Fisheries Committee on March 10th, 2016

[Gregory Lick]

Give us a couple of seconds to find the answers to that.

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

Sure.

Actually, the question is what they will have left once Comox is gone. How many people will actually be on duty at any given time between Prince Rupert and Victoria?

[Gregory Lick]

The best way to respond to that is actually not so much with the number of people; it's actually to talk about the number of stands that are monitoring those radio communications, either from Prince Rupert or from Victoria.

Before, we had Vancouver, Comox, Tofino, Prince Rupert, and Victoria. In actual fact, the number of stands has been reduced slightly, and that's because—

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

It's from five to two, once this is finished.

[Gregory Lick]

Sorry, sir, the number of centres has been reduced from five to two; however, the number of stands in the pre-consolidation centres has been reduced very slightly to the two new centres. In this case the new technology that has given us some efficiencies, some economies of scale. Since we've been able to share those particular duties a little better because of those economies of scale, we have been able to reduce the number of stands very slightly, but we're still monitoring the same areas. We still have the same coverage with the radio towers and the radar installations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

Mr. Strahl, you're next.

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

Thank you very much for appearing and for answering our questions. I have some information here, and I'm just wondering if you can update it or confirm it.

I understand this isn't the first modernization that has been undertaken at MCTS stations over the last 30 years. I understand that in the nineties, Coast Guard integrated traffic and radio service moved from 44 stations to 22 stations. Am I correct in that, and if so, was there any impact on services when that number was essentially halved in the nineties?

[Gregory Lick]

Certainly that is correct, Mr. Strahl. Back in the nineties, we were able to consolidate from 44 to 22 with the new technology, and there was really no impact on services to Canadians at all.

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

Okay.

You mentioned the number of stands. Again, I was led to believe that there are 214 radio towers and 24 radar installments across the country. Even though we're talking about a reduction of centres, those numbers are remaining constant?

[Gregory Lick]

Yes, that is correct. As I said during my opening remarks, the coverage is exactly the same. I would just reiterate, though, that the number of radio towers and the number of radar installations will remain the same not only on the west coast but across the country.

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

Okay.

Can you walk us through this and maybe explain it in more detail? We've heard reports of outages from time to time. Can you give us some indication of what that typically looks like and how the technology kicks in? If one centre experiences an outage, you said it can be monitored anywhere across the country. Maybe you can just walk us through that.

How frequently do “outages”, as the media or as we may call them, occur? When they occur, what is the sequence of events to ensure that there isn't a danger to marine traffic?

[Gregory Lick]

I'll answer that question from the national perspective in terms of the normal mitigating measures we put in place. I'll ask Mr. Girouard to address the regional perspective from the western region and then any technical aspects to the technology and how we deal with it in terms of technicians.

Outages do occur. It is a technology. We do have a country in which we have environmental effects. Weather, wind—those things do affect the towers periodically. We do have a reliance on certain telcos that provide the services on the links. We do have microwave links, as Mr. Ryan mentioned, that are affected sometimes by wind and weather, as well as by lightning and other atmospheric events.

An outage is relatively uncommon, in our minds, or certainly a major outage is. Most of our outages are very short, and during the outage time period we do have protocols in place to mitigate the problems that occur. We do have our own Coast Guard vessels out there, who now maintain a more diligent listening watch to radio transmissions, particularly distress radio transmissions. We do have SAR stations out there that maintain the same more rigorous listening watch when that happens. We also send out what we call a notice to shipping, which goes out to mariners to make sure they know there is an outage and they should maintain a more diligent listening watch. What we're concentrating on at that point is really distress communications, so we make sure we hear all of those.

In addition, in certain areas of the country we have co-operative vessel traffic services with the United States. They can take over some of our responsibilities in those particular areas if we do have an outage, just as we will do for them.

That answers the particular part of the question with respect to some of the national mitigating measures we will put in place for any type of outage.

I'll ask Mr. Girouard to talk about the western region perspective with respect to that question.

[Roger Girouard, Assistant Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Perhaps I should begin with some anecdotes of the kinds of outages we've had in the last year. As Mr. Lick said, they range across a full spectrum, from lightning strikes to equipment failure not related to the modernization; as an example, a diesel that's providing electricity to a remote site may fail.

A number of outages have been related to third party carriers. In B.C. in particular, we are not landline rich; we're very dependent on third party carriers, in some instances, to transfer signals from nodes to nodes. We've had a number of outages related to those issues.

Last year we had one particularly notorious outage just as we transferred from Vancouver. That was related to moving old Vancouver gear to Victoria. You shouldn't shake an old analog piece of gear, because it will fail on you. It was not related to the modern gear but to modernization. That one lasted probably two hours.

In terms of the pure modernization, we have had some software interface issues. We did have a couple of outages that were caused when the contractor did updates without letting us know, and that locked up a system. Once we knew what it was, it was a five-minute fix. We've changed that protocol.

In terms of the modern gear, I've seen very little of it involved in a significant outage. Some of the site-to-node interfaces have had some glitches, but we've learned about the system and we've learned how to do rapid response in a way that's taken us from a 20-minute outage down to one or two minutes. The key for us is that if we do have an outage, we get the word out and put up a system to support the airspace. We hear on channel 16 the other mariners supporting us.

Right now, I believe we're building a more robust system as a result of what we're putting in.

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

I have a brief time here, but there obviously was a cost savings in reducing the centres from 22 to 12. If they remained open, I assume there would be a cost realized to keep them open as well as to modernize.

There would be no plan to leave them open at the current state of equipment. Am I correct in that?

[Gregory Lick]

Yes, Mr. Strahl, that is correct. I think we want to speak specifically about Comox as an example, since that is the subject of this discussion here.

To keep a centre like Comox open, which is working right now with antiquated equipment that is becoming more and more difficult to maintain, the equipment would need to be modernized. There is an operating cost for keeping the centre open and keeping the people there, and so on, but the major issue with keeping a centre like Comox open is the capital cost required to modernize the equipment, which we hadn't planned for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Lick. Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

Mr. Donnelly is next. You have seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate having our officials here to answer some of the questions on this important topic about the Comox MCTS. If there is any time at the end, then perhaps my colleague could ask a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Would you like to split your time, Mr. Donnelly?

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

No, but there might be a little time left.

With regard to cost savings, can you talk a bit more about the cost savings in the plan to close Comox? How much would we save?

[Gregory Lick]

When we've spoken about the cost savings, we've generally spoken about the cost savings across the country—

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

Can we talk specifically about Comox? How much savings are there? Do you know an exact figure, or can you get back to the committee about that? It's probably tough to ask.

[Gregory Lick]

I'll give you the national figure and what we've put forward for Comox, and then we'll come back to the committee if there's a requirement for a little more accuracy on it.

From the national perspective, in terms of operating costs for the entire program, we're looking at a savings of about $5.4 million with the consolidation project reducing the centres from 22 to 12.

With respect to Comox, we're looking at a savings of about $500,000, $600,000, $700,000, or so. We'll come back to the committee with a little more accuracy if needed.

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

Thank you.

In terms of moving to technology, I want to pick up on your opening remarks about what we've heard in the media and what you've framed as myths, etc. Have you heard some of the transmissions that have been out there between ship operators?

[Gregory Lick]

Absolutely, and I'll ask Mr. Girouard to talk to some of his experiences in the western region. As an example, I will talk about when Mr. Ryan and I attended MCTS Sarnia.

We heard from the operators, and heard an experience right there, about some of the issues with respect to sound and what the operators were hearing in terms of the loudness of the centre itself. As with any particular project involving sound, microphones, and electronic messaging communications in a small room, you're going to have issues. So what—

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

Can I just jump in and ask if you have heard them? Could you understand some of them? Some of the ones I've heard I couldn't understand because of the echoing, the reverberation, and that sort of thing. I'm wondering if there's ever a point where you couldn't understand what was being transmitted.