Fisheries Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Welcome back, everyone.

Today we have our first witnesses from the department, under the special operating agency of the Canadian Coast Guard. I believe it's still called that, isn't it? Gentlemen, thank you for coming.

This is the third meeting, and it's Tuesday, February 23.

I want to welcome our guests. Jeffery Hutchinson is here from the Canadian Coast Guard. He is the deputy commissioner of strategy and shipbuilding. We also have Mario Pelletier, deputy commissioner of operations.

The way this works is that the first question will go to the Liberals, after the comments in the beginning. Then it will go to the Conservatives, and then to Mr. Donnelly of the New Democrats. The fourth question on the first round will be from the Liberals, once again.

Before we get to that, I think, Mr. Hutchinson, you're going first. Is that correct? You want to do 10 minutes each.

[Jeffery Hutchinson, Deputy Commissioner, Strategy & Shipbuilding, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

No. In fact, Mr. Chair, I propose to do the whole presentation for the Coast Guard, and I should be in the 10-minute to12-minute range.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much. Please proceed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We just might take you up on that, sir.

For a quick clarification, did you say the area that you patrol is the same size as that of the European Union? Did I get that correct?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

The area we're responsible for is roughly the same area as the European Union. It would also be comparable to the whole of the Arctic Ocean, somewhere between five million and seven million square kilometres.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Right. Okay.

My apologies to the committee. I just had one point of clarification there.

The first question goes to the Liberals.

Mr. Hardie, I believe you're asking the first question. You have seven minutes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We'd be interested to know, given the minister's mandate letter, what kind of changes you see coming up for your organizations.

What are your plans and priorities, particularly as they surround the reopening of the Kits Coast Guard base, which is of interest in our area, and also one on the east coast, which is of interest to more people down this line? What can you tell us about your organization? What changes have you gone through in the past? What changes do you see coming up now that you have this mandate through the minister?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

Thank you for the question.

You've quite rightly touched on the fact that the Coast Guard has undergone several changes, and we certainly envision a few more. You may or may not know that in the last few years, we actually consolidated from five regions to three, which was a massive reorganization for us, one I would say we're still living with some of the follow-up from. I already referred in my opening remarks to the consolidation of MCTS, which is actually an initiative that was under way before it had specific cost-cutting implications. We had identified technological improvements as a way of improving safety on the water, so that was something that was already in motion.

We certainly have changes to our fleet, and I've talked about some of those. The replacement of the helicopters, which was just completed two weeks ago, is really a massive accomplishment and a good example of large-scale procurement gone well, on time, and on budget.

The other changes that you referred to, MRSC in St. John's and Kits in Vancouver, were very specific commitments, obviously, and the reopening of Kits has been announced. There's work that's begun on rehabilitating the Kits property, as you may know, and the implementation plans for that are well under way. MRSC were certainly providing advice to the minister on how to implement that mandate commitment.

My colleague Mr. Pelletier will refer to some of the details around that.

[Mario Pelletier, Deputy Commissioner, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you.

As my colleague mentioned, we have gone through a number of changes. I just want to pick up on one: the merger from five regions to three regions. It did allow us to be much more efficient in our operations and allows us to exchange resources between regions much more easily and satisfy clients' needs.

Specifically to the Kitsilano station, as Jeffery mentioned, we have started work on the building. We have started looking at options for vessels that we have available that we can bring back there so that we can ramp up operations as early as possible.

As for the MRSC, that's a very complex operation. That's an operational centre that needs staff who are fully trained, so we need to recruit staff and we need to provide the proper training. Also, in St. John's where the MRSC was located, we are in the middle of a project to change the base and move into a new building, so we need to look at the plans on how we're going to redesign the building to allow for the introduction of that centre as well. That planning work is all ongoing.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Further to that, over the past number of years a lot of departments and agencies have seen cutbacks, cutbacks in budgets and cutbacks in staff. Rationalization and consolidation have followed that. To what extent do you see your ability to fulfill your mandate now, and perhaps to improve upon that in the future? How constrained are you in your ability to reopen these two bases? I've already heard about recruiting staff who unfortunately were lost before. Now that ground has to be recovered.

As far as the Kits Coast Guard base is concerned, what in fact have you got in the cupboard in terms of staff and equipment to bring forward to make sure that base is operational? Finally, with respect to that base, what holes is it going to fill in terms of coverage that were basically left when the base was closed?

[Mario Pelletier]

When the base was closed in Kitsilano, there were a lot of mitigating measures put in place to make sure that we still fulfilled our full mandate. We had just purchased a brand new hovercraft that operates out of Seattle, which is about 17 kilometres away. That actually covers that area as well. We had expanded our Coast Guard Auxiliary contribution agreement by providing extra resources to the auxiliary that are already located in downtown Vancouver. Plus, we had stood up what we call an inshore rescue boat station that is basically staffed with students in the summertime for the peak season. These are the measures that we had put in place.

Since then, a lot of things have happened in Vancouver as well, too. Traffic is increasing. On-the-water activity is increasing as well. One could recall the Marathassa incident where some concerns were expressed about coverage in Vancouver, Coast Guard presence, and so on. By reopening Kitsilano, we're looking really far into the future and we're looking at addressing the increasing gap that might come up as a result of increased traffic and so on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

Now we'll go to the Conservatives. Mr. Strahl, you have seven minutes.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here.

Just to confirm, Mr. Pelletier, will the resources that are needed to ramp Kitsilano back up be taken from Sea Island, or will new additional resources be stationed in the Vancouver area? Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul, if you want to put it that way? Are we simply taking things that were consolidated to Sea Island and moving them back to Kits?

[Mario Pelletier]

That's a good question, and thanks for the opportunity to clarify.

No, we're not taking anything away from Sea Island. Sea Island was a fully operational base before. What I mentioned is that we had purchased a brand new hovercraft that is stationed at Sea Island and that hovercraft will remain there. There are two hovercrafts at Sea Island, so we're not taking any resources away from Sea Island.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Will the assets that were at HMCS Discovery be maintained as well?

[Mario Pelletier]

We had a fast rescue craft for the inshore rescue boat at HMCS Discovery. That's an inflatable, 7.5-metre craft that will be redeployed at Kitsilano. In addition to this we are looking at a vessel of about 40 feet that could operate in Vancouver harbour. We're looking at the resource that was there.

Mr. Hutchinson mentioned that we have a fleet of 117 vessels. We have many small craft around as well. We are continually re-examining our assets and making sure they are deployed where they are most needed. Part of the work we're doing right now is to reassess where the assets are to make sure they are where they will be most needed.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I want to move to another issue that the B.C. government has raised. Certainly it was something we were looking at, at the end of our mandate: world-class marine spill response and the lack of dedicated tug service on the west coast capable of handling something like the Russian cargo vessel Simushir .

I didn't hear that it was part of the equipment upgrade list. Is the Coast Guard looking at that? Tell us what is there to protect the west coast from tanker traffic in that case. Obviously in that case there was a U.S. tug, vessels of opportunity, etc., but is there dedicated tug capability, and if not, are you aware of any plans to acquire it?

[Mario Pelletier]

The mandate of the Coast Guard is to make sure there is no pollution in the water coming from ships, so we take that very seriously.

Part of the initiatives that are ongoing is the world-class tanker safety system and part of this is what we call the area response planning. We are committed to engaging with local communities, first nations, private companies, and everything else to look at the true risk of navigation. In some parts of the country we've identified four pilot areas and we're going to focus on those at first.

It's looking at hazards in navigation, looking at available resources in the area, looking at the weather and the environment, and so on, so we can make sure we have the best system in place first to prevent any accident, but should that happen, we are going to be prepared to respond as well. By “we”, I mean the broader community, and where there is a coast guard, it is the federal lead to make sure proper responses are in place, also the owners and the private operators.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

I will go back to Kitsilano. You have an impressive list here. On an average day the Canadian Coast Guard saves x lives, etc. When Kitsilano was closed, did any incidents occur that weren't responded to by the Coast Guard in a timely fashion that can be attributed to the Kitsilano Coast Guard station having been closed?

[Mario Pelletier]

Maybe I can offer a little briefing on the marine search and rescue program and how they deliver it. It's done in three phases: the monitoring, the coordination, and the on-water response.

The monitoring, as Mr. Hutchinson referred to earlier, is done through marine communication and traffic services. Basically, they are the eyes and ears on the water. Through a network of towers they listen to what's happening on the water, and if there's distress signal, then it gets picked up and transferred to the joint rescue co-ordination centre. They're the ones who look at all the assets that are available to coordinate a proper response to any incidents. The third one is the on-water capacity or on-water response. That's done through a network of partners.

So yes, we do have a Coast Guard presence on the water and that is critical, but we also have vessels of opportunity. A pleasure craft or a commercial vessel could be going by. These are what we call vessels of opportunity. There's the Coast Guard Auxiliary across Canada, which has 1,100 vessels and 4,000 members. We also have other partners such as the municipalities, in this case, the Vancouver fire department, Vancouver Police Department, and emergency services, etc.

When there's a case on the water, the joint rescue coordination centre has access to all of those resources, and they will task the most suitable resource to respond as quickly as possible.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

This is my final question. When these sorts of decisions are made to consolidate, as Mr. Hardie mentioned earlier, the Coast Guard is obviously asked for its opinion on how that would affect its operations.

I'm not sure, Mr. Chair, if it would be appropriate to ask if information on that consolidation could be provided to this committee, because I think certainly at the time it was indicated that it could be closed and that you could still fulfill the mandate, which the Coast Guard very ably did. I think it would be good to see what the Coast Guard had to say about that prior to that decision having been made.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You can ask for a follow-up as long as it's in both official languages, and they can provide you with a response.

We'll consider it asked for.

Mr. Hutchinson, do you want to respond to that?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I simply wanted to say that there will be a fine line there. We are constrained in terms of what we can provide that was advice to a previous cabinet, as you can appreciate, but we will certainly be happy to provide in both official languages everything we're able to provide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Just as a quick clarification for those who are new, seven minutes is a guideline for you asking the questions. Our responses can exceed the seven, as is the normal case. So if I say you have 10 seconds left, make it quick, but please, no supplementaries after the fact.

Mr. Donnelly, you have seven minutes.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank you for appearing before the committee and I certainly thank you for your service to the country.

I do want to follow up on Mr. Hardie and Mr. Strahl's questions on the Canadian Coast Guard Kitsilano station in Vancouver.

Specifically, will the station be staffed and equipped to pre-2012 levels, which was a 24-7 operation with a cutter at the base?