National Defence Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2022

[Dale Kirsch]

Yes, we regularly train with the air force. We have officers working with our organization across the country. They're called CLOs, and they work with CASARA to train our members. We train our members on Hercs, Twin Otters and helicopters. Our members go flying with the military, and I work with them on a regular basis.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to cut it short, but I will ask one last question.

If you could recommend one thing that the Government of Canada could do to help you help them, what would that be?

[Dale Kirsch]

One thing I would look into is our being able to purchase aircraft that we could use in search and rescue.

There's a model in the United States called CAP—the Civil Air Patrol. The United States government provides them with aircraft and funding so they can train people. They train pilots from start to finish. They do reconnaissance flights for the government in the United States.

That's some of the stuff we're not doing in Canada, which we possibly could do, if we changed our model and funding a bit.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

That's it for me, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Colleagues, we have 10 minutes' and 15 minutes' worth of questions. We have a hard stop at 1 o'clock. Many of us want to go to the Holodomor commemoration. My thought is this: a minute and a half, a minute and a half, and three and three. That will get us to one o'clock, if that's all right.

I have Mr. Desilets for one and a half minutes.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. O'Rourke, with respect to the whole icebreaker saga, what recommendation would you like to make to the government?

[Neil O'Rourke]

Thank you for your question.

There needs to be continued support from the government, so that the icebreakers are built on the planned construction schedule. Certainly the risk associated with delays in delivery of the ships continues to be assessed.

My recommendation to the government would be to continue to offer support and align the plan with the delivery dates.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Perfect, thank you.

Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kirsch, in 2018, a ship carrying 160 people ran aground near the Kugaaruk coast. In your opinion, can such an incident happen again? Are we sufficiently equipped in 2022 to respond to such emergencies?

[Dale Kirsch]

I don't know whether we're equipped to meet all the different emergencies that could happen up in the Arctic, right now. I'm probably not the best person to answer that question, because it's not quite in our mandate.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I have Madam Mathyssen for a minute and a half.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In terms of the Arctic and the search and rescue capabilities there, how has climate change impacted your members? I'm thinking, of course, about the changing weather itself, but there are also a lot of infrastructure problems—landing capabilities, permafrost and that sort of thing.

Could you comment on that, briefly?

[Dale Kirsch]

We're certainly seeing a change because of climate change. It could impact runways that are normally frozen throughout the year. There are a lot of gravel runways up in the north. Things are going to change with climate change. I don't think it has impacted us too much yet, but it could in the future.

Personally, I live in Edmonton. I have flown in the Arctic. I have been to a bunch of places. We have done a number of trips just for our own pleasure, I'll say, for lack of a better word. I have been to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Inuvik and a bunch of different places up in the Arctic. When we do these trips, we have to plan fuel stops and stuff in the places that we're going to and make sure that we're able to carry on. Climate change is going to affect what we're doing there.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

Mr. Lewis, you have three minutes.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, and thank you, Mr. O'Rourke, for coming back for the second round of questions here.

As a former volunteer firefighter on the Great Lakes, I worked very closely as a water rescue specialist with our aviation folks, both the U.S. and Canada coast guards, so I sincerely appreciate Mr. Kirsch and all of his team and what they bring to the north.

Mr. Kirsch, this summer I had the honour of being at the Windsor airport and looking over the graduation of our young men and women cadets. Many, unfortunately, didn't graduate. I think a lot had to do with COVID and in-person and not in-person. You talked about a major shortage of pilots in the north. Would this be an opportunity to specifically target the cadets going forward so that you would have those types of resources, sir?

[Dale Kirsch]

Yes. It could be an opportunity. That's why I mentioned the CAP model, because that's what they're doing in the United States. They are bringing up cadets right through the system, from no aviation knowledge to the point where they become pilots—pilots that could be of use to our aviation community in Canada.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Kirsch.

In the last round of questioning, Mr. O'Rourke mentioned having a major labour shortage specifically to mariners, but we know that to be true across all sectors in all of Canada. Can you expand on or weigh in on mechanics? I realize that it's one thing to have a shortage of pilots, but those same pilots certainly can't fly the planes to do all of the important rescue if we don't have the mechanics.

I have a private member's bill, Bill C-241, coming up here very shortly. It's for travel deductions for skilled trades. Is that something that would help our pilots in the north?

[Dale Kirsch]

You're right that another area of potential shortages coming up is mechanics. I don't know the exact numbers out there, or if we're really seeing a huge shortage yet, but it's a potential to happen in future years, for sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

Mr. May, you have the final three minutes, please.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My question is really for both witnesses. What unique contributions do the Canadian Rangers make to SAR operations in the remote and isolated regions? Could we better incorporate the rangers in search and rescue efforts? How can we better incorporate indigenous knowledge in search and rescue efforts?

We'll start with Mr. Kirsch.

[Dale Kirsch]

We do use rangers. They are members of our organization. One of the issues we have is that they normally get paid for jobs that they do, but CASARA is a volunteer organization. We don't pay our members. We pay some of their expenses. They are certainly a part of our organization.

Dave, do you want to comment at all about the rangers?

[Dave Taylor]

Sure.

We do have our rangers. Rangers are often used in a ground response to a humanitarian or RCMP incident. One issue we do have with rangers is that they have radios, but their radios are encrypted. They don't have a common public [Technical difficulty—Editor], so communications between aircraft and rangers on the ground is an issue.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. O'Rourke.

[Neil O'Rourke]

We do work closely with the rangers. I would note, however, that for the most part, they may be utilized a bit more in ground search and rescue than in maritime search and rescue.

That being said, we work with them in exercise. As an example, last September we had an exercise in Resolute with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard vessels. The rangers were doing a ground search from the shore as we were seeking a missing boater. We do work closely with them.

With regard to your question about incorporating indigenous knowledge, we try to do that by building auxiliary units that include Inuit members. Most members in the north are Inuit. We leverage it that way. As we are creating our Arctic region, standing up some of the governance that we have with Inuit, first nations and Métis is also a good way to incorporate that knowledge.

Really specifically, when we talk about search and rescue, one of the things we've been doing a lot of work on is working with locals to better understand where hunting cabins are, for example, which is something that only the locals know and that really could be construed as traditional knowledge.

Thank you.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you.

I think that's my time, Mr. Chair.

I want to say thank you to all the witnesses for helping us out today.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. May.

Mr. O'Rourke, you're an amazing man. You came out for double duty. We appreciate it.

Mr. Kirsch, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Ralph, thank you for being with us. A lot of us didn't actually appreciate until now all of the things that you do. On behalf of the people of Canada, thank you.

With that, we are adjourned.