Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak about marine pilotage and our SMS update.
I will give just a short overview of who we are to set the stage. The Pacific Pilotage Authority is a federal crown corporation operating pursuant to the Pilotage Act of 1972. Our mandate is to provide a safe and efficient marine pilotage service on the west coast of Canada on the basis of financial self-sufficiency. We do this by working in partnership with the shipping industry we serve, in order to protect and advance the interests of Canada.
The government oversees the operation of the authority through the publication of the corporate plan and annual report, both of which are submitted annually. In addition, the Office of the Auditor General conducts annual financial audits as well as special audits every five to ten years, where every facet of our operation is reviewed.
The minister overseeing our portfolio is the Honourable Lisa Raitt, MP, Minister of Transport. Transport Canada is a resource to our operations as well, and this includes providing assistance with the publication of our pilotage regulations and our tariff regulations, and in some instances operational issues.
On the public side, we have been engaged in community outreach programs for the last four years, speaking to municipalities and first nations in our areas of operation.
The marine pilots on the coast of B.C. are all masters in their own right, with many years of experience in the local waters, and we provide marine pilots to all vessels over 350 gross tonnes, which is about a 50-metre long vessel. Pilots are a resource to the master and the bridge team and provide them with expert local knowledge, and are responsible to the master for the safe navigation of the vessel while it is in compulsory pilotage waters. There are some exceptions to this, and they are the ferries, government vessels such as DND, and the coast guard.
Pilotage is a country's insurance against marine disaster. By placing a pilot on the vessel, you are ensuring that at least one member of the bridge team has an in-depth knowledge of the local dangers, is not fatigued, and is a knowledgeable resource in the event that something does occur. Lastly, the pilot adds an additional level of safety on the vessel.
Our area of operation extends from the Washington state border in the south to the Alaskan border in the north. As a rule of thumb, if you take two miles of every major point of land around the B.C. coast and join those together, that's our area of operation.
With respect to the carriage of dangerous cargo, we have developed guidelines and standards for many of the more difficult passages of the coast. When dealing specifically with tankers, there is always extensive consultation before any changes are made to an accepted practice. Recently we have broadened the scope of the guidelines for crude oil carriers over 40,000 dead-weight tonnes transiting Haro Strait and Boundary Pass—the area between Vancouver and Victoria, quite a narrow passage—to include all liquid build carriers over 40,000 dead-weight tonnes. This will capture many of the product carriers with multiple chemicals and hydrocarbon products as their cargoes.
With respect to safety management systems, SMS, over the past two years we have been engaged in putting in place an International Organization for Standardization ISO 9001 system in our dispatch office and an ISM, international safety management code system, on our launches. We are presently being audited by Lloyd's classification society and we fully expect to obtain certification by December of this year on both the ISM and ISO certifications.
Our two pilotage groups, eight employee pilots on the Fraser River and 100 contract pilots working for the private company, British Columbia Coast Pilots Ltd., are currently engaged in putting a safety management system in place, with the expected certification by December 2016.
With this in mind, we believe we have raised the level of safety for vessels carrying hazardous cargoes in the Vancouver area and will ensure that similar safety measures are in place for the many energy projects we presently see on our coast.
We are extremely proud of our safety record and regularly exceed a 99.9% success ratio. In 2013, we handled over 12,000 ships and had five incidents for a 99.96% success ratio. In the 20 years that I have been involved in shipping on the west coast, we have had only one oil pollution incident with a pilot on board. This occurred when a freighter was pushed back alongside the dock in a squall and a piece of metal punctured the hull right next to a daily service tank. If this had been a double-hulled tanker, we would have had no spill.
Our level of success is not achieved by chance. Our safety systems include a very stringent exam process, one of the most stringent a candidate will face. An enormous amount of time and money is spent on training to maintain these safety levels. On average we spend over a half a million dollars per annum, and in 2010, when we were engaged in amending the tanker requirements for the Vancouver harbour, we spent over $1.2 million in training the pilots.
In addition, all pilots, both senior and junior, have to attend a training establishment at least once every five years. This is, of course, over and above any training that is deemed necessary as a result of proposed changes or new projects such as the LNG we expect to see on the coast.
Nationally we work with the Canadian Marine Pilots' Association and our counterparts across the country in developing national initiatives that will further enhance the already high level of safety.
In closing, I believe that we offer an excellent service often exceeding our mandate to provide a safe and efficient marine pilot operation on the west coast of Canada, due largely to the procedures and practices that we have in place to minimize the risk. While we have not yet achieved that elusive 100% success ratio on the coast, we will continue working to achieve that goal.
Thank you. Those are my comments.