Evidence of meeting #46 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amundsen.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Okay.
Did the leasing of the vessel by ArcticNet and the work you did up there in any way affect the coast guard's primary duties?
12:15 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
Well, yes, it did, because it provided us an additional ship. The ship was to be decommissioned; it was for sale. Once this was approved in 2002, it resulted in one additional icebreaker for the coast guard. So it's a positive output.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Okay. In my question I used the word “affect” in the negative sense, and I apologize for that, because you're saying it had a very positive effect on the coast guard.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Did it have a training function at all for your staff, for some of the less experienced staff...? Could it be viewed as a training program?
12:15 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
When I go around the country, I do staff meetings on ships or on our bases, and what I've heard from staff who work on the Amundsen is that they actually work more than on other icebreakers, because the scientists put them to task a lot. Also, given the number of scientists on board the Amundsen, they are more crowded in their cabins, so we have to put a lot of them two to a cabin. As well, they have to operate very sophisticated equipment that we don't have in any other vessels, so that does require additional training.
I don't know if Claude wants to add something.
12:15 p.m.
Fleet Regional Director, Quebec region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
Yes. We like to say in the High Arctic that you don't need a greenhorn. You need people with a good background. On my side, I have only ten trips in the Arctic and four in the Northwest Passage, and I'm like a greenhorn. So you need pretty good expertise, and we try to put our best people on board the Amundsen in order to conduct the research in the High Arctic.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Can you elaborate on community outreach and cooperation? The previous witnesses talked about relations with the local communities. Are you familiar with what went on there in terms of local community relations and cooperation?
12:15 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
I am, from the briefings I received from Monsieur Martin Fortier--not his brother, but another person in ArcticNet.
But maybe Claude can speak to that, having been involved himself in those missions.
12:15 p.m.
Fleet Regional Director, Quebec region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
Yes. I was involved. We had the chance with the Amundsen to conduct the Inuit health survey two years in a row. We were able to visit every little place in the Arctic and in Nouveau-Québec. We had close contact with the population, like during the CFL expedition during the IPY. We had to keep the ship up and running in the Arctic all winter long, so we had to discuss this with elders in different communities in order to get their expertise.
We had pretty good contact with all the communities in the Arctic, and if we go back to many years ago, we had the famous C.D. Howe, which was the hospital ship for the coast guard. The natives were afraid to go on board a coast guard ship, because when you go on board, you never go back. We destroyed that mentality with the Amundsen and the new story of Inuit health. So now when they see the Amundsen, they know we can help them.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
I'm really interested in that. So did you also do, as a byproduct of the original research or the work that ArcticNet was doing...you're saying that you did an Inuit health survey in all of the communities. Presumably you had physicians or epidemiologists on board?
12:20 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
It's not the coast guard. It's ArcticNet.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
I know--ArcticNet--but they would have physicians or epidemiologists?
12:20 p.m.
Fleet Regional Director, Quebec region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
We had to mobilize the ship for Inuit health, so we had a lot of nurses, a lot of experts on board, just to conduct a survey in each village.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
So I guess we could say that the industry funding of ArcticNet can be indirectly credited with the Inuit health survey, because it allowed that to happen.
12:20 p.m.
Fleet Regional Director, Quebec region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
No, it was prior to it.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
It was prior to it. Okay. I appreciate that.
What's the benefit to the overall operations of the coast guard from the scientific information that was collected during the ArcticNet work? Can you use the information they collected in your day-to-day operations?
12:20 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
The Amundsen is one of the rare ships the coast guard operates that has a multibeam scanner, so wherever it goes, it collects 3-D colour information on the bottom of the ocean. So everywhere the Amundsen goes, we collect that multibeam information. We pass it on to the hydrographic services that will use it to modernize the maps. The Amundsen covers a lot of territory in the Arctic, from Hudson Bay all the way to the western Arctic, so that's one of the benefits.
12:20 p.m.
Fleet Regional Director, Quebec region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
It's live information. You have new information in sight, right in front of you.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
I would presume as well that the bottom-mapping information is still pretty sketchy in the Arctic.
12:20 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
Yes, we have only 10% coverage of the charting in the Arctic, and it would need to be updated and modernized.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
So the voyages of the Amundsen allow for that updating and modernization of the bottom-mapping information.
12:20 p.m.
Commissioner, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canadian Coast Guard
It provides the information that will later be used by CHS, the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
