Evidence of meeting #40 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vessels.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
External Relations, Western Canada Marine Response Corporation
I think that's something this committee could look into, because there is a significant amount of traffic that transits our waters and does not have membership with response organizations.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Seaspan ULC, Seaspan
If I put on my old hat of being in the international trade, the one thing that would worry shipowners and operators is that certain countries—for example, the United States—certain states, or certain provinces in Canada have their own regulations outside of the international regulations, which becomes very problematic. I would say it's a press on the organization called the IMO, the International Maritime Organization, to make sure that it has regulations that cover this, but when Canada has its regulations on top of other countries', or more importantly the international standards, it would require shipowners who move ships around to have lots of different additional coverage that they often don't use or need. It would become very, very expensive. I believe the IMO regulations are the correct regulations with regard to liability, but I think having individual requirements for vessels that don't call in Canada from an international vessel operator becomes very difficult.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
We'll move to Mr. Sullivan for five minutes.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Ms. Zatylny, on the Green Marine initiative that you talked about earlier, I'm aware from other work that I do that marine vessels are probably the single biggest air polluters out there in terms of their use of the lowest class of diesel engine to drive them, and the worst fuel, so you don't really have any control over ocean-going vessels that are actually out on the ocean. Green Marine would only be inside ports. Is that true, or is there something more to it than that?
12:15 p.m.
President, Association of Canadian Port Authorities
Well, the Green Marine initiative itself applies to ports, Canadian shipowners, anybody involved within the Canadian marine sector. However, there are a number of actions that have been taken, either by individual ports, or by Green Marine itself, or ports under the Green Marine umbrella, that would help address some of these problems. In fact, one area that the Green Marine program targets is greenhouse gases and air emissions.
The program itself has standards that would have ports looking at what they can do to help ships reduce their greenhouse gases, their emissions. A good example that we've seen is a couple of the larger ports, such as Port Metro Vancouver and port of Halifax, are moving to providing shore power, which means that when a ship is in port, a cruise ship in particular, they don't have to run the engines but are able to shut down and draw electrical power from the port. That is one area the Green Marine program tries to address.
At the same time, individual ports have undertaken initiatives to help encourage shipowners, particularly transoceanic vessel operators, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sulphur content, for example. Prince Rupert has an incentive program for ships that come in that are burning low sulphur fuel, for example. They will get a reduction in their berthage fees. It becomes a financial incentive that is given to transoceanic operators.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Do they only burn low sulphur fuel or do they just carry some low sulphur fuel to arrive at the port?
12:15 p.m.
President, Association of Canadian Port Authorities
Well, I can't say what they do out in the middle of the ocean; however, given the emissions control area requirements that have been put in place internationally, there is a 200-mile limit. All ships that are coming within 200 miles of Canadian territory have to burn low sulphur fuel. In fact, in 2015 it will be going from 1% sulphur in fuel to 0.1% sulphur content.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Beyond that, they can do whatever they want. There are no rules on the high seas, I guess.
12:15 p.m.
Capt Yoss Leclerc
Well, the International Maritime Organization is really spending a lot of effort and energy to improve the air emission of ships. Wendy was talking about the ECA, the zone around countries, North America and Europe, where ships have to burn very low sulphur content fuel. The criteria and requirements are also getting more stringent internationally. The more the ECA zones are getting stringent, the more the international criteria are also getting stronger. The tendency is to have cleaner fuel.
On the other hand, in the marine industry—and I think Jonathan can speak with more experience than I; he's in construction—there's a lot of R and D money spent in all the marine companies, shipbuilding, to have cleaner vessels that use LNG, solar energy, and all these kinds of technologies right now, again to improve the footprint impact of their activities.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
How far along is that? Are we anywhere near that kind of technology in general? These ships last an awful long time once they're built.
12:20 p.m.
Capt Yoss Leclerc
I know for a fact that in Canada there are several initiatives for traversiers, ferries. I think Jonathan can also add more to it. I know there have been projects in the St. Lawrence River, on the west coast, even on the Atlantic coast, where they are moving to have ferries move to LNG or hybrid energy.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
Ms. Zatylny, could you begin by briefly describing what role, if any, port authorities play in monitoring or ensuring the safety of vessels, ships, that use our ports?
12:20 p.m.
President, Association of Canadian Port Authorities
I actually think my colleague Captain Leclerc would be better positioned to answer that one.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Very good. Yes, delegation is often a very effective skill.
12:20 p.m.
Capt Yoss Leclerc
What I can say is that I have been sailing for 15 years. When we talk about a ship, when you're in the middle of the sea, you cannot call 911. You're on your own. People are trained. They have the equipment, the systems. You are so trained that when there is an alarm, you know exactly what to do. You know at two in the morning, at three in the morning...exercises.... Everyone is very well trained.
I moved to port side, the other side, and it is the same. Mr. Whitworth was talking about the Second Narrows MRA initiative. This is an initiative that has been replicated elsewhere in the world. It is an initiative that the port, with all the stakeholders, led in order to ensure the safety of movement.
We were talking previously about risk base and the assessment of risk. We have a regulatory framework today in Canada that permits that. Every time there is a project, every time there is a new activity, we go through a risk assessment on the marine side and on the land side, and recommendations come forward. In the example of the Vancouver airport fuel facility, it was a long process of assessing the whole project and ensuring that going forward, the project and the activities would be carried out safely, securely, with protection for the environment.
December 2nd, 2014 / 12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Very good.
Do any of the small vessels that Mr. Whitworth has described use the ports that you are involved in? That's the first part of the question. The second part is whether you share the concerns that Mr. Whitworth expressed about those small vessels and their ability to live up to regulatory requirements. It's a two-part question.
12:20 p.m.
Capt Yoss Leclerc
The Canada Marine Act provides the power for the port authorities to put in place procedures and regulations for the port. As you know, there are international regulations, and there are national ones, but there are also the port's regulations, and they are basically developed with the stakeholders, with the marine industry, with experts in all their activities, to ensure the safety and security of activities.
Speaking about the port of Vancouver and dangerous goods, for example, there was a process where the monitoring of this on barges and vessels moving through the port—and I could go into detail—was from 24 hours in advance. The port knew exactly at what time the vessel would transit, what was on board, and how it was going to transit. We worked with the Canadian Coast Guard, the traffic and communication service, to inform the whole marine industry that something was going through the port. In terms of the tankers, we even had a clear narrows, so that when the tanker was moving, no further activities were going on around it.
The port has the power to put all that in place.
I think what Jonathan was talking about was more in the northern part of B.C.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
That's great, thank you.
Mr. Lowry, I have a question for you.
Could you explain how you liaise with, involve, and engage aboriginal communities on the west coast, particularly with respect to training, ensuring marine safety, and environmental protection?
12:25 p.m.
External Relations, Western Canada Marine Response Corporation
Sure.
Particularly on the northern coast, we do engage quite a bit with first nations. It's part of our marine contractor training program, which I talked about earlier. Some of them are fishermen; some of them are marine contractors. We do train them both on shoreline training for if the product does reach the beach. There are certain cleanup techniques that we train contractors in, as well as fishermen who might have their own vessels and who we might engage in the case of a spill.
The other point of interaction is that as part of our new mapping program, we've been approaching communities. This is a pilot project we did within Burrard Inlet, east of Second Narrows, where we approached the first nations groups and asked them to feed into our system, identify cultural sensitivities, for example, whether there's an archeological site or some other site that we would want to be aware of in case of a spill, so we could go out and boom that off during an incident.
Those are two points where we engage.
