Fisheries Committee on Sept. 18th, 2024

[Sean Rogers]

In the case of a pilotage certificate, when you're in a compulsory pilotage zone, you have a choice. You can order a pilot, through the Laurentian Pilotage Authority, to come aboard and guide your vessel, or if you have a mariner or your bridge crew on board is sufficiently experienced and has familiarity at the level of an experienced pilot on a particular origin-destination pairing, they can go through a certification process, which involves an evaluation. That certification process, again, is conducted in the language of their choice, because either language can be used for navigational purposes along the St. Lawrence.

We have yet to hear of any situations where the training and the choice of language of the training have become an issue, and we're not looking at varying that. At this point in the consultations we have held to date, there has been no conversation around the issue of the language of training.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say thank you to the translators for all the work they're doing.

First of all, I'm very happy to have everybody here. I'm thankful to my colleagues for agreeing to bring forward this important study. This is an issue that is really important to my constituents but also to Canadians across the country.

As you know better than I do, the issue is different depending on where you are in Canada, but it very much is a prominent issue across Canada in general. However, we know the issue is that we have many more vessels on the west coast, but I'm going down a rabbit hole of things I didn't want to start talking about yet.

Ms. Nghiem, I believe you're out on the water. Are you seeing these vessels first-hand?

[Kathy Nghiem]

At the Canadian Coast Guard, we have 248 employees dedicated to our marine environmental and hazard response program, which is spread regionally across the country and in headquarters. In headquarters....

I'm sorry. I have the breakdown—

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I'm sorry. I have a lot of questions I want to get to. The reason I'm asking is to get an understanding of what we're talking about here.

I was out in a kayak recently along the coast of Vancouver Island, which is where my constituency is. We now have what locals are calling “vessel graveyards”, where we're seeing clusters of vessels being abandoned. They're leaking fuels, oils and plastics. I saw batteries. I saw barbecues and paint cans. The pollutants that were seeping into the surrounding marine ecosystem were just horrific to see.

I'm wondering if you could speak just very briefly to what implications that has. It's more important for us to hear it from you.

[Kathy Nghiem]

Thank you for the question.

What I can say is that there is great variety across the country in terms of the issues at play. As the single window for the Government of Canada, every notification we receive of a vessel that may be posing a hazard is assessed by the Canadian Coast Guard with a view to determining whether there are hazards that need to be addressed immediately—whether that's to protect human health and safety or the environment.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

Some of the things that I'm seeing first-hand—and I'm sure the Canadian Coast Guard is seeing these first-hand—are the impacts on food security, the surrounding marine ecosystem, the wildlife and foods. There are endless implications to this.

I'm just going to ask some more questions specific to what you're referencing here.

There are a couple of things. From the stats I have, we know that from 2016 to 2023, across Canada, for every three vessels added to the registry, there was only one removed. We know that in British Columbia, there have been five vessels for every one, so that number is much higher.

I have all these different charts and numbers that show in various regions how many are being cleaned up, how many are being added and how many are unknown. There are all these different stats we can look at, but one trend that we can see is that the number of vessels being abandoned by far outnumbers the number of vessels that are being cleaned up.

Despite the work of so many people who are out on the water—doing their best, to be clear—clearly there's a gap somewhere. I'm wondering what you see as some of the gaps and why we're not able to keep up with the vessels that are being abandoned.

For the next question, I would like to know about the prevention side of it, but perhaps we could focus on this first.

[Kathy Nghiem]

On the response side of things, we do prioritize vessels based on the highest risk. We have a risk methodology that helps us identify which vessels need to be addressed first to mitigate further hazards.

The variables that we consider that determine action are the location, the condition, the size, the construction material and the type and volume of pollutants on board. These all influence our ability to respond and the complexity of the response.

We do follow our methodology in the Canadian Coast Guard because often we are working in multijurisdictional areas. We do collaborative responses so that anybody who has an authority or responsibility specific to the vessel is included in the contingency planning and the response measures. We include those individuals as well, to make sure we are maximizing and leveraging everybody's responsibilities and authorities to mitigate the risks that are posed by the specific vessel.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Do you feel that you have the capacity...? Perhaps if you're not the best person, I'm happy to have somebody else answer as well.

Do you feel that there's the capacity to actually meet the need of the vessels that are out there?

What I'm hearing from mariners, people in coastal communities and first nations.... I have images of the damages in front of me. What I'm hearing directly is that there are circumstances where it's clear that the threshold, when the vessel is abandoned, is too high.

For example, speaking to one local, there was a boat right off the coast of Vancouver Island that was abandoned. It was leaking oil. It clearly needed to be cleaned up. Because the threshold wasn't high enough, it sat there for a long time. They were looking for the owners. It was a long, convoluted process. It sunk. They cleaned it up. Then in the time that they were still looking for the owners, the threshold wasn't high enough, so it sunk again. Then they had to clean it up again.

It just seems like a really inefficient system that's causing a lot of damage to the surrounding marine ecosystem.

Do you feel that there is the infrastructure and investment in place to ensure that vessels that need to be cleaned up are able to be cleaned up?

[Robert Brooks]

What I can say is that, since 2016, as my colleague Ms. Nghiem has referenced, the government has invested over $300 million to deal with this issue. Within the scope of responsibilities, through our reporting systems, when there is a case that's reported to the Canadian Coast Guard, we will assess that vessel for risk and respond accordingly.

When there is an emergency response required, the Canadian Coast Guard's focus is always on incident stabilization: to remove pollutants, secure the vessel to the greatest extent possible and monitor. As we know, Canada operates on a polluter pays principle, and we look to owners for their responsibilities to be met. In certain cases it does take some time to work through that continuum with owners to ensure they're meeting their responsibilities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Bragdon for five minutes or less, please.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to each of the guests for being here today. We really appreciate your taking the time and informing us.

To the members of the Canadian Coast Guard, I want to say once again, as my colleague Mr. Small stated, our sincere condolences to the family and to all the members of the Canadian Coast Guard. Oftentimes, people do not perhaps take into consideration the risk that is involved in the service that you provide, but, boy oh boy, for those vessels that are on the water that are in trouble or in a really tough situation, it's the Canadian Coast Guard that's first and foremost on their minds. I want to thank you for what you do, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the member who has passed. I wanted to say that right away.

We've heard some stats and some information about how much has been accomplished so far. From what we're hearing, you feel like you're on track to achieve the objectives within budget and on time. Am I misunderstanding that, or do I have a correct understanding of that?

If you were to assess it—and I don't know if that's for the Coast Guard or the department—do you feel like you are within budget and on time in meeting the objectives on the number of abandoned vessels that have been identified and need to be addressed?

[Kathy Nghiem]

What I can say is that, as we collect the information in the inventory and we do our risk assessments, we prioritize based on risks, but we also is multi-year planning. We regularly re-evaluate the list of vessels that are in the queue to be remediated or removed to ensure that, as the risk profile changes, we are able to adjust our operations to continue to address the risks.

What I can also say is that, in addition to the funding we have been allocated, if we are faced with an issue where there is a vessel posing a significant risk and immediate hazard, there are mechanisms in place for us to access additional funding, if and when required, to ensure the hazards presented by that vessel are addressed promptly and efficiently.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

You feel like you're adequately resourced and it's just a matter of establishing the priorities, of course based on risk to the environment and the surrounding areas of the community.

Can you enlighten us a little bit further on what the process is to make sure those vessels that are at the most risk of causing the most harm to our waters and to our communities are addressed in an efficient and expeditious manner? Can you speak to that as well?

[Robert Brooks]

As my colleague Ms. Nghiem has referenced, we have a risk assessment methodology in the Canadian Coast Guard that looks at a number of variables. We look at the risk and hazard a vessel could pose from an environmental perspective, risk to the economic considerations within the local area and risks to public safety and human health. It's a broad spectrum of risk.

Each year, within the allocations we have to allocate to these vessels, we have an annual planning cycle in which experts within the Canadian Coast Guard come together. We evaluate the national inventory, bring out the vessels that have had a risk assessment done to them and look at them in terms of where they rank in that risk score. Then together, through that committee of experts, we come up with a peer-reviewed list, and we challenge each other from coast to coast in each region to make sure we're allocating the funds we have to the highest priorities we're aware of at the time.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Very good. Thank you.

In regard to jurisdiction, my question on this is important because I know sometimes there are provincial areas of jurisdiction, there are federal areas of jurisdiction, and then you have the differences between coastal communities and also some inshore situations or whatever, inland lakes and water systems, that have derelict and neglected vessels that need to be addressed. How is that going? Do you have a clear process to make sure jurisdictional concerns are being addressed?

Is it a collaborative approach with the provincial areas of authority or regional authorities? What do you see are the biggest challenges or impediments to that?

[Robert Brooks]

Generally speaking, the Canadian Coast Guard works very closely with a range of partners federally, provincially and municipally, and with indigenous nations across the country.

The process by which we operate works effectively, and we're able to access our learning networks to make sure that partners are notified. We're able to come together on scene, as required, through our incident command system. When required to respond to a large incident, we have an incident command post to make sure that partners are up to speed and fully able to contribute their authorities and mandates to resolve the issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Bragdon.

We now go to Mr. Morrissey for five minutes or less, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair, and through you I will follow up on Mr. Bragdon's question.

Explain the jurisdictional line between the federal Department of Transport and DFO in relation to abandoned vessels. Who...?

[Kathy Nghiem]

I'll start with us. The Canadian Coast Guard is responsible for any vessel that presents a hazard that requires immediate attention. Small craft harbours is responsible for the implementation of the WAHVA for anything within its boundaries of a small craft harbour. Transport Canada is responsible for vessel abandonment, irresponsible ownership and dilapidated vessels.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

It doesn't seem clear who....

My next question is this: Can you identify for the committee whether there are any known abandoned vessels, derelict, that are a threat to fish habitat?

[Robert Brooks]

With respect to the risk assessment methodology that we employ at the Canadian Coast Guard, with our partners at Transport, the vessels that we do remediate and are hazardous may, in fact, pose those threats.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Are any of those currently in waters on both coasts?

[Robert Brooks]

I'm sorry, but I'm just trying to think about the details on that.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

If you don't have it, that's fair. Can you report that back to the committee, through the clerk and the chair?

I want to know what the current status is on both coasts as it relates to abandoned vessels that have a potential to harm the fish stock environment. We're the fisheries committee, so if you could.... If some other vessel runs into it, that's a different issue. It has to be a significant one, not minor, which would be some of the content on the vessel. It would be either the fuel on it or some of the cargo that was being carried. How many of those currently exist and are being monitored by somebody?

You referenced investment since 2016. What existed before 2016?