Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning. As the chairman mentioned, my name is Jim Carson and I'm president and general manager of ECRC.
This morning I would like to give you a brief overview of Canada's oil spill response regime, and in particular ECRC.
The present network of four private sector funded and operated response organizations significantly improves Canada’s marine oil spill response capabilities. This network was the result of extensive consultations and negotiations among the petroleum and shipping industries, environmental groups, the Canadian Coast Guard, and Environment Canada.
The regime in place provides an improved response capability by having full-time employees, trained contractors, state-of-the-art response equipment, predetermined response strategies developed in partnership with government agencies, and prepositioned equipment in response centres.
Each response centre can achieve increased response capability through the use of its inventory and the cascading of additional equipment and response personnel from our other response centres. Response contractors supply additional response personnel, services, and equipment as needed.
The network of four certified response organizations is funded and operated by the private sector. The costs are borne by the petroleum and shipping industries that require the services of a response organization.
ECRC is one of four response organizations certified by Transport Canada's marine safety division as a response organization under the Canada Shipping Act. As a certified response organization, ECRC can provide arrangements to ships and oil handling facilities that require arrangements under the Canadian law.
Our mission is to maintain a state of marine oil spill response preparedness that is consistent with the legislation and capable of providing a real response at an affordable cost to our members. We also seek to provide value-added preparedness services to all our members, and assume a leadership role in preparedness to oil spill response within the community at large.
ECRC is a privately owned company whose role is to provide marine spill response services, when requested, to a responsible party, the Canadian Coast Guard, or any other government lead agency. These response services include operational management, specialized response equipment, and operational personnel.
ECRC uses a version of the incident command system called the spill management system as a tool for managing its spill response activities. SMS is designed to meet the response requirements within the Canadian legislative context. It allows ECRC’s spill management team to manage the operational response from an emergency mode to a project mode of operations. The SMS is a structured process allowing the spill management team to fulfill its initial response and tactical phase responsibilities, while focusing on a movement toward the strategic or project phase of the response.
ECRC’s geographic area of response covers all navigable waters south of the 60th parallel of latitude for all of the provinces of Canada, with the exception of British Columbia and the ports of Saint John, New Brunswick, and Point Tupper, Nova Scotia. ECRC is headquartered in Ottawa and operates six fully staffed response centres in Sarnia, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; Quebec City; Sept-Îles; and Halifax. The average size of our warehouse is 16,000 square feet; and our largest warehouse is in St. John's, Newfoundland, at 36,000 square feet.
The corporation has developed a standard format and completed 32 area response plans for ECRC’s geographic area of response. Each of our three regions has developed a schedule to review and update these area response plans on a three-year cycle.
ECRC owns specialized oil spill response equipment and maintains contracts with spill response contractors, consultants, and specialists. ECRC has also established mutual aid support agreements with the two response organizations on the east coast, as well as the one in British Columbia on the west coast.
ECRC is also a member of the Global Response Network, a collaboration of seven major international oil industry-funded oil spill response organizations, whose mission is to harness cooperation and maximize the effectiveness of spill response services worldwide.
ECRC has 38 full-time employees and maintains a complement of approximately 520 response contractors and advisors, of which 470 are trained annually. In the Great Lakes we have approximately 70 contractors and 20 regional advisors. In the Quebec and Maritimes region we have approximately 260 contractors with 30 advisers. In Newfoundland we have approximately 70 contractors and 10 regional advisers. We also have 10 advisers at the national level.
The company conducts a number of mandatory operational and table-top exercises on an annual basis, as required under its response plans submitted to Transport Canada for certification purposes. Equipment maintained in a state of preparedness includes the following: oil containment boom--60,000 metres or 200,000 feet; skimmers--we have in excess of 100 different types; boats--in excess of 100 different types; on-water storage--16,000 tonnes; and then, of course, we have the miscellaneous and ancillary equipment to support the above.
In conclusion, ECRC was established in 1995 as a result of the changes to the Canada Shipping Act following the Brander-Smith report. The result is an example of government and industry working together to achieve success in the development and implementation of an oil spill preparedness regime in Canada that is cost-effective, has worked well, and has met the needs of Canadians for the last 15 years.
I've also included a map of Canada showing the location of ECRC's six response centres, as well as those of the other three response centres.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.