Thank you.
Mr. Chair; board members; Mr. Jack Harris, MP; Scott Simms, MP; other government officials; and special guests, my name is Priscilla Boutcher. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear here today.
For a good many years in my life, I guess like most people who are not directly affected, I did not pay close attention to search and rescue for Newfoundland and Labrador, or how it worked. Sure, each time there was an accident or a disaster, and particularly with loss of life, everyone was touched in some way. It would always be talked about whether or not something more could have been done. Even though I always felt for those victims and families of the tragedy, I was nonetheless removed from it.
That all changed on February 15, 1982, when the Ocean Ranger sank. My son David was one of the 84 who lost their lives. Now I was directly impacted and involved.
We learned of the tragedy on the news. David was being listed as among those missing, but we had not been contacted. Once we became aware through the media, we could not get in contact with anyone to find out what was happening. I tried calling search and rescue in Halifax, but did not get any clear confirmation. It was over 12 hours before anyone contacted us, and by that time we were frantic. I saw his name roll up on the TV screen.
My life has never been the same, and it never will be. David's body has never been recovered, and I have no closure. I wanted to know why the rig could not be searched. I was told it was too dangerous. I have never been given a satisfactory answer. Even today I am still not convinced that searching the rig is not possible.
I knew that there was some risk involved in the job that my son had chosen, working on a drilling rig on the offshore in the middle of the Atlantic, but I was naive enough to believe that safety measures were in place and every precaution was being taken to protect the workers.
It's not in my report, but I just want to mention that several years before that, after my father passed away, I lost a brother, 26 years old, who was with the air force on a search and rescue in Holyrood. He and his co-worker were drowned. At that time, so many years earlier, we had better communication. The clergyman was at our door. They found my brother's body four days after. We were in tune, and had better communication than we received when I lost my son.
I guess through my personal experience, any topic with search and rescue is so important to me, in any phase. I learned the hard way how relaxed the regulations were and just how little emphasis was placed on safety. It was all about production.
It has been 29 years now, and I sit here in amazement that another study is taking place to look at search and rescue response times. Over the years, I have been involved in numerous hearings, interviews, and anniversaries of the Ocean Ranger tragedy, and always the discussion is centred on response times for search and rescue and safety in the offshore, land-based to a somewhat lesser degree. There probably has been enough money spent on the issue over the past years to have funded proper search and rescue bases with fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters in both Gander and St. John's.
In the wake of the deadly Cougar helicopter crash, in which 17 people were killed, I noticed two things in particular that truly astounded me.
First, retired Chief Justice Alex Hickman, who was chair of the royal commission on the 1982 Ocean Ranger disaster, inquired as to why the recommendations that had been made were never implemented: it was 24 years. That was on CBC news on March 16, 2009.
At the time of the Cougar helicopter crash, all of the province's search and rescue helicopters were in Nova Scotia on training exercises. Had the helicopters been in the province, they would have been on standby in Gander. He questioned why at least one helicopter had not remained at the station while the exercises were being carried out.
Furthermore, Chief Justice Hickman maintained that even with search crews in Gander, there should still be dedicated search and rescue capacity in St. John's, closest to the offshore industry, as was the recommendation of the royal commission report.
I'm not making these assertions; I'm merely reiterating the concerns of the chair of the royal commission. Based on his professional background and study and research, I consider him to be the expert. If he says that recommendations from the Ocean Ranger report are not implemented and should be, I believe him, and so do lots of other people.
The second thing that astounded me--that truly astounded me--was the fact that Colonel Paul Drover of the Department of National Defence testified at the Cougar crash inquiry that there were no lessons to be learned from this crash, so there was no need to submit a report on the military's response. That statement has to be absolutely ludicrous. Isn't there always a lesson to be learned, good or bad? In my world no one is perfect, or I have never heard of anyone being perfect--well at least until now. Perhaps that statement speaks volumes on what is wrong with search and rescue.
Mr. Scott Simms, the MP for Grand Falls, Windsor, Gander, and Bonavista, who has been advocating for search and rescue units across the country for several years and for a 30-minute around-the-clock response time, and who has also been appointed as a member of this committee, was quoted in a Gander Beacon news article on December 16, 2010, and I quote from page 4: “The official response from the Department of National Defence is that the money” that could be spent “to reduce” the response time “to 30 minutes around the clock is too much money compared to the return they would get to maximize the efficiency.”
My question to you, to the Department of National Defence, and to the federal government is this: who and what determines the price of human life? If only one or two or perhaps three or four are lost, well, the financial cost of an efficient service couldn't be justified by those numbers.
After the shock of David's death had settled, I tried very hard not to blame, to try to give the benefit of the doubt, as difficult as that was to do. It was early in the game and there was still a lot to be learned. But there is no excuse now. We have the ability and the responsibility to ensure that we have the most efficient search and rescue response units possible, with operations based in locations that allow the response time to be as minimal as it can possibly be.
Money should not even be a consideration. If these tragedies took place in a foreign country, most particularly in a developing country, most would determine that if there was inadequate search and rescue available, Canada would be one of the first countries to step to the plate and try to correct the problem. Surely we can do the same for our own.
My purpose in appearing before you today is not to point a finger or to lay blame for what has happened in the past or to deal with any of the technicalities. Nothing is going to bring my son back or any of the others who have been lost in this terrible tragedy that has taken place offshore over the years. But if they continue to happen and nothing is done to improve safety measures or the quality of the service we have, then, yes, there is blame, and everyone who is involved in the decision to maintain the status quo will be answerable somewhere down the road when the next tragedy occurs, because likely or not it surely will.
I gave a lot of thought as to whether or not I wanted to be here today and have to relive all those terrible moments, but I strongly felt that if my experience could help save the life of someone else, then perhaps what happened to David will have some meaning. I implore you to bring forth the changes that are necessary to ensure efficient search and rescue so the emphasis can be on rescue and not recovery.
Again, thank you for this opportunity. I sincerely hope that I have given you some insight into my personal experience and the pain of losing a loved one in such a tragic way and that it will make difference in your deliberations and recommendations.
Thank you for having me here. Thank you very much.