Transport Committee on Oct. 7th, 2014

[Anne Legars]

Yes, it is our understanding that Canada is meeting with international conventions and regulations in terms of inspections.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

So there has been no decrease in inspections by Canada with respect to our international commitments?

[Anne Legars]

No, no.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

How do the Paris and Tokyo MOUs evolve over time and what opportunities does Canada have to help shape what's in those MOUs?

[Anne Legars]

These are organizations where all the states that are parties to these MOUs meet regularly. Probably Transport Canada would be better to explain how it works internally, but the way that we understand it by reading their reports, for example, is that they have regular meetings.

Sometimes it's technical if they discover there are some specific issues that need to be addressed. For example, they will decide that for the upcoming year they will target this or that type of deficiency in the world's regions. So there will be targeted inspections because they have a feeling that there is a trend in terms of deficiencies. But otherwise they meet on a regular basis and just exchange experience and all of that and decide to adjust their targeting, the methodology, or maybe the way in which they operate.

What I understand from the outside, of course being the [Inaudible--Editor] representative, we don't necessarily know how the work is managed internally under these MOUs, but Transport Canada probably would be able to tell you more on that because they're the ones participating in all these meetings.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

How frequent are those meetings? Do you have any sense as to their frequency?

[Anne Legars]

I know that all the MOUs issue an annual report, so they have an annual general meeting, should I say, but my understanding is that there are more frequent specialized or technical meetings. It's a network. It's something where people are connected to each other on a constant basis.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

Finally, I wanted to ask you about the liability regime with respect to inspections and audits and holding particular ships accountable if there are violations. Could you briefly explain how the liability regime works, and then, as I understand it, you have some specific recommendations with respect to how to improve the liability regime. Could you explain those as well?

[Anne Legars]

Well, I don't know what you mean by liability. I think the first-party liability regime when you have a victim, for example, because there was a spill and there was pollution, is encompassed by international conventions that are brought into Canadian law via the Marine Liability Act.

The last brick in this thing is the HNS convention which is an IMO convention and will be integrated in the Marine Liability Act via Bill C-3, which is now in the Senate. I don't remember when it was before you, but it was probably last spring or so. So this is the liability and it channels the liability to a ship owner who has to pay, and there is mandatory insurance, and when it reaches the top then you have the international fund kicking in. This is for first-party liability.

If you have a deficiency, basically the port states will require that you fix it. It has to be fixed either on the spot, or if it's something that is not critical there may be a deadline. For instance, you might have to fix it before you reach the next port of call.

If the deficiencies are critical and there is a danger, such as immediate danger to the environment or to the crew or to safety, then you have a detention. It means that your ship cannot move. It will stay here until things have been fixed and the port state authority is fine with it and says, okay you can go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Ms. Morin, for five minutes—

[Anne Legars]

And it's on your record.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Mr. Buy, I read on your website that you are concerned about the shortage of skilled workers who can handle the work and make sure conditions are safe. We haven't talked about skilled workers much yet today.

Can you briefly describe the problems caused by this shortage?

[Serge Buy]

As far as our operators go, it is clear that there will be a shortage of skilled workers over the next few years. That will affect jobs on some ships. To discuss the problem, we organized a round table a few months ago that involved the colleges and universities that train our employees.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Which ones, specifically?

[Serge Buy]

I'm talking about engineers, about the people in charge of safety on the ships, and especially machinists.

There is going to be a labour shortage over the next few years. That's clear. We think it's important to invest now in training new workers for certain jobs so that we can make sure we have the workers we need to sail our ships safely.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Ms. Legars, would you like to comment on that? I don't know if you've heard about the fact that there will be a shortage of skilled workers in the coming years.

What can we do about that? Do you have any recommendations?

[Anne Legars]

Right now, we don't. Because our fleet is international, we recruit people internationally. Of course, if Canadian sailors want to work on international ships, they can, as can people of other nationalities.

We have a hard time keeping people for the long term in this industry and recruiting ships' officers who will stay long enough. After a number of years, people leave the industry to go work on shore. That's not necessarily a typically Canadian problem.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

What can be done to retain these people? Why do they leave these jobs? Every time they leave, their expertise is lost. I imagine that has an impact on safety.

[Anne Legars]

We are trying to promote careers at sea. Practices are changing in the way ships are managed. For example, there are contracts and shorter crew rotations so that people can go home more often.

We think it's important to promote careers at sea and present them as a good option. It's very well paid, and it leads to a broad range of careers on land afterward, including ship inspection, work with classification societies and logistics at various terminals. Some former captains work there and do load planning, for example. Career development and opportunities can be very good. That's the message we want to get to young people.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you.

You have various committees, such as the tanker safety expert panel, which was created in the fall of 2012 and completed the first phase of its work in 2013.

One of the committee's findings was that Canada's level of preparedness and ability to respond to a spill should be risk-based depending on the region that oil products are traversing and on possible spill scenarios developed at the area level, not the current uniform approach.

Can you comment on that and make some recommendations?

[Anne Legars]

Yes.

We supported that recommendation because our belief is that all safety and incident response issues should be based on risk analysis anyway. We have no objection to the expert panel's recommendation, especially since the type of traffic can change. There are oil tankers in places where there weren't before, and there are fewer tankers in places where there used to be more. Traffic changes, so it makes sense for incident response scenarios to change too.

We fully supported that recommendation. We just want the overall thinking and methodology to be consistent across Canada. We don't want all kinds of micro-regional approaches. Every risk is local, but the intellectual approach to risk management should be the same across Canada. Our position is the same on many issues, actually.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Komarnicki for five minutes.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I have a couple of questions.

First of all, with respect to the International Maritime Organization Code and the Canadian transportation of dangerous goods regulations, are there differences, and, if there are, which prevails or has predominance in a particular area?

Are you able to say, Ms. Legars?

[Anne Legars]

Sorry, I lost part of it.

Could you restate your question, please?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It's dealing with the international marine organization code and the Canadian transportation of dangerous goods regulations.

Are there differences, and, if there are, which supersedes or takes precedence?