Fisheries Committee on March 31st, 2022

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

One of you referenced the collaboration and interaction between the Canadian Coast Guard and your port sites.

In your closing comments, could you comment on the working environment between the port authorities responsible in mitigating these incidents?

[Satinder Singh]

Yes. My comment is simple. Just as this committee is a committee where all the great minds come together to come up with a solution, similarly in the western region, all the port authorities, the Canadian Coast Guard, TC, RCMP and all other partners also come together to find a collective solution.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You see no deficiencies in any of those federal government bodies.

[Satinder Singh]

I'll let Vancouver Fraser Port Authority talk about that.

[Shri Madiwal]

My thought on that, Robert, is that no one agency has the entire bandwidth to deal with such a major casualty. We have to work with all three levels—federal, provincial and local—and with other agencies to gain their support. I think we have established a good emergency response framework. We've also tried and tested a lot of exercises and the system is functioning.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

We'll now to go Madam Gaudreau for two and a half minutes, please.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Singh, when I spoke about investigation mechanisms, you referred to documents. I tried to check in the past few minutes whether we had those documents. I don't think that we received them. We would be grateful if you could send them to us. It would help us make recommendations.

Can you send them to us?

Moreover, according to what we heard earlier, there was a delayed response from the time the incident was reported at 12:45 p.m. to the time of the first rescue operation at 6 p.m. As we all know, there was definitely a lack of communication. I'm reassured that this isn't about interest or intentions.

However, we must take the bull by the horns. Given the technology and the prevention tools available to save our planet and to keep it as healthy as possible, this approach is no longer acceptable.

Do you agree that this committee must quickly make recommendations that can lead to extremely significant action? We heard earlier about an increase of over 6% in imports and exports.

Can you comment on this topic?

In addition, we know that communication is lacking. However, something else must be causing issues. If you have any ideas of ways to help us, I would be grateful if you could share them with us.

[Satinder Singh]

I'll check with internal counsel to make sure I don't contravene any rules in terms of providing that information. I'm happy to provide all that information to the committee, so that the committee can come up with a solution in the future.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

Now back to my question.

[Shri Madiwal]

I'll answer the question around the response time. It is extremely important. The response time framework needs to be developed in Canada.

Unfortunately, we do not have response timing. With our neighbours down south, this was one of the issues they addressed through the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 around an emergency response and a framework, so that everyone has an agency responsible for that.

Depending on the location of the vessel, the assets need to be strategically located where they should be able to respond in that minimum time. That is something that is missing within the Canadian framework.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm finding these questions and answers really interesting. Thank you.

One thing I was reflecting on is that in reality, even one container falling into our oceans is one too many. I've learned that in the winter of 2020-21, as one example, there were approximately 3,000 containers that fell into the Pacific Ocean. In light of that, there's a huge impact on our marine environment, as well as on our coastal communities.

Captain Madiwal, can you speak a bit about some suggestions that are being made? There's a possible solution of placing an eco fee on shipping containers, which would be paid by the shippers. I wonder if you might share some of the thoughts you have around whether there would be any impact at the port of Vancouver, and if you anticipate any challenges in implementing such an eco fee.

[Shri Madiwal]

Thank you, Lisa, for that question.

Any fee that we implement is always going to be tough for any entity. What we need to look at in the broad perspective is the competitiveness of Canada as a whole. Are we creating a thing where the cost of bringing in goods is going to increase? The cost is going to be passed over to the buyers, the users and the consumers.

In addition to that, the separate aspect is whether the owners of the dangerous goods that you reference, the containers, need to pay. I'm going back to the liability question. It's important, when you talk about the polluter pay principle in Canada, and we try to follow that. I believe there is also a structure in place, especially in the HNS fund, for hazardous and noxious substances, to which any ship contributes. In case there is further damage or it requires further liability, the fund can be utilized.

My recommendation would be to use that framework rather than introducing another fee, because there's an internationally accepted standard and any container carriers or shippers would be used to that in different countries.

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

Thank you for your thoughts, Captain Madiwal.

My concern is that with the current framework that we have, many coastal communities are bearing the costs, unfortunately. I'm looking at ways that we can better set up a system where coastal communities aren't bearing the brunt of the financial costs. There's also our marine environments.

I appreciate looking at what's in place and then improving that.

Perhaps I can—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. You've gone a bit over.

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

My time is up. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

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

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming here today and taking part in this very important study.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. My angle is more on prevention, because it's much easier to prevent these things from happening than to try to clean them up afterwards.

With today's technology, was it necessary for the Zim Kingston to enter the storm, or could it have paused its journey to avoid the storm? What's your take on that, Captain Singh?

[Satinder Singh]

My take on that is that the vessel had at its disposal the equipment and better forecasting that was utilized by the vessel's captain to make a decision that, at that time, he felt was the best decision that he could make. I would hate to speculate that he had additional information that could have been utilized to make a better decision.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you for that response.

Captain Madiwal, it is well known and a big concern that container spill frequency is becoming more of a threat, and it's a big concern to underwriters and insurance companies. Commercial pressure on masters to meet their schedules often causes them to sail in heavier weather than they should.

Was the Zim Kingston under timeline pressure to dock and offload in Vancouver, to the best of your knowledge?

[Shri Madiwal]

To the best of my knowledge, I don't think that the Zim Kingston was under any pressure to dock, because that was exactly the reason.... Because of the congestion in the port, the vessel was required to wait for many days before they could actually dock, so there was definitely time at hand.

Again, on the pressure on the master, there is a framework book, which we call the international safety management code. The master definitely has an overriding responsibility on the safety of the vessel, cargo and the crew on board.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

He didn't have to enter the dangerous quadrant of that storm. He could have held back, by the sound of it.

My next question is regarding the integrity of securing gear. Do you know how often this gear is inspected and tested to make sure its integrity is suitable for the extreme stresses that this gear comes under?

[Shri Madiwal]

There is a robust protocol on that, which is followed by the shipowner and also supervised and managed by the class certification that actually certifies the class of the vessel. I believe there is an annual inspection regime. There's a quinquennial inspection regime. Any items that are broken, twisted or that require replacement are replaced according to that process, and records are all available on the boat. Transport Canada marine safety and security is the lead agency that is responsible to verify those things when the vessel arrives in the port.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

How accurate are the reported load weights in these containers, to make sure that the ship is not top heavy, in the load plans for the containers on board? Can we be confident that the process is not rushed in foreign ports in order to make timelines?