Evidence of meeting #6 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sar.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Colonel Drover, for coming.
Here is just one little correction to my colleague Mr. Simms. It's airmen and airwomen, not soldiers, who man the aircraft and do the SAR work. Forgive my air force roots on that point.
Colonel Drover, it was suggested by Mr. Harris that some people might have a bigger SAR area of responsibility than we have. I'm not aware of anybody who does. Does anybody have a larger AOR than Canada?
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
I don't know. It would have to include how much it has in ocean reaches, but Australia is an interesting one, because there is no overland SAR equivalent anywhere near comparable to the one we provide in this country.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
So we have to be careful to compare apples with apples.
11:40 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
Actually, it's a good question, because when you try to align our capability to what else is out there, it's very difficult to compare the exact points from which to get a fair comparison.
I'll leave it at that.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Yes, that's good enough.
Again, there was reference to an 11-year-old Director of Program Review, or DProg, report. So I'll ask you, when was the last time DND reviewed its SAR readiness posture and response time policy, and what was the outcome?
11:45 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
Actually, those two reports that I referred to, the work done in 2007 and 2008, formed the basis for evaluating whether or not it was necessary or desirable or affordable to move to a better posture.
I think what the statistical analysis.... When you take over 40,000 incidents and you reduce them to several in which the standby posture may have had an influence.... Every life is significant, and I won't discount that at all. But at some juncture you have to look at the overall statistics and realize that the system we have in place performed very well in dealing with the very large majority of the incidents we're talking about here.
So to move to a different posture was deemed, at least based on that evidence, not to be appropriate at this time. Now, having said that, you could at any time revisit, with reason.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
The activity off our coasts, whether in oil and gas or whatever, is constantly changing. Are we reviewing our response times in relation to those activities as well?
11:45 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
We do, absolutely. We continue to do trend analysis, and not only for the offshore but certainly in the north as well, where we monitor trends and increase in activity.
I think it was mentioned, but it bears repeating, that the federal SAR resources are just one of many assets that can be brought to bear, depending on the nature of the incident. Not only is it the military aircraft, but it's the coast guard vessels, commercial operators, volunteers—the CASARA organization. It is a system of systems. There are a number of capabilities out there.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Going back to DProg for a second, are you aware of any more recent DProg reports than one that's 11 years old?
11:45 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
No, I'm not.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Okay.
You talked in your presentation about SARSAT and 406 beacons and so on and the tremendous difference they make. If you look at posture versus technology—and this is probably a difficult question to answer—what would be a bigger improvement, knowing the exact time and location or positioning of airplanes here or there?
11:45 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
I would say that the advances we've made in the 406 technology have been a remarkable advantage for our SAR forces' ability to respond in a timely manner. The investment in reducing my standby posture, if we go back to our timeline, is relatively small. It's a wedge in that big timeline dynamic.
The way the 406 really has an impact on the timeline is in the almost real time alerting, which is quite incredible. Vessels are equipped with 406 beacons as well as aircraft. That's one part, on that part of the dynamic. The other part is on the actual location, where because of digital technology, satellite-enabled, the precise location reduces the effort of search. Again, that impacts the timeline.
So between those two time elements, we operate far more advantageously with a 406.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Now, with respect to quoting statistics and so on—and Mr. Bachand quoted the 17% of events that statistically occur outside 8 to 4—I would suggest to you, and you can agree or not, that this is a simplistic kind of approach; that the more important aspect is the full picture of response time and so on, which you, I believe, presented pretty ably in your presentation.
You're nodding your head. Would you agree with that?
11:45 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
If that's the end of your question, yes, I do, absolutely. As we're looking at the big picture and all the statistical data and determining how to make those improvements, by and large our response has been very capable in terms of delivering the SAR service when required and in a timely manner.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I don't want to misquote Mr. Bachand, but I think there was a question of 17 additional fixed-wing SAR aircraft. We're not talking about 17 additional airplanes, but about replacing the Hercules and the Buffalo, aren't we?
11:45 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
I believe my answer is that part of our continual support of the search and rescue program is equipment replacement. Essentially the fixed-wing program is a replacement program.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
With respect to privatizing some or all of our search and rescue system, there are other people who have some experience with that. There are the Brits, the Norwegians, and others. Are you aware of their experience with respect to success? Do you have any kind of statistical analysis?
11:50 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
I haven't had any recent dealings with their successes. I haven't met anybody who has glowing reports, but otherwise I have no.... As I mentioned earlier, I think the whole privatization question is a complex one and deserves a considerable amount of research.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Do we spend time liaising, coordinating, or exchanging information with other people, such as the Brits, the Norwegians, the Aussies, the Americans, or whomever?
11:50 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
In terms of...?
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
In terms of experience, lessons learned, best practices, and all that.
11:50 a.m.
Col Paul Drover
Absolutely. We work with our SAR OPIs in the various committees, and we participate in international committees, such as ICAO, that focus on SAR. We have a number of exchanges in that regard, absolutely.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
