Evidence of meeting #11 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spill.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
In terms of the consultation with stakeholders on this bill, did that include provinces and municipalities?
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
With regard to your answer to the question about the pollution prevention and pollution response officers, if I were Transport Canada, I wouldn't be getting rid of pollution prevention officers, because that sends the wrong signal to the public. You talk about harmonizing their roles. When I was a union representative, harmonizing roles was a euphemism for layoffs. Is there an intent, by harmonizing these roles, to have fewer of them, or will the number of pollution prevention and pollution response officers equal the number of former pollution prevention and pollution response officers?
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
To answer your question, we're actually increasing the number of inspectors that are going to be in the field. Part of the commitment made was from budget 2012 when these complementary measures were first introduced as part of the direct link to the Canada Shipping Act amendments for part 8. We received additional resources for additional inspectors who will be doing the specific role that the pollution prevention officers are doing in the field. The move, as I tried to explain earlier, basically is a move within the act to harmonize the authority. The authorities for the pollution prevention officers right now will be harmonized under the part of the act that refers to marine safety inspectors. It is a harmonization of authority. We're actually increasing the inspectors.
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
You're increasing the inspectors, but are you decreasing the number of prevention officers?
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
The grand total of people will actually go up, but they'll have a bigger....
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
No, actually, the resources are increasing for specifically the program that I administer, the environmental response program, which is responsible for those specific resources in the regions.
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
For prevention, yes.
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Okay. You said “response”, not “prevention”, so I'm kind of—
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
Sorry, it's prevention. I'm talking about prevention.
Just to be clear, the response officer designation is for the coast guard response officer in the field.
10:40 a.m.
NDP
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Okay.
The image I'm getting is there are people who respond to a spill and there are people who go and inspect facilities and make sure we're preventing pollution.
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
That's correct.
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
No. The response officers are coast guard officers in the field who have specific authorities, in the event of a spill, with regard to the response. The pollution prevention officers are Transport Canada officers or inspectors in the field who do the liaison with the oil handling facilities, who do the oversight of the oil handling facilities, who look at plans and so forth.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you very much.
The last four minutes will go to Ms. Young.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Thank you very much.
In fact my question is specifically about this, because I don't think it was very clear for my colleague as to how exactly you're harmonizing it. That was the word that was used earlier.
Just to be very clear on this, in budget 2012 the government put more resources towards this. I understand there are currently 315 inspectors or people in this category and that you'll get an additional 50 new inspectors.
How is this being harmonized, given that things seem to be the same but you're getting increased resources? Is it that currently those two different functions have been working in silos and not communicating with each other, one being with coast guard and one with Transport? How will this make the system better?
10:40 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
Perhaps providing a little historical reference might make this a little clearer.
The environmental response program was one of three programs transferred in 2003 from the Canadian Coast Guard to Transport Canada, when the coast guard became a special operating agency. The programs that were specifically transferred over were programs that had a regulatory mandate.
Some of the responsibilities, specifically those for the environmental response program, were split. The response authorities and responsibilities were retained by the coast guard, which is why we have pollution response officers. At that time, prior to 2003, we had pollution prevention officers as well who did the prevention work, as opposed to the ships' officers in the field, who are out there in the event of a response.
In terms of the pollution prevention officer, in some ways that specific designation is somewhat of a legacy issue of that particular point in time. In an effort to harmonize it, it has also been linked to what we're doing with our administrative monetary penalties. We have marine safety inspectors. We also have pollution prevention officers. The authorities are simply being harmonized under the marine safety inspection authorities portion of the act.
It is very much an administrative move internal to the act in order to make it a cleaner process for us for our training. For our inspectors in the field, it gives them certain authorities that the marine safety inspectors had as well.
As my colleague Monsieur Lachance said earlier, we have marine safety inspectors, but we also have these dedicated resources as well, which are the pollution prevention officers. They all have the designation.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Would you say, then, that the increased resources in the additional 50 inspectors will do the job that's required?
10:45 a.m.
Manager, Environmental Response Systems, Department of Transport
Yes, at this point in time, I think we're confident that the additional resources will certainly help us. We did mention earlier that certain provisions in the act now will compel oil handling facilities to actually identify, which is something we didn't have in the past, but we're confident that these additional resources will be put to good use.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Previously, we had ascertained there were roughly 400 oil facilities in Canada. How many HNS facilities are there across Canada?