Transport Committee on Sept. 24th, 2018

[Claudine Couture-Trudel]

We also need to stay close to the locally routed management model to be able to maintain and increase the communication between the port authorities but also the communities surrounding the ports, because as all of you must have noticed, during the last few years the communities have become more and more interested in ensuring that their safety, security and the environment are strongly respected. Being close to everyone enables us to better understand and address those concerns.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Hardie, you have four minutes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I will split my time with Mr. Iacono again.

I'll take some of the questions that my colleague Mr. Jeneroux was asking a little earlier about the shipment of oil and oil products. As you know, that's a pretty big issue out west, particularly with the development of the Trans Mountain pipeline. A lot of people out there are setting their hair on fire about the idea of moving oil across the ocean. For some of us, of course, that's not going to be an issue anymore. Is it, Mr. Aubin?

What else is being shipped? You look at diluted bitumen, and yes, it's not the nicest of products, but you know we had an issue in Lac-Mégantic with Bakken oil being shipped on a poorly maintained railway and we had a disaster there. We have to look at alternatives.

What else is in the ships now that, if people knew, would normalize the notion of transporting oil by ship in the Great Lakes system?

[James Given]

If people looked at the Great Lakes system right now they would see that a dozen or more oil tankers are operating within it all the time, accident free.

The bigger aspect is, when you look at shipping oil, does it make any sense to ship our oil by pipeline down to Texas and then put it in a ship and bring it back to Montreal? It makes absolutely no sense to me. It increases costs. It increases everything. We have a record of safety within the Great Lakes on Canadian flagships transporting oil, and that's what the public needs to know.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

What else are we shipping that if people knew, they'd say, “Oh, my God”.

[James Given]

Ninety per cent of everything you touch is moved by ship.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Are there chemicals or other corrosive materials?

[James Given]

Acids, caustic sodas, everything's being shipped. If you can think of it, it travels by ship at one point or another in its life.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

That I guess then speaks to the point by Captain Burgess that 99.9% safety says something about the possibility of shipping these products.

[Capt Mike Burgess]

It certainly does.

As Mr. Given said, it is done safely. There have been improvements over the years. Single-skin tankers are outlawed now. They all have double hulls, so even if a ship were to lose its steering and strike something, chances are that it would just get a hole in the outside tank and no oil would be spilled.

The construction of ships has improved, safety-wise, as has the training of the pilots and the captains on the Great Lakes ships. The seaway has also made improvements to safety.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I have a quick question. Do the pilots have a role to play in the oceans protection plan?

[Capt Mike Burgess]

I think we could very well do that, just in the provision of safety and ensuring that the ocean is protected, and that the Great Lakes are protected also. I'm sure we would be available to help out in it.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Given, I would like to come back to the comments you made about the shortage of labour.

What steps have you taken so far to address this issue? How could the government help you to have enough labour to handle the transport of goods?

[James Given]

I'll let you know where to write the cheque, if you want to help us out. That's not an issue.

We've launched the initiative with our member companies, our partner companies. Like I said, it's called "Be a Seafarer". It's working. We now have apprentices going to school in order to fill the gaps, and we feel that we're going to get there. There's a worldwide shortage of seafarers, and as a Canadian industry, we're addressing it as best we can. I think we're going to be very successful in that challenge.

One of the things that has done a lot for us in the last year or so is that the rhetoric of getting rid of cabotage seems to have died down, which means our companies are willing to invest in the future. When you have someone saying that you might not have a Canadian flag in seven years, like was in the Emerson report, that makes it very hard for Canadian companies to invest, and it makes it very hard for the general public and young people to see a future in seafaring.

We've passed that and we're moving forward. We're getting to where we need to be. We're quite confident that we're going to be able to fill the gaps and look at a path to citizenship instead of temporary foreign workers.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

I have one last question.

What's the number? What do you need, in numbers of employees?

[James Given]

We started a few months ago with a shortage of about 300 that was predicted for the fall. We've been able to reduce that gap down to about 100. We were able to fill all the jobs that were necessary to fill, and we've had a year where shipping companies were running every ship they had in order to make sure the cargo got from point A to point B. We're not seeing any delays or any stoppages, and we're keeping up with what's needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We will now turn to Mr. Jeneroux.

[Matt Jeneroux]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a quick question, as I'm cognizant of time.

Madam Couture-Trudel and Mr. Graham, to follow up on Mr. Badawey's question, you mentioned looking for federal support. Is it financial, or otherwise? Could you expand on what you're looking for from the federal government?

[Bruce Graham]

It can be financial in regard to the infrastructure. It can be things like policies as well. I believe it has to be a collaborative approach in regard to these things, to better the corridor itself.

[Matt Jeneroux]

Let's focus on financial for a second. What specifically in terms of infrastructure would you be looking for?

[Bruce Graham]

It's in regard to the maintenance of the docks and taking advantage of some new technologies that could be out there as well. The real core for us currently—the most pressing thing—is maintenance of docks and maintaining those docks.

[Matt Jeneroux]

Is there funding available, that you know of, to apply for that?

[Bruce Graham]

There is. We hear about the grants that are out there. Through some of our local politicians we're told about them. Sometimes we're not really clear how it works and how it gets implemented, so we need assistance. Some of them are very good at that, so far.

Until this point, we have not been able to receive any funding.

[Matt Jeneroux]

Have you applied for funding specific to the federal level?

[Bruce Graham]

Not directly. We went through a collaborative approach with the region at one time that we thought was going to do that for us, but in fact it became the lesser of needs, I believe, and was set aside.