Thank you very much. And good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today.
DFO's involvement with the Canadian General Standards Board in the conservation, protection, and the enforcement branch goes back to 1997. There are three general areas that we currently use the CGSB for, and those haven't changed in a number of years. The first is in standards development. Our first engagement with the Canadian General Standards Board was back in 1997 when we were looking for independent oversight of our at-sea observer program training module.
The observers operate in different regions across Canada and we wanted to try to have some consistency and rigour and standards around how the training is carried out, so that we were fairly confident that the training of an observer in the Quebec region, for example, was similar to one in the Newfoundland region, and that there would be some consistency to the data we get back from those observers.
So in 1997 the CGSB developed a national standard that was known as the CAN/CGSB-190.1-97 training and certification for at-sea fisheries observers. This provided the standards, and those standards are still in use today. We've used it since 1997 as a guide for our at-sea observer programs.
It's been more relevant perhaps in recent years once the standards document was developed and we used it, but our biggest use of the CGSB program is the qualification program asset. It provides for us a qualification system for two types of observer programs. One is known as the dock-side monitoring program, which administers the weigh offs of fish landings at port, and the other one is the at-sea observer program, which provides independent observers on board vessels at sea to verify catches.
In the case of the dock-side monitoring program, that was our first engagement of CGSB to provide a qualification program. Essentially, if you want to become involved in the delivery of dock-side monitoring services in Canada, your first step is that you must become qualified with CGSB. From there you move on to a DFO designation. Essentially the CGSB arranges for a quality system manual to be compiled by the companies interested in becoming qualified to carry out these services. It's essentially just detailed operating procedures that cover everything that the dock-side monitoring program is going to deliver and how they're going to carry it out. The CGSB then will make sure that it matches what DFO's expectations are and they actually do carry out their processes through annual audits in accordance with the methods they've explained.
The year 1999 was the first one we entered into an agreement with CGSB to develop the qualification program for dock-side monitoring, and we've used CGSB ever since that time to carry out the annual audits and to certify or qualify new companies that wish to get into the program. The general requirements for dock-side monitoring services are inscribed in legislation. The fisheries general regulations outline the requirements to deliver observer programs in a general sense, and then of course the policy framework around the nuts and bolts of what makes the program tick is described in various policy documents within the department and incorporated as well into the CGSB manuals.
As for cost and funding of these programs—a common question we get from the industry and others—the DFO covers most of the costs. A company interested in becoming certified or qualified through the process has to pay the initial qualification cost. But as for the ongoing audits and maintenance of the program, DFO covers those types of costs.
In the case of an individual company, it will vary depending on the complexity and how complete their work is to begin with. But it costs a company roughly $5,000 to $10,000 to go through the process. That's what they would have to pay the CGSB. Of course, that is addition to any internal costs they would cover if they had to bring in new systems, or do anything else.
DFO covers the annual surveillance and the regular monitoring of these companies to ensure that they're compliant with the quality standards manual. In recent years we've managed to get the costs down to about $60,000 a year. Prior to that we were spending about $92,000 a year—keeping in mind that roughly 17 companies are qualified. We carry out audits on a three-year cycle. If no problems are detected through desk audits, you can expect an on-site auditor every third year, and paper audits or desk audits will be carried out in the alternate years.
Recently we've expanded our program. As you may be aware, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans restructured their at-sea observer program and moved from a contracted process to a service supplier process that would be similar to a dockside monitoring process, whereby any company can deliver services as long as they're qualified and then designated by DFO.
In the old model there was one contract per region, and if you bid and got the contract you were the service supplier. In theory you could have 50 companies. We wanted a system to make sure everyone delivered a quality program, that they had the management and operational processes in place to ensure the integrity of the data, that DFO got what it was looking for, that the individual industry companies that utilize this service were confident that the data collected was accurate, and that DFO was accepting the reports of the independent observers as being accurate in describing their fishing activities.
In 2012 we entered into another agreement with the Canadian General Standards Board to develop a qualification program for the At-Sea Fisheries Observer Corporations. This followed a very similar path as the dockside monitoring program. We have since moved to streamlining our operations a bit more, so when we developed the at-sea observer program qualification, we improved upon the dockside after 10 or so years of experience. We tightened up some of the language and the rules, and we are currently harmonizing a lot of the background policy, so when we go out to various companies or to the coast, it's more efficient for the Canadian General Standards Board to do both types of observer programs at the same time. If you travel to the Pacific region or the Newfoundland region, while you're there you can mix and match. You can do the dockside monitoring program and the at-sea observer program. This is certainly most cost-effective. In some cases, companies are interested in delivering service to both programs. So instead of having your company management tied up in two different audits, if you're involved in both programs we can do the audit at the same time, so it makes it a bit more efficient.
Again, the costs to the companies are very similar. There's a $5,000 to $10,000 cost to set up with the Canadian General Standards Board, depending on the complexity of your program and the number of times they have to go back. But once you're set up, DFO generally funds the maintenance costs. So as long as you keep your program up and running as you described it to us when you were approved, we will cover the costs of doing the spot checks. If there is a problem, and it requires a revisit by the auditors for corrective action, the company would have to cover the cost of the CGSB going back.
In closing, we don't foresee any major changes in our use of CGSB in the future. It's served us quite well. It provides an arm's length from DFO and certainly a bit of independence, so every company will know that regardless of what region they're from or where they're applying from, they're all evaluated in the same way. They're all expected to provide the same type of information.
The qualification process is clearly articulated on the website. It's available to the public. Anybody can check it out, and see if this is the type of program they'd like to be engaged in. Without the CGSB pre-qualification, the onus would revert to DFO to try to do all this type of audit and follow-up and process-type work ourselves, and it would be overbearing for us to do that right now. We don't have a lot of professional auditors on staff in our section, so it would mean hiring staff, whereas we believe this to be a cost-effective mechanism to carry out the quality assurance program on these companies.
DFO will focus its activities on ensuring that other aspects of the program are met, such as fraud and collusion, and ensuring that the company is operated at arm's length from industry.
We expect that we will have continuing and ongoing relations with the Canadian General Standards Board. There may be applications to other types of programs in the future, if they come up, that require a certain type of pre-qualification.
Thank you.