Madam Speaker, it is my honour today to speak to the private member's motion before us today. My colleague, the parliamentary secretary, has already spoken on this motion, and as such I will speak today about search and rescue in general.
It is my view that our search and rescue system functions amazingly well. In fact as my colleagues have said, Canadians enjoy one of the most effective search and rescue systems in the world. I will remind members of the efforts of the men and women, both in and out of uniform, who repeatedly risk their lives to save others.
We often take for granted the search and rescue safety net. Many of us do not know how it was developed or how far it has advanced in the last 70 years.
Canada's large land mass is sparsely populated. Our coastline is the longest in the world. Because of Canada's geography, air and sea travel have taken on great importance in our development. Indeed, in the 1930s, Canada moved more freight by air than the rest of the world combined.
With the relatively primitive equipment of the day, accidents were common and many lives were lost. The harsh Canadian climate only exaggerated the tough geographical realities. Early responses to these actions in the air, on land and at sea were, at best, ad hoc. Communities would organize search parties. Nearby vessels would steam toward a ship in distress. Local RCMP detachments and military units would give what assistance they could at the time. These early efforts, though valiant, were poorly coordinated and often poorly equipped. They seldom met with success, and it was not uncommon for tragedy to befall searchers as well as those already lost.
In 1942, Wilfrid Reid May, the World War I ace, was commanding the No. 2 Air Observer School in Edmonton, Alberta. This training school had its fair share of people who went missing in the Canadian north. Though the aircraft were sometimes found, their crews often perished from exposure and/or the injuries sustained in the crash itself.
Wilfred May thought this was a terrible waste of great search and rescue abilities. He organized a group of volunteers who would parachute from search aircraft to help crashed crew victims in distress. Clad in patterned canvas suits and protected by modified leather football helmets, these men and women of May's para-rescuers were Canada's first foray into organized search and rescue.
These were inauspicious beginnings, but they marked a path for others to follow. May's advocacy not only ensured the survival of the group but also prompted its adoption in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1944. When the rapid increase in air travel in the post-war years made clear the need to create a professional search and rescue service, the RCAF's para-rescue operations stood as a ready template.
In 1947, the RCAF was assigned the task of providing aeronautical search and rescue response and coordination in Canada. In May 1959, marine search and rescue response was added to this task and the RCAF was assisted by the Department of Marine and Fisheries, forerunner to the Canadian Coast Guard, in its partnership with other countries, as we continue today.
Over the years, operational structures have evolved. New partners have emerged and non-governmental organizations, such as the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association, have also played important roles in improving efficiency. In 1986, the National Search and Rescue Secretariat was established to lead and coordinate Canada's search and rescue efforts.
Despite tremendous changes in the way we do search and rescue in this country, some things remain the same. For example, the courage, dedication, innovation and daring of the men and women engaged in search and rescue have been constant over time.
In the early days of Canadian search and rescue, for example, RCAF nursing sisters received parachute training to allow them to accompany para-rescuers. One of these was the great Grace Woodman. During one of Grace's missions her parachute became entangled in a tree. Separated from her fellow rescuers and hanging upside down at 125 feet from the ground, Grace worked for hours to free herself. She suffered serious rope burns to her hands on the way down to the ground and she ended up walking overnight to find her patient. However, only after she had been stabilized and evacuated to hospital did she let anyone know about her own injuries.
Stories such as Grace's are not unique.
Many may recall the crash of the Hercules transport aircraft near CFS Alert in October 1991. Operating in permanent darkness and in blizzard conditions search and rescue teams from as far away as Edmonton, Alberta and Greenwood, Nova Scotia, worked tirelessly for 32 hours to rescue the crew.
Six search and rescue technicians, or SAR Techs, made a dangerous parachute jump in what were poor conditions to tend to the survivors who were huddled together in the tail of the wreckage. Their heroic rescue was immortalized in the 1993 movie, Ordeal in the Arctic. However, not all rescues receive the same level of media attention.
In November 1996 a Danish fisherman lay dying on a ship in the Arctic. SAR Techs Master Corporal Keith Mitchell and Master Corporal Bryan Pierce set aside their personal safety and jumped through the darkness and into the freezing waters off Resolution Island. Strong winds carried them away from the point where they were supposed to be picked up by an inflatable boat. Tossed by three metre tail waves, they struggled, until close to hypothermia. They were finally plucked from the water by the crew of the same fishing trawler which had called them. Shortly thereafter, they were administering life-saving treatment to the critically ill fishermen.
For their selflessness and daring efforts, Master Corporal Mitchell and Master Corporal Pierce were awarded the nation's highest award for courage in circumstances of extreme peril, the Cross of Valour.
Despite its humble beginnings, Canada's search and rescue community has a rich heritage of courage, devotion and selflessness. Whether it be searching at low altitudes through the mountains of B.C. for missing aircraft, coming to the rescue of a pleasure boat in Lake Ontario, or flying through thick fog to rescue the crew of a sinking ship, today's highly adaptive and responsive search and rescuers are up to the task because of instruction and the values of those who have gone before them.
Our search and rescue system has developed steadily over 70 years. It is staffed by courageous and dedicated men and women. It is effective and responsive. It is a system that allows all Canadians to fully explore, appreciate and profit from the abundances offered by our great country.
Our search and rescue teams have served and continue to serve that others might live.
I have offered my insight into the development of our search and rescue procedures to emphasize the experience and knowledge behind our current procedures. I hope my colleagues will appreciate that decisions regarding search and rescue are no longer ad hoc. We have come a long way from the days of Ace pilot May. Years of experience and a great deal of research have gone into the decision on how and where to deploy our search and rescue resources across the country. For this reason, I cannot support the motion in front of us.