Environment committee  Good afternoon. My name is Jody Thomas, and I'm the deputy commissioner of operations with the Canadian Coast Guard. Thank you for the invitation to appear today to discuss the first chapter of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's annual report entit

Environment committee  It's not kilometres of boom; it's metres of boom. I have some stats here for you. We have approximately 88,000 metres of boom in the five coast guard regions, and 3,000 metres of offshore boom was provided to the U.S. department to respond to the Deepwater Horizon. We're getting

Environment committee  The coast guard agrees that we haven't developed a system to systematically assess our capacity. But we say that this is a partnership, and our assessment will be evaluated as part of the risk assessment in the overall administration of the program.

Environment committee  In total there were hundreds of thousands of metres.

Environment committee  Right.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  That's a very technical question. We would rely on the shipowner, our experts on the ground, and the response organization to make those kinds of risk assessments. I wouldn't want to speculate from here about what action would be taken on the water. I don't think that would be re

Environment committee  With regard to major spills, the coast guard would work with all available partners to respond. The system remains a polluter pay and a polluter responsibility, so the shipowner would be primarily responsible and then the response organizations would be involved. If the shipowner

Environment committee  We know how much equipment we have at a regional level. What we don't have is an overarching framework at a national level to determine where it is, and we don't have a life-cycle management system. That life-cycle management system is going to be put into place in the next fisca

Environment committee  Yes, the coast guard has repositioned equipment, as I said in my opening statement, to respond to the increase in traffic there. It's an evolving risk environment, so the risk assessment we will do with Transport Canada. Once it has been scoped and we determine what size the ri

Environment committee  I've been in this job for about two and a half months, so I don't think I'm ready to respond to that question. However, we will complete our risk assessment and then we'll do a cost-benefit analysis of what the next steps have to be to ensure that the coast guard can respond.

Environment committee  Generally, when we're conducting studies, we consult with our stakeholders and our partners, so I would say yes.

Environment committee  We're scoping the response now, and we'll be discussing and consulting with stakeholders.

Environment committee  Well, we need to work with our partner departments to determine the size of the study, who's going to do it, what it's going to cost, before we launch into it.

Environment committee  Right. No, we haven't done that verification. I can't say we've audited or questioned our partners. There is a federal emergency response plan that is coordinated by Public Safety. It is exercised. We are part of that. For a major spill of any significance, the FERP would probabl