National Defence Committee on June 15th, 2009

[Col P. Drover]

Thank you, sir.

First of all, let me respond to the previous question that John answered. We, the military, are the sponsor of CASARA, and we have every confidence that the membership are very skilled and very capable. What we ask them to do is not out of line. They're not doing certain things that our SAR forces are doing, understandably. What they do with their own equipment and their own time is certainly something that we have found to be very valuable. There's no issue of confidence within our rescue coordinating centres; they will, believe me, task the CASARA if that aircraft or that crew can respond more quickly. It may be not the only one, and they don't do aerial delivery, and they don't do a lot of things, but what they do is tremendously advantageous.

We try to avoid searches. For early detection we use satellite to beacon, but occasionally those measures will fail, and we end up in a search scenario. A search can be a very arduous, difficult exercise, and to have the spotters that they provide to help us search is a tremendous advantage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Allez-y.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Could you provide me with a written response to the privatization question? I think it is a very important question. If the colonel does not have the time to answer right now, I would appreciate it if he could forward a written response to the clerk who could then circulate it to committee members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

If you could just send your answer about privatization to the clerk, we would appreciate that, and the clerk will circulate that to every member.

Thank you very much, Colonel Drover.

Now we'll give the floor to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for your presentations.

Colonel Drover, I'm interested in the same question that was previously asked, based on the Canadian Press report that only seven of the 14 Cormorant search and rescue helicopters are available at any given time to be called upon for duty. How would you characterize that? Is it that we only need seven, so we have 14? We don't have enough because we don't have enough capability to keep them flying? What is the situation? How would you characterize it? Are you short of them, or was it designed for seven availability?

[Col P. Drover]

That's a good question, sir. No, we expect an availability greater than seven. I'm not sure whether when that report was written it was a snapshot or a longer-term issue. There's no question that we've had some difficulty with the availability of the aircraft for a number of reasons. We have taken steps to improve the availability of that fleet, bearing in mind that the more work it does, the more you have to take certain of that number offline for routine maintenance and those sorts of things. Those seven do not represent our daily statistics; they are higher than that. I'm not sure how much higher. It is a challenge for us to improve that to the extent possible.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Are you able to give us a report that shows something different from that? This was in the Canadian Press story on June 2. I don't know what it's based on, but are you able to give us a report that shows better numbers than that?

[Col P. Drover]

I would absolutely give you a report. I can't say, because I don't have the numbers here, what those numbers would be, but if you're asking whether we can provide--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Can you supply the committee with one?

[Col P. Drover]

Absolutely.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I appreciate that you have to make plans based on your determination of what the needs are, but I do understand that the basic test of need is the number of incidents you have, the number of times you're called upon to provide services. There is, throughout some of the literature that I've been reading, another way of looking at this: it's the kind of emergency you have to deal with, as opposed to the number of actual responses. While the number of incidents in the Arctic, as you've noted here, is relatively small compared to the number of other operations, the response time, the kinds of incidents you could have, and the number of people who could be involved might indeed call for greater or closer capability than you have right now. For example, this may be exceptional, but in 1991 a Canadian Air Force CC-130 Hercules went down, and it took 30 hours to actually get to that particular craft--I know there were bad weather conditions--and that was several miles from Alert. To what extent is the nature of the adversity you might be dealing with an issue when determining how close you should be to a potential disaster?

[Col P. Drover]

By and large, if you have the worst-case scenario and you place it in a very remote area, it's going to take a certain amount of time to respond. The transit time, the difference between the departure from my base and the actual crash site, may not be the determining factor in all missions.

What's more important, especially when we're talking about major disasters, the MAJAID that I briefed, is that if we located it in the north, for instance, we would lose time, because there's no dedicated aircraft that supports that package. That's an additional aircraft, in addition to our primary SAR aircraft. Those are based in Trenton. That's also where our medical folks are. These kits have to be renewed occasionally, with medical stuff in the kits. So there are all sorts of reasons why it's more efficient to base that there.

In terms of what you would put in the north to cater to a very challenging multi-passenger situation, sometimes having a helicopter might make sense, but sometimes a local commercial helicopter might be more appropriate, depending on the scene.

Just as a brief point on the C-130 crash, in that scenario the weather closed in so rapidly that it would have been a challenge no matter where you were based in the north. As it turned out, we had aircraft overhead of that incident site for hours. When our SAR techs don't jump out of an aircraft.... You almost have to tie them down. So there was a great desire to do something, but they were way beyond their safety margins. When they did do it, it was borderline.

We also, in that particular case, mounted a ground-party search for the aircraft, and we pretty well knew where it was. They also took 30 hours to get there.

I would suggest that was very exceptional--challenging and rather tragic--and unfortunately, it was our own people as well.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I'd certainly accept that.

Tell me, you referred to a basing review done in 2005. Could you make a copy of that available to the committee for review?

[Col P. Drover]

Yes, sir, we can.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I was interested in your comments. I am, of course, aware of the 444 Squadron in Goose Bay. I was intrigued by your statement that there are no plans to have a SAR unit per se in Goose Bay. I thought it was.

[Col P. Drover]

The mission is not primarily SAR. They have SAR techs and they have a SAR-equipped helicopter, but they are not in the same posture as Trenton would be, or the coast.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

So what's the primary mission of 444?

[Col P. Drover]

They're in support of military operations, but they're available for SAR.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

But they have the same capabilities now. Those choppers and the SAR techs are as trained and as capable as all of the others.

[Col P. Drover]

Absolutely, sir. They're the same SAR techs.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

The MAJAID kits you refer to, we've seen a picture here of one or two. I don't know quite how to phrase this. It's great to have kits, but how many injured people or how many passengers or individuals could be managed in a major air disaster or other major disaster?

[Col P. Drover]

The kits can accommodate shelter and things for 320, plus all the kit that I could provide in three Hercules, a wide-body.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

So we're talking about a serious response capability.

[Col P. Drover]

And as I mentioned, it's the only capability of any nation in the world that I'm aware of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn.