Evidence of meeting #7 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was victoria.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I can't say that he's heard one of the transmissions that has reverberation or feedback on it. I wasn't with him when he was on his regional tours.
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
He has not been to the MCTS centre in Prince Rupert that I am aware of.
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I believe he went to Halifax and Quebec.
Because there is no consistent reverberation, no consistent echo, no consistent static, but rather specific transmissions that have problems, we're looking into why. It's not the software. Echo problems in the software have been corrected. There are problems occasionally with configuration, and there are some concerns about hardware, particularly in Prince Rupert. That's why we sent the team up under deputy commissioner Pelletier's direction to see what was going on. We were hearing through this committee that there was a particular problem with this transmission, which we weren't hearing through reporting and logging. We needed to see what it was so we went and did that, and we found some issues that could be fixed. They were issues that were found in other stations. The way the stations configured some of the hardware, the way the system was installed, those are all being corrected now as we speak. We have a team of technologists looking into it. Every single problem should be logged, and then we investigate what the problem is.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you. So the problems do exist. They are still there, and you are working through them.
I just want to finish with a question. If tanker traffic triples on the west coast and if we have consolidation of these MCTS stations from five down to two, are you saying that a fishing boat or a kayaker sending out a distress signal among all this noise consolidated down into one centre in Victoria is going to be able to be heard? Are you going to be able to reassure me, as a recreational kayaker who is relying on my fishing boat and the Coast Guard to help be part of that rescue service, that the person who will be listening to all these increased screams and noise in half the province's busy traffic and almost 40% of the country's busy traffic is going to hear and respond in time?
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, Mr. Donnelly, I'm assuring you of that. The system's been tested. The number of people responding per volume is unchanged. We have surge capacity if there is a major incident. We also have expansion capacity within the centres as traffic increases. We monitor these things just like the number of people we have working for us, and the retirements and all that attrition management information. We also manage operational information, and we do have—
Conservative
Liberal
Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL
Again, I'd like to thank the witnesses for coming here today to talk to us on this important matter.
We've heard a lot over the past month or so, I guess, with different presentations. At one time we did have a recording or two that we listened to, and it was quite hard to understand anything that was being said on it. It's my understanding that the same technology used in one station is the same as all of the stations with the new technology. Do we have a recording from another station, Les Escoumins, possibly, in Quebec, just to compare? If it's the same technology, why is it working so well here versus some of the recordings we've heard from the centres out west?
Deputy Commissioner, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We have thousands of hours of recording, very, very good quality recording, including Les Escoumins and other centres that had been consolidated earlier. Any issue that they might have had or realized with the configuration was corrected. That's why we have good quality audio, yes.
Liberal
Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL
Are we able to hear the higher quality?
[Audio presentation]
That's a big difference from what we heard earlier. I know you stated that you're still working to get some of the echoing kinks out.
Deputy Commissioner, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, as we do with any other system and as we did in the past when we installed previous versions of the communication control system.
Liberal
Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you.
Next is kind of a correction, I guess, on a statement from Mr. Bain. You mentioned that the weather being put into the system is automated. Mr. Hughes ,when he was here, said that's not the case, that it's being put in manually. Which is it? Is it going in automatically or is somebody actually sitting there and having to enter the weather? This is just for clarification because it seemed to conflict with the testimony earlier.
Superintendent, MCTS Western Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
In Comox right now the system is put in manually. In the early stages of the Prince Rupert modernization, it was necessary because the automated feature did not work properly. However, the integrated technical service hired one of their technologists to create a system that would work with the Frequentis system to allow for automation of the weather, so that is happening now.
Superintendent, MCTS Western Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
And that will be plan for the Comox weather as well, once it gets to Victoria.
Liberal
Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL
Again, there have been concerns that MCTS coverage and services to Canadians will change after consolidation when the Coast Guard has stated that coverage and services will remain exactly the same. Would you be able to explain if and how the coverage and services will change after modernization of the centres, and is it safe to say that there will be no change to MCTS coverage, and that there will be no disruption in service to Canadians?
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Comox is the last consolidation so this system is rolled out across the country. Canada is a maritime nation. Along the St. Lawrence in the summer we have the highest density of recreational vessel traffic anywhere in the country and the system is functioning perfectly, and in that situation, in two languages. We have English and French mariners constantly up and down the river. You just heard Les Escoumins broadcast from that station, so I can confidently tell you the system is functioning. We have one more station to consolidate and then we will have completed the project. There has been no diminution of service. We are in fewer locations. We have the same number of desks responding to the same volume of calls, and we've achieved some efficiencies in that.
Liberal
Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL
We've heard about the training and certification program that the employees go through and the costs associated with it, and the concern of it being harder to get people in Prince Rupert. What other plan do you have? If you come down to it and can't get people to stay in that facility, what would your backup plan be, versus trying to get people who reside in the area to take these training courses and be successful?
Deputy Commissioner, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
In the last three years we've trained 53 new marine communications and traffic services officers. In the next year we have plans to train 30 of them. So anybody who would presume that the succession plan is not there would be wrong. We have a plan. We've upgraded our facility and our systems at the college. We updated the curriculum so we do have a plan in place but maybe for the specific question, I'll turn it over to Superintendent Bain.
Superintendent, MCTS Western Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Sure. Plan B would be to go back to the national hiring process, the one that we've done for many years. There's one taking place right now, and we plan on selecting from that group anyway, and there could very well be some from Prince Rupert who qualify.
I would like to get back to this plan. We have a couple of people, one here in national headquarters and another in the region, who have been working with the Public Service Commission to see if the employment equity program can be adjusted to allow for aboriginal hiring even when the gap is not what it is right now, the reason being that about 40% of the population in Prince Rupert is first nations. If we go with a national figure that doesn't work as well in that area.
The Public Service Commission has been very co-operative and there might be an avenue for that, so we can go with that angle as well in the future. We're looking at three aspects. The local hiring would be taking place, whether candidates be first nations or not, but we're hoping for more first nations candidates. Then the last plan would be for the usual national hiring process.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Robert Sopuck
Time's up. Thank you very much.
We're going to five-minute rounds now. Mr. Strahl.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I first want to say that I'm a little troubled that Mr. McDonald was able to prompt the witness for an audio recording that I had no idea was going to be made. Obviously there is some awareness on that side of the table—but not on this side of the table—that those would be made available. I think that should have been done during the witness testimony, as opposed to during the questions and answers. It certainly raises a number of questions for me, I'll put it that way, that this was done in that manner.
Secondly, I'm a little surprised that we're even here today given what Liberal members of Parliament were saying in British Columbia during the campaign. I want to quote from Hedy Fry's speech, a response in reply to the Speech from the Throne, in which she said, “What is really important is that the people of Vancouver Centre who re-elected me will be pleased” with the throne speech and “some of those promises, especially the ones we have heard...that we will reinstate the Kitsilano Coast Guard base and the marine communication segments that were cut to British Columbia”. That was on December 7 of last year. She said that this would be overturned from the previous government. That's obviously a broken promise there, and, I would say, misleading the House.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with the witnesses who are here today.
My question is for the commissioner. We've heard testimony—and it's troubling testimony—that after this committee embarked upon this study there was in fact an acceleration of the effort to close the Comox centre, while there had been a previous indication that there would be at least an extension until October. We subsequently heard that in the last two weeks while we were on a parliamentary break that the timeline was moved to May of 2016, five or six months earlier.
Can you assure this committee that this timeline was in fact not affected by our decision to study this closure?
Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Mr. Strahl, I can assure you that it was not affected by the decision to study. The May date had always been on the books. We can't close stations, we can't consolidate, and we can't do work on the stations through the busy summer boating season, so we closed them all, and we've done all of this work from January to May. We're starting again in about November.
On this one, for the reasons I've stated, it's been on the books since 2014, and this date, May 2016, was known. For budgetary reasons, we've always intended to close at this date. I was never approached with an October date.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
So for the October date, there's no verification of that. Okay. We'll have to determine where that came from or if it can be verified at all.
Mr. Arnold quite succinctly summarized that it is your belief that this can be done safely and that it will save taxpayers money, on both accounts.