National Defence Committee on Nov. 20th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Excuse me.

Could you wrap up your opening remarks quickly, so we have adequate time for questions?

[Nadia Bouffard]

It will be my pleasure.

That includes escorting commercial and military shipping through sea ice to deliver essential supplies to residents of the North, a search and rescue capability, and a first-response role in incidents of pollution.

It also includes our platforms supporting scientific work, such as collecting scientific data at sea, hydrographic charting, mapping Canada's continental shelf and search work, such as the work that led to the discovery of one of the ships of the Franklin expedition.

Also in the Arctic, the Canadian Coast Guard ensures that our fleet continues to provide effective support in security and law enforcement.

This includes our participation in Arctic exercises such as Operation Nanook, in which we have been participating for a number of years, together with our partners from the Department of National Defence.

Similarly to the marine security enforcement team program and its recent transition to new mid-shore patrol vessels, the icebreaking capability of the Canadian Coast Guard will be considerably enhanced in 2022 with the arrival of the CCGS John G. Diefenbaker.

This will be the first polar icebreaker and it will replace the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent as the flagship of Canada's Arctic fleet.

The CCGS John G. Diefenbaker will be able to serve in the Arctic for longer periods each year and in more difficult ice conditions than we do currently.

In closing, while the Canadian Coast Guard may not have a direct security mandate, legislated or not, we do make an important contribution to Canada's maritime security.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Deputy Commissioner.

We'll begin our first round of questioning, seven-minute slots, with Mr. Williamson, please.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bouffard and Mr. Lick, for being here today.

I, of course, put my head down at the wrong moment in your address. Did I understand correctly—and I apologize if you didn't say this—that the Coast Guard has no law enforcement mandate? Did I understand that correctly? I might have misunderstood you.

[Nadia Bouffard]

That's correct.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That's correct. It's interesting. I did not know that.

I'm from southern New Brunswick, and I will say that just in my neck of the woods, with some of the islands, we look through American islands to see other parts of our country. So it's not just in the north that the Coast Guard plays a role in terms of our sovereignty and border enforcement. It's even closer to home and often close to American ports as well.

This is a small question. In light of the lack of mandate with respect to law enforcement, there is from time to time a debate about whether or not our Coast Guard officials should be armed. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Nadia Bouffard]

You're totally correct that our vessels and our crew are not armed, with the exception of two vessels on our east coast, stationed in St. John's, which are armed with, I believe it's a 50-millimetre calibre—

[Gregory Lick, Director, Operations Support, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

It's a 50-calibre machine gun as well as nine-millimetre handguns.

[Nadia Bouffard]

Thank you.

So those particular armed vessels operate in very specialized specific circumstances under the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, the Fisheries Act, and the Criminal Code, and their activities are conducted within that context by our fishery officers and fishery protection officers under those pieces of legislation.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Do you have any thoughts on the broader idea? Is it necessary to look at that? Well, actually, let me back up.

Do the coast guards of our close allies—the United States, Britain, Australia—have a police mandate, law enforcement mandate?

[Nadia Bouffard]

The role of coast guards around the world and the scope of their authorities are different. The one we're typically aware of and knowledgeable about, as we see on television, is the U.S. Coast Guard for instance that is armed and has a much broader mandate.

The approach in Canada is to have a multidisciplinary approach with various departments involved. While we are not mandated to do law enforcement and security, we support the platform and those that do have those mandates. We will have armed RCMP officers on board our vessels to conduct security and law enforcement operations.

Greg, do you know the other countries? I'm familiar with the U.S., but not the others.

[Gregory Lick]

Madame Bouffard is correct in that regard. Every coast guard around the world is very different, and they all have very different roles and mandates. Certainly, as Madame Bouffard has said, we don't have a security mandate but there were very clear and very good examples of where we support our partners like the RCMP on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway with our MSET vessels. That's probably the best example of a joint operation with us.

The other examples are more along the lines of ad hoc security operations where we will carry the security partner to where the particular interdiction would occur.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That's interesting.

Did you have any thoughts or comments on the broader question of having arms throughout the Coast Guard and not just on the two points you referenced in St. John's, but throughout the fleet?

[Nadia Bouffard]

We have studied this in the past and have not been provided any direction to change our current approach, so we are currently delivering the mandate as we are directed to do.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I thought you might say that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

A very brief question please, Mr. Williamson.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I have to be very brief. There is so much stuff.

I know you mentioned it but you didn't get the chance to go through some of the assets that are based in the north, the Arctic.

[Nadia Bouffard]

First of all, they're not based in the north.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That's fair enough.

[Nadia Bouffard]

They operate there for a good chunk of the year, from June to November. I mentioned in my opening statement that we have a combination of six icebreakers of various sizes that will break ice and provide services and be available for various services such as environmental response or SAR operations throughout this period.

Greg, do you want to give the details on those icebreakers?

[Gregory Lick]

×Certainly.

As Madame Bouffard said, we deploy six icebreakers in the north. In addition to those we supply those normal activities of icebreaking and resupply to remote communities, and so on. We also have a couple of vessels that primarily aid navigation on the Mackenzie River. We supply security services not primarily, obviously, but we are there primarily for aids to navigation and search and rescue purposes and monitoring that particular waterway.

I think the other asset you can determine as an asset or something else is the marine security operations centre, which monitors the Arctic. It is one of our other key elements of security support. In this case the Coast Guard in MSOC East is the one that monitors the Arctic for us and supplies the main awareness to our partners, in particular on the marine side of the Arctic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Lick.

Mr. Chisholm, you have seven minutes.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to ask a bunch of questions. If I may, I'll ask them one after the other and then give you a chance to respond.

I have a couple of things. The first is that you're part of the 17 departments that are responsible for marine security, which should be no small feat, but there is apparently a marine security working group. I'd like you to give me an indication of how often the working group meets and maybe some idea of when it last met and what were some of the things on its agenda.

The next one is on the territorial issues around the Northwest Passage and the other territorial issues around the Arctic. I would think they must create some interesting tensions between Canada and the U.S. I'd like you to speak a bit about that in terms of the added challenges that situation causes for both the Northwest Passage and other areas in the north.

I'm curious. The AIS and I think also the LRIT system track vessels of 300 gross tonnes and greater. What about vessels under 300 gross tonnes? Are they not a security threat? It sounds like they would therefore go undetected. I wonder if you would comment on that.

Also, in regard to the assets in the north, there has recently been a decision on the west coast to defer the construction of the new heavy-duty icebreaker that's meant to replace the Louis. When I think out another seven or eight years, I wonder what that means. When are we looking at decommissioning the Louis St-Laurent? What does that do in terms of the Coast Guard's capacity to be able to fulfill its function of icebreaking for security purposes in the north?

Again on assets, there is the Parliamentary Budget Officer's recent report on the Arctic offshore patrol vessels. They were of course promised in 2007, and I believe $3.1 billion was the budget. He suggested that not only are we not going to be able to produce six to eight vessels but now it may be four, and if we wait any longer, it's going to be three. This has implications in terms of the icebreaking capacities of those particular vessels. I wondered if you could comment on that in terms of your assets, or the assets in the north. They are not “your” assets, because they have been assigned to the navy.

I guess that's my last question. Again on that issue, the AOPS, how is that going to work? The Coast Guard has the expertise in the north with regard to staffing these vessels and conducting these icebreaking and surveillance activities with your ships in the north. How is that going to happen operationally with the fact that the navy has responsibility for these however many AOPS vessels, three, four, five, or whatever? How is that going to happen?

If I may, I'd like to ask for your comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

The deputy commissioner has two and a half minutes to answer those questions.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I've seen her work. She can do that.