Transport Committee on Oct. 28th, 2014

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I think the number one enabler in my statement is the fact that between industry and government we have a very close relationship in conducting risk assessments. We have a very strong pilotage regime in Canada, where the vast majority of the mariners who pilot vessels that carry petroleum products have been educated in Canada. The vast majority of their experience has been earned in Canadian waters. They are very, very adept at navigating very unique places like the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and all three coasts of Canada. They bring an incredible amount of experience. That's a capability that we should be promoting and protecting.

That's the first one. The second one is the strong relationship between the industry, the ports community, the communities where we sail, and the government regulators. It is close. Canada is a huge country, as we all know, but the marine community is very, very connected. The types of trades that we do deliberately bring those stakeholders together.

I think the government...and when I say “government”, I'm talking primarily about the coast guard, CBSA, and Transport Canada. Theirs is a very collaborative relationship and process that demands consultation. For example, I'm flying out of here immediately after this and I'm going to Windsor, where I'll be meeting with the entire eastern industry, the coast guards of Canada and the U.S., and Transport Canada to talk about the icebreaking season that's upon us. It's not that far away.

That's the type of collaboration that happens all the time, which I think brings a high degree of engagement and safety to our industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Sullivan, five minutes.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you to our witnesses.

Mr. Chomniak, you don't transport a lot of dangerous goods, as you said in your opening. Your interest is in making sure that your members are able to have a safety management system that is audited regularly and essentially inexpensively because they go out of business if they have to pay the fees that Transport Canada, by contracting it out to the classification societies, is effectively letting you pay. If they don't pay the fees then they don't get audited and it's not as safe.

[Capt John Chomniak]

It's not that it's not as safe but that any SMS in order to be active and functional must be audited.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Exactly.

Mr. Lewis-Manning, can you give us some examples of the kinds of cargo that are dangerous? Are nuclear cargoes transported on the Great Lakes? Is there as a huge volume increase in transportation of petrochemicals as there is in rail, or is it basically the same?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

To answer your first question, no.

Our members are not transporting dangerous goods such as hazardous nuclear byproducts. There may be small quantities of radioactive things. Your watch has some degree of radioactivity in it.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

But not as cargo?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

Not as cargo.

Regarding your second question and whether there is a dramatic increase, the answer is no. The levels have remained fairly consistent to date, but I am anticipating that some petroleum products will increase in the future. And certainly that doesn't seem to be a secret; that's public knowledge.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

One of the things we discovered from listening to the rail industry is that they had not actually done risk assessments, on closing down lines, for example, in anticipation of the 500-fold increase in transportation of petrochemicals or petroleum products.

I've heard you say on several occasions that there are risk assessments done on a regular basis by the industry.

Is that done to please your insurers or to please Transport Canada? How do those risk assessments take place, and will you be doing one if the volume of petrochemicals is going up?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

Those risk assessments are done by a number of organizations, for a number of different reasons.

Certainly when you're talking about petroleum products, the customer is definitely demanding it. It's a very significant vetting process that happens for carriers that ship petroleum products.

From a shipowner's perspective, that risk assessment is done to make sure that the business is viable from both a safety perspective and an economic perspective. It doesn't make any sense if one of those isn't supported.

I think there are other organizations that conduct risk assessments based on anticipation. A large, semi-political regional body called the Great Lakes Commission recently did one on the carriage of petroleum products on the Great Lakes. I think that process—maybe not official by any oversight by a single government agency—is happening in anticipation of increased traffic with petroleum products.

Do we anticipate that there will be more that is necessary? Absolutely, yes. Whenever you're operating with a different type of vessel, a different cargo, or in a different operating environment, it has to happen. It's the culture of the industry to want to do that.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Is that something that ought to be supervised by Transport Canada? Is that something that this SMS itself would call for?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

Some of it is already enshrined in regulation and procedures by Transport Canada. A classic example is a compulsory pilotage regime that exists all over the country. Whenever there is a trigger for one of those changes that I described earlier, the pilotage authority that is responsible for an area of waterway and/or a port conducts a risk assessment on the appropriate level of risk mitigation for that waterway and/or port. There are many of them happening right now across Canada.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

We are given to believe that the transfer facility is probably the most dangerous place in terms of a potential spill. Where are the transfer facilities for the Great Lake shippers, for petrochemicals for example? Is it all Sarnia or where does it happen?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

The vast majority is Sarnia. It's been operating for some time. There are some smaller, I won't even call them hubs, but stations in Lake Ontario. But those would be the major ones.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Is there talk of building new ones?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

It would be very speculative. There seems to be noise, is the best way I could describe it. I wouldn't say there are any deliberate moves by our membership at the moment to look at increasing that trade within the Great Lakes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'll have to cut you off there, Mr. Sullivan.

I'll now go to Ms. Young for five minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much for being here today. Hearing about the diversity of what you do has certainly been very interesting.

I recognize of course that Canada is a great big country, and there are different waterways and systems: Pacific, Atlantic, etc. Can you share with us very briefly, each of you including Captain Nelson, where the low-hanging fruit is here? I'm hearing we have good SMS systems in place. They are working. We're here today to hear from you experts how we can make it better. Is it in the implementation? Is it in the fact that it's very diverse? Where can you point to for us and say these are one, two, or three things we can do to make it better?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I think you've asked a great question, and I'm hoping the committee has picked up on the theme that one size doesn't fit all, that we have a very diverse marine environment, and industry stakeholders have different challenges. From my perspective, probably the number one thing that could happen if the government decides to implement a mandatory safety management system is understanding that the implementation will look different for different stakeholders within the same marine industry and examining what could be included in such a regime.

I don't have a shopping list for you today, but there may be aspects of our current regulatory environment that would naturally fit within a safety management system to reduce the bureaucracy of implementing, changing, adopting, and auditing such a system. I think that is worthy of some further dialogue, but we're getting into the real details of implementation if that is the policy decision.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

I would imagine there is a series of manuals or something like that where people can self-select and say they're this kind of vessel or that kind of business and based on that, this is the kind of SMS they would need to develop, implement, and be monitored or audited on.

Does that exist?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I've heard from the other two witnesses, having not discussed it in any great detail with them in advance, that in some ways this is happening by default in a voluntary system.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

But it's not happening in a proactive way whereby a government is assisting or supporting you to make the access and the interface with bureaucracy easier and more understandable, quicker and more efficient?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I think in certain cases they are but again because it's not mandatory, it's not something that they're putting their resources into.

I'll let some of the other witnesses speak.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Chomniak or Captain Duhamel, do you have a quick example?

[Capt Dan Duhamel]

In our situation, we have an SMS. When hired, every employee is made familiar with the vessels but at the same time, they have to sign off on our SMS. Once their name is on that piece of paper, a Transport Canada officer will say they are so and so, and see they have signed off on the SMS. They ran it, they understand it. They don't have any problems with it, simple as that. Not a lot of bureaucracy. In a small mom-and-pop operation, you don't need a binder that thick. We've already got enough paperwork. But if you have a good SMS based on your equipment, nothing generic, everything they're going to use within that business, that's enough. That's what should be implemented.