Fisheries Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I would like another two minutes. We take all the minutes and seconds we can. I don't know whether, at some point, we could audit the chair's work.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

With regard to the answer that you are about to give me with regard to the 98% success rate, I would like to make sure I understand correctly. A number is a number, and to understand it properly, I want to understand what this 98% means. What is this percentage based on? On what data?

[Commr George Da Pont]

First, I must say that the coast guard is not solely responsible for the search and rescue program. We are part of a network that includes National Defence, the police, operations centres and search and rescue coordination centres. So we are one of a number of agencies responding to emergencies.

The interdepartmental secretariat, which is responsible for the program as a whole, keeps the statistics.

We respond to a large number of calls. In some cases, depending on the response time, it's clear that people may be in danger. As I said, in 98% of all cases, we respond on time, without any loss of life. To some extent, this figure is based on the response and on the assessment of—

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I still need more clarification.

For example, the coast guard receives a request to do a search and rescue operation. If no ships are available, for various reasons related to the problems we talked about earlier, is this call included in the statistics or, because the services weren't available, is this excluded from the statistics? So, the numbers may be off.

[Commr George Da Pont]

The program does not solely take into account the response by Canadian Coast Guard vessels. The closest ships will respond to the call, whether they belong to the coast guard, National Defence, fishermen, or an industrial ship, could also respond.

If it is a large-scale emergency, the search and rescue coordination centres will identify it as such. This is an interdepartmental group. Which ship is closest and can respond the fastest? It becomes a question of fastest response time. If it takes about half an hour for a given vessel to reach the site, that ship will obviously be asked to respond. We will not ask a Canadian Coast Guard vessel to respond, even if it is available, if it takes that ship an hour to reach the site. Furthermore, we also use National Defence helicopters. As I have already mentioned, this is a rescue network. The calculation is based on the efficiency of the entire network, and not on each of the parts.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Let me ask the question differently. Are you satisfied with your search and rescue record?

[Commr George Da Pont]

Mr. Gadula has a lot of experience in this area, so I will ask him to answer.

[Charles Gadula, Acting Deputy Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

I think we are very comfortable in Canada with the national search and rescue system, and our statistics are based on the contribution of everyone to saving lives. So if you have vessels of opportunity, if you have coast guard auxiliary members, if you have Department of National Defence, or if you just have a vessel or a recreational boat passing by, all of these contribute to the statistics.

We've changed the way we do SAR and have moved basically to an inland fleet of small lifeboats, spread across the country strategically. But we only place the coast guard resource, or the federal resource, when we cannot find local volunteers who can be part of the coast guard auxiliary. So placing a primary vessel as the coast guard in an area is the last choice, not the first choice.

Right now we are doing an SAR needs analysis, which we expect to have completed by June of this year, I believe. At that time we'll be able to say whether or not we have any gaps in the safety net across the country. But at this time—with the exception of the Arctic, where we have few resources—we haven't identified areas where there is a crying need for us to put in a primary SAR resource. But what we do on a regular or annual basis at the regional level is to look at small SAR zones within a specific region and determine whether or not we have to emphasize recruitment and whether we have to work more with our partners, and we evaluate whether or not there's significant risk in that area for vessels being in trouble.

The statistics are driven by reported incidents to the joint rescue centres or to the marine rescue subcentre in Quebec City and into the national system, by whoever is in trouble, distress or imminent distress. So the statistics would not include saving the lives of people who are out on Sunday afternoon on a fine day and who just run out of gas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Gadula.

Mr. Kamp.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Fraser, Mr. Murray, Mr. Da Pont, and the others for coming. I just have a couple of general questions; my colleagues have asked some specific ones, and I think Mr. Lunney might have another one or two.

I guess my first question is a two-part one for Mr. Murray and Mr. Da Pont. First of all, are there any facts in the Auditor General's report with which you disagree? Second, are there any conclusions she makes that you disagree with?

[Larry Murray]

No.

In fact, I think the concluding recommendation is particularly helpful in the circumstances the coast guard finds itself. I think it does point the way ahead, and obviously we need to do that with the Treasury Board involved. As I say, we will be sharing the way forward with them and getting the help of the AG's view of the way forward, and we would be happy to share this with the committee.

But I think we agree with the report. We're particularly grateful for the nature of the recommendations, because we didn't need 24 more things to figure out, but we need to move forward and attack important priorities.

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

My second question is for Ms. Fraser, and it's also an easy one.

You said in paragraph 11 of your prepared remarks that one of the reasons for unsatisfactory progress was that the coast guard didn't prioritize its actions. Then you went on to say that it attempted to address all of the recommendations to improve management of its fleet at once. So I'm curious if you would rather have found in this audit that they had concentrated on just two or three of the recommendations you had made and not made any progress on the others?

How do you view that?

[Sheila Fraser]

I can perhaps respond by referring to other audits we have in the same report. In this overall report, we did seven audits. In five we indicated government was making satisfactory progress. I would say there was only one audit where you could say everything was done. There were many areas where there were still significant challenges left for the departments. But we could see they were making progress and they had a plan, and you could tell that the items that could be done within a year generally were done within a year. What were left were things that were going to take longer.

That's why we're really encouraging the coast guard. We're very pleased to see they're indicating they will integrate this into their overall business plan, set timelines, and be more realistic about achieving progress, because there are very significant issues that will not be dealt with in a very short time period.

So if we can see some of the easier ones are being dealt with and can sense, yes, there is a management commitment and progress is being made, that's what we're looking for essentially.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Lunney, you have approximately two minutes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I have two minutes and two questions. It's tough.

I wanted to draw attention to the section starting with paragraphs 4.55 to 4.65. You're dealing with navigational aids, and you draw out that during the budget process there the financial savings the coast guard proposed were not realistic. They talked about $15 million in savings by reducing traditional aids, and yet we recognize that not everybody is equipped to use modern aids. So foghorns, lighthouses, and buoys are still very important on a coast, especially where we are. We have a lot of people who aren't professional navigators out there.

I'd like to know that we have a realistic plan to maintain all of the aids that are going to be necessary, the modern ones that we're moving towards but also the traditional ones that others depend on. Do we have a plan to get there?

My second point would be on the lighthouses, the heritage situation. We have a bill proposed by Senator Carney now to deal with the heritage aspect of lighthouses. Has anybody considered using lighthouses as bed and breakfasts and letting them become revenue-generating, to justify maintaining a presence there for search and rescue by having some revenue generating? And maybe it could be transferred to Heritage Canada, or Parks Canada, or somebody else, with the assistance of the coast guard to maintain them.

There are two questions.

[Commr George Da Pont]

I have a couple of points on that.

First of all, in terms of the aids to navigation issue, in fact in January we announced a fresh approach to that in an initiative that we're calling “Aids to Navigation in the 21st Century (AToN21)”. It replaces the initiative that I think this committee has seen under the label of “Marine Aids Modernization”.

We did that for two reasons. One is to be able to take a different approach based on a national approach rather than on individual, piecemeal regional approaches, which, as the Auditor General flagged, was one of the contributing factors to limited success with the previous one.

We are basing it on developing actual sound business cases for the changes, and we have made a commitment that we would discuss these with the users of the services, with the unions, with our own staff, and use that as our strategy to begin to get people onside. Quite frankly, I wanted to divorce it entirely from having a philosophy that it was intended to cut costs. I don't think you can go to the users of our services just with that. I think you have to base it on the fact that you're there to improve or maintain service, to take advantage of new technologies.

I hope and I expect in many of these cases that over the long run there will be cost savings. But when we were going to people, saying, we're doing this to cut costs, you can appreciate that the users of the service were not entirely receptive to sitting down. So we have re-based the initiative in that fashion, and I think if we take that approach over time we will make progress, and I think over time we will get some savings, but certainly not in the context and in the timeframes that we had originally envisioned under the previous versions of that plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Da Pont, I know Mr. Cuzner has a question, but perhaps before we go to Mr. Cuzner's question, I have a quick question.

Part of the cost-cutting measures that the coast guard brought in were related to the fact that a lot of the permanent full-time jobs became term positions. You've talked about recruitment and the number of cadets you're graduating, and that may apply for some of your cadets who will come into the officer corps, if you will, but what about the deckhands? What about the crews? Has there been any consideration given to the expertise and the professionalism of that group, many of whom, by the way, will go on and become officers on board, and actually training them to become permanent, full-time positions instead of those temporary positions they're engaged in now?

[Commr George Da Pont]

Yes, very much so. In fact, I've already had discussions with the relevant bargaining agents, to work with them to set up a permanent relief pool for a ship's crew that would replace our current use of terms and casuals in that area, to give, as you've indicated, more solid guarantees of employment to people, but also to justify more significant investment in training because they would be full-time people.

We hope to develop that program in cooperation with the bargaining agents over the next while.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

I'll go to Mr. Cuzner for a final question.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

It's a final question, yes. It's on something Mr. Lunney put forward.

In your presentation, Ms. Fraser, you had identified that the modernization was slow.

I thought back to an action undertaken by the late Pope John Paul. Before his passing, he had issued an apology to a group of Greek Catholics who were wronged back in the year 1260. If the Catholic church is just getting around to those files, I don't think we're in bad shape at the coast guard. We're doing okay, and your office has the ability to go back.

Mr. Da Pont, I know we don't go into initiatives or capital investments solely for the purpose of saving money, but it is often a rationale. We want to continue to provide services, but it is often a rationale and a justification for significant capital investment.

But is it typical, not only in this case but in any case, that your team would reach back to see the projected cost savings of an initiative, and then you would measure whether or not they are successful?

[Sheila Fraser]

We would expect the departments to do that. If it is one of the major objectives of a program, we would expect any department to then establish the baseline to be able to track those savings and make sure they are realized over time.

We have looked at it in several programs. I think in many cases, and probably in most of the cases, we found the departments weren't tracking it. They either hadn't established a baseline or weren't tracking it over time.

If a program comes forward where the government says they expect savings, we will often encourage the department to make sure they put the proper measures in place to be able to demonstrate that.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I think it was a fairly significant selling point on some of the nav aids. Is there a tracking system in place now for tracking those savings?

[Commr George Da Pont]

There's a tracking system for the savings, but I'm afraid there haven't been a whole lot of savings to date.