Evidence of meeting #37 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
I'm going to have to cut it off there. We're at eight minutes, a minute over.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
With respect to the board, Mr. Griffiths, you mentioned that there are still some deficiencies or spots that are open on the board. How often does the board meet?
4:05 p.m.
Chair, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
Do you mean board meetings or committee meetings?
4:05 p.m.
Chair, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
There are at least five meetings a year.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
I'm looking at your presentation. I have a copy of your governance, and you have six, there are supposed to be six board members, and right now, from what I count, there are four whose terms have expired, so you basically have yourself, Ms. Galbraith, and two people, Patricia Mella and Alex MacIntyre.
4:05 p.m.
Chair, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
The way it works is that it's only the chair whose term ends on the day that their term ends. Everybody else is overholding.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
[Inaudible—Editor] all meetings, even though they are not properly in position?
4:05 p.m.
A voice
[Inaudible—Editor]
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
That's fine, but again there's an issue because we've had these meetings with respect to nominations, and what we are seeing is a pervasiveness across the entire system.
4:05 p.m.
Chair, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
We have to go through the whole process, so we're waiting for the government.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
I'm looking at that, and I'm thinking that if the management from the top is not strong, how can we expect the middle management to be just as strong as well?
4:05 p.m.
Capt Sean Griffiths
Despite the board members' terms expiring, they have given their full commitment to each of the board meetings and do not disconnect. They are very engaged in our business process and have ensured their commitment to us despite the expiring term.
We did bring this concern to the Minister of Transport in early September.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
That's perfect. Thank you.
With respect to the designation of areas and vessels subject to compulsory pilotage, from what I read in the report, “the Corporation has put no process in place to cyclically review the compulsory designation of pilotage areas, to determine whether the designation is still warranted”.
Am I correct that there is no process in place to determine which areas should be reviewed? That's in paragraph 61 of the Auditor General's report.
4:10 p.m.
Capt Sean Griffiths
There is a process in place. Yes.
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
Right. There is a process in place, but we couldn't demonstrate that we review all the compulsory pilotage areas. They couldn't find it anywhere in our minutes.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
I'm looking at paragraph 62. It says:
Since the previous special examination, the Corporation has conducted preliminary risk analyses of the non-compulsory ports in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador to determine whether a PRMM review was warranted for any of the ports. A 2010 preliminary risk analysis of non-compulsory ports identified two Nova Scotia ports as having medium-high risk, and recommended PRMM reviews for them. As of 31 March 2016, the Corporation had not completed PRMM reviews for these ports.
Is that still the case?
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
One of the reviews has been started on one of the ports in Nova Scotia. The other one is probably going to follow in March 2017.
There were four ports in Nova Scotia. Two of those ports are no longer active so there's no need for those reviews.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
All right.
Mr. MacArthur, with respect to the profitability of the organization, you have a duty to be financially self-sufficient. What happens when you're in a deficit?
4:10 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary, Atlantic Pilotage Authority
In the case of this most recent three out of four years when we were in a deficit, we had enough cash reserves from the $5.3 million we had made in the three or four years before that to carry us through that period of time.
As mentioned earlier, it's a cyclical business where we'll have things happen. We may have already budgeted for the following year.
To give you an example, we had budgeted for 2016, and in January, we found out that two of the operations we included in our budget were shutting down entirely, one being a potash mine in Sussex, New Brunswick, and the other one being a gypsum mine in Cape Breton. We had already included those numbers in our calculations, and they disappeared overnight. Sometimes it goes the other way, and you get some business you didn't expect to get.
We bill based on the size of vessels, so when I mentioned earlier that because the size of vessels had declined, our revenues went down while the number of assignments we had stayed the same, that's the worst-case scenario for us. We still have the work to do. We still have to have as many pilots to do it, but our revenue has dropped off the cliff. That's what really happened to us in 2015.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON
We also received the Auditor General's report on the Pacific Pilotage Authority, and we decided as a committee not to hear them because they had a really good report. I would recommend you review their audit, please.
Again, it is very concerning as Mr. Christopherson, Mr. McColeman, and Ms. Mendès say. You have significant pervasive issues. In 2007 you passed with flying colours with a really good report and now in 2016 it is not and you don't know why. Look at successes that occurred elsewhere and try to match what they are doing.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
