Fisheries Committee on Oct. 6th, 2011

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Some of them will allow some fishing?

[Claire Dansereau]

Yes.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

There are some reductions to your funding. I'd like you to elaborate a bit on that.

What will these reductions do, as you have been asked here, to small craft harbour repairs? You agree that a harbour is like a highway, or a barn for a farmer, in that it has to be repaired all the time.

Will we receive the same amount of attention for small craft harbour repairs, or not? How much of a reduction would you expect, and do you know the figures?

[Claire Dansereau]

That's a very hard question to answer.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Roughly.

[Claire Dansereau]

Suffice it to say that the small craft harbour program and our commitment to it hasn't changed.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So if I were to add monitoring and scientific research, no change would take place, even though we're going to have $50 million or $60 million less?

[Claire Dansereau]

As the minister said, departments should always review their budgets to look for areas they should be getting out of, or finding new ways of doing what they currently do. That's what the strategic review did, and that's what the deficit reduction action plan will do.

Completely appropriately, we have looked through the whole of the department, under both exercises, to see if there are ways of doing things differently, or if there are some areas that are no longer as relevant to Canadians and perhaps we shouldn't be doing. All of this will come out in due time.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

But basically, we expect about the same?

[Claire Dansereau]

We expect, from the strategic review, about $56.8 million less in our budget. To the best of our ability, we have designed the programs to have either increased efficiency in delivery or no impact on Canadians.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

I'd just like to ask you about the Pacific north coast integrated management plan, which you're well aware of. It was a plan for conservation and economic development of coastal communities and resource management. In fact, it put a number of groups together: environmental groups, first nations groups, governments, and industry.

It was allotted $8.3 million, none of which came from the Government of Canada, as you're aware. I could ask you why the government decided to withdraw from this program: you would not know. But was it done on your department's advice? Did you advise the government to withdraw from this program when it would not cost any money? Is there any process left for this specific north coast integrated management plan to proceed? And if there is a plan, could you explain it to me?

[Claire Dansereau]

Certainly, and as I said earlier, Mr. Chair, we have not withdrawn from PNCIMA. We have changed PNCIMA.

In my view, PNCIMA had moved from what its original intention was, which would have been similar to what was done on the east coast under ESSIM. It should have been a high-level plan, as ESSIM was, and it became a much more detailed and site-specific management plan that would have been very prescriptive—at least in my view—rather than being a high-level plan.

What we simply did was to retract from going too far into detail, and we brought it up to the appropriate level of planning, which will require significantly less money and less time. We have not withdrawn from it. It will be ready by 2012, as we said it would be, and I look forward to the work of the groups. The groups are continuing to work together; they're just doing it at a different level.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Okay, and the groups are satisfied with what the department and the government have done? That's not exactly what we're hearing.

[Claire Dansereau]

Some are satisfied. Some are not. Some are concerned, in that they had clearly done a lot of work and were going down a road. But it was a road that we simply couldn't support; we needed to bring it back up a few notches on the planning scale. So we did that and will continue to work with them to make sure they continue to work with each other. We're very much involved.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

With that, are all of the groups going to remain involved? Are you aware of that or not?

[Claire Dansereau]

So far I have not heard. This changes every day, so you may have newer information than I have, but I have not been made aware of any group that has said it didn't want to stay involved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. MacAulay. Your time is up.

Ms. Doré Lefebvre.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

A recent audit of the Canadian Coast Guard tells us that the organization is not at all prepared to respond appropriately to an environmental disaster. At the moment, the National Energy Board is still issuing exploration permits for oil and gas fields in the Arctic, even though we do not have the capability to manage potential spills that could become catastrophic.

Is the government planning to do something to solve this problem, which is rather dangerous for the short, medium and long term?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes. The environment commissioner did actually make a number of recommendations to the Coast Guard in order to improve their response.

In terms of response capability, I have to tell you that we do have it at the moment and we have it everywhere in Canada. Employees are trained for environmental response across the country. We have 80 warehouses with environmental response equipment across Canada, and there are also some across the Arctic. Over the past two years, we have also sent 19 containers with environmental response equipment to various Arctic communities. We have also been training local Inuit on how to use the equipment in times of need. We also have larger pieces of equipment that can be transported by plane and used if there ever was an environmental disaster.

The commissioner especially criticized us for our performance framework and risk analyses, which we are currently working on. We have the capability to respond at the moment. A very strict regulatory regime created by Transport Canada has been implemented in Canada. Under the regime, all shipowners to the south of the 60^th parallel are required to call a private environmental response organization. There are four in Canada, covering the whole country. The Canadian Coast Guard is a secondary responder. We monitor those companies' environmental interventions on behalf of the federal government. If it happens that they do not respond, all our ships are ready and equipped to respond in the places mentioned earlier.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Did you say that the operational framework was a problem at the moment?

[Marc Grégoire]

The performance framework is the main problem. There is a lack of risk analyses. Our equipment is in place, but last winter, the commissioner said that we had not shown him in writing, in any our documents, that the equipment and the employees were spread across the country on a risk basis. In other words, it was a matter of knowing whether they had really been sent to the places with the highest risk. It is being done from experience and increasingly so over the years, but it hasn’t been shown on paper.

He also criticized the fact that we were perhaps not doing enough exercises. We have already put in place an exercise program. Interregional exercises have started, and a few exercises have been carried out with the U.S. Coast Guard. Actually, there was one about 15 days ago around Sault Ste. Marie.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Do you have any exercises north of 60?

[Marc Grégoire]

Yes. That is a great question. Last summer, as part of Operation Nanook 2011 run by the military, we conducted a major environmental response exercise in the Arctic. The exercise involved the Coast Guard vessels, environmental response barges, local staff and our staff from the base in Hay River.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Will departmental cuts affect the exercises in the Arctic north and elsewhere in Canada?

[Marc Grégoire]

I haven’t heard of any potential cuts in environmental response. But we are always watching our every move and we are always trying to improve our ways of doing things in order to save money.