Evidence of meeting #137 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was study.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
I'm interested in the time that would take. Would you estimate that to be one hour, two hours, four hours or eight hours?
Director, Port Dover Waterfront Preservation Association
I think it would probably be less than an hour. That would be a guess.
Conservative
Director, Port Dover Waterfront Preservation Association
Oh, no. That's for the written test.
Conservative
November 7th, 2024 / 4:35 p.m.
Director, Port Dover Waterfront Preservation Association
Well, if you read the book from cover to cover, it would take you quite a while. It depends on—
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
That's my point.
Rental operators are required to go through a safety training program with all renters. Rentals are often half an hour to an hour. That's all a person wants to spend with them. I'm hearing this from rental operators where I come from. It would end their business if every person who was interested in renting needed to have a personal pleasure craft operator card.
I believe this has been looked at. The current situation, where rental operators must provide training on site on the exact vessel a person is going to be operating, has been far more effective than a PCOC.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
Next we'll go to Mr. Iacono.
You have the floor for six minutes.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today.
Sergeant Moffatt, I have a question for you.
Can you explain the OPP's role in enforcing navigation regulations on waterways and bodies of water?
Sgt Dave Moffatt
As I explained before, we have marine officers all over the province. Our role, other than responding to calls for service—which can be vast, depending on the detachment you're in—includes proactive patrol, search and rescue issues, and education. We do a lot of marina days where we educate the public on what they need in their vessels.
We do inspections too. The Canada Shipping Act has carriage requirements for every vessel. The OPP has a very vast inspection program. We're trained very well, I would say. We do about 30,000 to 35,000 vessel stops a year to inspect equipment.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
You touched on it earlier, but can you tell us which regulations are the most difficult to apply and enforce?
Sgt Dave Moffatt
We have some regulations in a chart, but there are no warnings whatsoever. Life jackets are one, for sure. It's amazing how many people go out there and do not prepare themselves. They do not look at what's in their boat before they go out in their vessel. The licensing, the PCOC, is a big issue as well.
The one thing I'm trying to educate the people of Ontario about is shared waterways. It's about respecting each other's water and how to drive properly. You can't zoom in and out around people, especially with PWCs. We're trying to educate people on being good mariners. I find this is the hardest piece because you can't teach people that.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Do you have any statistics on the number of regulations or the kind of regulations that are routinely broken and ignored?
Liberal
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Actually, I'm asking if it's possible to send those statistics to the committee so that it can include them in its report.
You also work with other agencies to enforce those regulations. Is that correct?
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Wonderful, thank you.
Sergeant Moffatt, you are in favour of transferring the federal role to the provincial level to some extent. How do you think that should be done?
Sgt Dave Moffatt
When it comes to marine policing, from my work with CEMA, I know enforcement officers across the country all have the same issues. It's important to make our waterways as safe as possible. When we're dealing with recreational vessels, we have many rules and many laws to address what's taking place regarding careless operation, an unsafe vessel or carriage requirements in vessels.
We're very good in the recreational world and we try to do our best. As I said before, we are very understaffed when it comes to marine policing and we need more people on the water. We need better equipment, but we have to have synergy with the commercial vessel side too.
I've been preaching this a lot. We need more powers on the water to be able to stop vessels. When we're on the highway, the lights mean you need to stop; you need to pull over. We have nothing like that on the water. We have no authority when it comes to commercial vessels. One authority we lack, which I think is mind-blowing, is we can't take someone's pleasure craft licence away if they're charged with impaired operation.
We tell our people that if someone's going to drive away after being given a three-day suspension, they should go and get them again and give them a seven-day suspension, and then give them a 30-day suspension—
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
You're trying to say that when you stop somebody who's driving impaired, there's not much you can do other than give them a suspension.
Sgt Dave Moffatt
With impaired operation, we we will arrest a person and take them back to the office. If someone blows a warning, which is 50 milligrams to 99 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, that person gets their Ontario driver's licence suspended, but their boat licence doesn't get suspended. Essentially, they could drive the next day if they wanted their boat on the waterway, which is totally against what we believe.
Liberal