I'm sorry, I missed the first part of your question.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

In Nanisivik there's a new refuelling and replenishment facility, which was established predominantly for the navy but will also be used by the Coast Guard. How will that facility enable the Coast Guard to do more than what they currently are doing in the Arctic?

[Gregory Lick]

Essentially it provides us with exactly what you would think. It provides us with a refuelling capability in the Arctic. Normally we have done it in the past through barges, through ship-to-ship transfers. This provides just another capability or a solution for the Arctic in terms of refuelling our vessels.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

One thing that you didn't touch on in your response, Mr. Lick, was with regard to the new icebreaker that's going into construction. How does it compare with other icebreaking capabilities of other nations from a coast guard standpoint?

[Gregory Lick]

I could compare it with our present fleet, which might give you a good sense of what we're comparing it with. There are comparisons with a number of other icebreakers around the world, but sometimes, because of the age of the vessels and when they were built, some of the classifications are a little bit difficult to compare.

Essentially, however, just roughly, our current Louis S. St. Laurent is a polar class 4, approximately, and what we're looking at with the polar icebreaker—this is something I will confirm with the committee—is a polar class 2. That gives you a sense of the difference between our current fleet and others. Certainly when we're comparing it with, say, the U.S. Coast Guard's breakers that are presently there, the Healy, the Polar Star, and so on, it will have higher capability than those particular vessels to get into areas, as I said, that we can't get into now or certainly go into very rarely; or we can go into them longer.