Transport Committee on May 5th, 2022

[Serge Buy, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Ferry Association]

Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

We are indeed seeing many more periods where these kinds of disruptions are occurring. This summer, for example, the economy on Vancouver Island in British Columbia will probably be affected. Tourism is good, but tourists have to get to the island somehow. Now there is a shortage of crews to take people to Vancouver Island.

The phenomenon will also occur in other areas. In fact, remote areas have recently gone without food due to a lack of personnel. This shortage is partly due to the pandemic, but it existed before as well.

As Ms. Sullivan said, food is important. We have had disruptions in that area as well, and we are seeing more and more of them.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Barsalou‑Duval.

Mr. Bachrach now has the floor.

Mr. Bachrach, you have two and a half minutes.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm so glad to see that Mr. Buy was able to join us from the Ferry Association.

Obviously in northwest B.C., as you know very well, there are a lot of ferry-dependent communities, and just recently a major cancellation caused by staffing issues on the ferry left lots of passengers stranded. Because the ferry over to Haida Gwaii, for instance, carries lots of goods for stores there, we saw some empty store shelves, and it had a huge impact. I think that is now being resolved, but, of course, the backlog that creates takes some time to work out.

Perhaps from your discussions with B.C. Ferries you could provide a bit of a sense of what that recovery looks like and how significant the COVID-related impacts on labour shortages continue to be in the ferry sector.

[Serge Buy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bachrach. I fully expected you to ask that question. I'm pleased to see that you have done so.

We indeed suffered a very big setback around Haida Gwaii when most of the members of a crew fell sick due to COVID. However, that outlined the lack of replacement crews and the fact that we are not able to have enough crew members all around the system to replace people. That long predates COVID. That will be an issue for a long time to come, as well. It will have an impact on the island of Vancouver this summer. It will certainly continue to have an impact throughout the country as well.

To give you a sense right now, prepandemic, a number of jobs throughout the sector and in British Columbia were vacant. Positions were vacant simply because we were not able to fill them with the right people. The pandemic has increased retirement rates for all of our operators. The vaccine mandate has also created additional disturbance. As an example, about 150 people at BC Ferries are out as a result of that.

All of this has created additional pressure points and challenges. While we're trying to solve them, they can only be solved through regulatory work, increased immigration—as Madam Sullivan and others have mentioned—and through work on automation. That's going to be the only way to solve them.

Do I have hope for this summer, Mr. Bachrach? I'm not sure I'm holding a huge amount of hope, but I'm hoping that the lessons we've learned during the pandemic will impact the efforts in the near future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much Mr. Buy and Mr. Bachrach.

Next, we have Ms. Lantsman.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you to everybody for being here.

I want to focus just a few questions on the witness testimony that we heard today from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, the National Cattle Feeders' Association and the Western Grain Elevator Association.

Did you attend the supply chain summit? I know one of you brought it up today.

[Dennis Darby]

Yes, we went to the very first summit.

[Janice Tranberg]

We actually attempted to get an invitation and we were not successful in that.

[Tyler Bjornson]

I am not certain if we had a representative there. I would have to check back.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Okay.

On checking back, can I ask if the CME has heard anything back from the supply chain summit that was held in January?

[Dennis Darby]

We've had some correspondence with their office, but nothing specific yet. There were some follow-up questions and our office in Ottawa has been in contact with the minister's office. I don't believe anything is formally set yet.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

If somebody asked you which part of government was responsible for the supply chain, what would you answer?

[Dennis Darby]

Obviously, it's the transport department. I've said it tends to be the ministry that looks after the industrial sector. Those two are right off the top....

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

For the National Cattle Feeders' Association, if somebody asked you which government department was responsible for the supply chain, what would you answer?

[Janice Tranberg]

Probably right off the cuff, it would be transportation.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Bjornson?

[Tyler Bjornson]

It's Transport Canada, without a doubt.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

My line of questioning here is about whether you would agree that the government's inability to be nimble—government across the board, whether it's the federal or provincial government—is part of the problem here in fixing something quickly.

Would you say yes or no to that statement?

[Janice Tranberg]

I'll say yes.

[Dennis Darby]

I'll take a run at it on behalf of my colleagues.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Yes, let's do it.

[Dennis Darby]

First of all, it is a complicated area. This is going to take many departments in government and jurisdictions across Canada to work out.

As you probably know, even on something as simple as how to protect the fluidity of the border crossings.... Ontario had introduced a legislation to prevent blockades, for example. There's a provincial role, a federal role and a role for industry.

Is that an excuse for not making progress so far? Probably it's not. I would argue this is something that is fundamental to our competitiveness. I think we need to get on it.

[Tyler Bjornson]

Yes, it's of our own making.

We used to have extensive interswitching that would allow for a shipper to pick up the phone and request the service without having to make any applications, go through any red tape, or ask for anybody's permission, and the rate was regulated, so you knew how much you paid. The long-haul, interswitching measure that was brought in in 2018 is just an absolute behemoth of a process, so much so that nobody has even attempted to make an application. Out of all the sectors and the thousands of shippers across Canada, not one application has been made, so I think your answer is there.

[Janice Tranberg]

I'll weigh in with the other example that we brought forward.

Animal regulations decrease the number of hours that you could have an animal on a truck. We know that the science says that some of the damage to the animals is when they go on and off the truck. Slippage, breakage and all of those things happen. We asked them to put a pause on making the regulations until the science was there, and they couldn't; they needed to push that through.

Where we bring in transportation, we also advocated very strongly to say that this needs to be done in consultation with the Ministry of Transport around electronic logging devices and other areas, and we did not get a response on that. Again, you're regulating the drivers separate from regulating the animals. It just doesn't make sense.