Fisheries Committee on April 12th, 2016

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Very briefly, please.

[Fred Moxey]

Yes, sir.

As I say, it's seismically upgraded and if we lose Prince Rupert—or Victoria, that one is more likely to survive a disaster—I feel that we need to have a backup, and that would be the lifeboat of MCTS.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Jordan.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Moxey, and thank you, Mr. Hughes, for coming in and sharing with us today.

I have a number of questions. I'll try and put them in some semblance of order. You said at one point that Comox is a good building, lots of space and you said that it already had the new equipment. If it already has the new equipment but the equipment is a problem, why is it better to keep Comox open?

You mentioned that one of the big issues you have is the quality of the equipment, but if Comox has that same equipment, how is that not a problem?

[Allan Hughes]

I'll back up and I'll look at the St. Lawrence Seaway. We monitor all the shipping and boating activity that occurs down the St. Lawrence.

The radio sites are maybe 1,000 feet, 500 feet, or even at sea level, or whatever it is for the river, and they're basically stationed in a linear line.

Vancouver or Victoria are not like that. They're in a big circle. When you receive on multiple sites, which is the norm there, you end up with this echo. As I alluded to, the technicians, I'm sure, if it's not part of this contract that has been let to the company, are pretty resourceful. They'll figure it out. But I don't know why we have to modernize a modernized centre to make the equipment work to a standard.

In Comox, with the equipment being there, it's in preparation to move the signals down a phone line to Victoria. The desks, and literally a touch screen, is all that's separating the equipment from working in Comox.

Our gravest concern is the amount—even if the technical issues are fixed, which I'm sure they will be eventually—will be the noise level in that operations room and being able to detect a kayaker who has rolled over into the water and is calling for help on a one-watt handheld. Meanwhile, ferries are calling each other and yachts are calling each other. Our ability, once you have that all coming through one speaker in Victoria once Comox closes, is going to become more challenging and it may get missed.

We have a difficult time doing that already.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You said that we were going basically from five to two in terms of the safety desk.

[Allan Hughes]

Potentially.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Potentially. Is that what you said?

[Allan Hughes]

Yes. Short staffing.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Short staffing, but that three you could see possibly working. That would be a little bit easier. Is Prince Rupert staying open?

[Allan Hughes]

Yes, Prince Rupert is one of the two super centres, I guess.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

But you said that nobody wants to be in Prince Rupert.

[Allan Hughes]

No, nobody wants to be there. Well, there are a couple of people.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm sorry, I'm from the east coast, so you'll have to bear with me while I ask these questions. What's the difference between closing Prince Rupert or closing Comox? If they said, “Okay, let's keep Comox open, but we'll close Prince Rupert,” what's the difference there?

[Allan Hughes]

I can only hypothesize why that decision was made. I suspect it was something to do with the concentration of marine traffic anticipated to increase around Kitimat and the LNG portfolio that's going on in British Columbia. I don't have that information of why those chose it, but they did.

They came to the union and they came to some managers and supervisors in the Coast Guard in MCTS early on when this was announced and said, “Where are we sending everything?” There was a lot of debate and we actually came to that meeting and we were told not to take notes over this three-day meeting, by management.

We all came out of there, even the managers, and we all agreed that two isn't going to work. One or three centres.

When they talk about the number of desks, it's just like this. So, going from five desks, operating positions, down to two, would be because of the short staffing that's going to occur down in Victoria.

We've already seen that in Halifax. They actually have operators sliding between traffic-regulating desks back and forth, and they are U-shaped consoles. They have to push back over, answer the call, and they're looking at anywhere from eight to 12 monitors. So they're constantly looking, giving their traffic and wheeling back and forth and that's what we don't want to happen.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You are the national president for Unifor, is that right?

[Allan Hughes]

For our local. Yes.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

This is one of the last amalgamations or closures for the MCTS stations.

Have there been problems with the amalgamation in other areas? If Comox did stay open are we going to get calls that we need to reopen St. John's? I have not heard that there's been any problem with those since they've closed. I'm wondering what the situation is across the country with other MCTS stations.

[Allan Hughes]

We certainly questioned why certain centres stayed open and others were closed, St. John's being one of them. We had the MRSC issue, which you're well aware of. They closed that MCTS centre and they moved it to Placentia. It was a head-scratcher because it was a fairly old building and people lived in St. John's. It seemed to be the vacancy rate; it was very difficult for people to get accommodation there. There were some head-scratchers. When they closed St. Anthony and they moved it to Goose Bay up in Labrador some of the comments I heard anecdotally were that it's a lot quieter. Maybe it's not picking up as much traffic. As I say, the reports are anecdotal. There are problems in Sarnia with the audio issues for much the same reason there are audio issues in Prince Rupert. They have 22 or 24 remote sites going into a single centre. Between the U.S. Coast Guard using their high-powered sites in the States and hitting their multiple sites with the echo it just exacerbates the situation.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

You said that you had a meeting and they said don't rush the closure. They put a date on the board and then you were quite surprised to find out that the date had changed.

What was the date they put on the board?

[Allan Hughes]

October 15.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

My understanding is that there hasn't been any expediting of the closure and that this was the date that was set in 2014 by the former Conservative government.

[Allan Hughes]

The closures were announced in May of 2012. There was no communication to our officers in Comox. On April 1, 2015, the date passed when we were supposed to close without a single word. We asked questions. People are trying to plan their lives; do they remortgage or finance? They had lots of questions. Nothing. There was no communication.

The last discussion we had, and Scott Hodge has those within the region now, we were down to meet the minister. They showed us on the board that they're really trying to push this back to October. Suddenly in the last two weeks, boom, it has to happen immediately. Our regional management has concerns about that and perhaps it's a question for them.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank you, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Moxey, for your testimonies. They were most illuminating and will help the committee greatly.

We have three other witnesses coming, but we'll suspend until they take their chairs.

[Fred Moxey]

Mr. Chairman, could I say one more thing?