Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague, the member of Parliament for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, for the opportunity to comment on the consolidation of the St. John's maritime rescue sub-centre with the joint rescue coordination centres in Halifax and Trenton. I know he works hard for his constituents and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, so I understand and appreciate his interest in this matter.
Let me start with the bottom line. Maritime safety continues to be the top priority of the Canadian Coast Guard whose men and women work day in and day out to provide important and essential services, including icebreaking, aids to navigation, waterways management, marine communication and traffic services, environmental response, and search and rescue coordination and response services, which is the issue we are discussing this evening.
Currently, to provide search and rescue coordination service, the Canadian Coast Guard jointly operates with the Canadian Forces, as my colleague has said, three joint search and rescue coordination centres across Canada. In addition, the Canadian Coast Guard manages two marine rescue sub-centres in St. John's and Quebec City. These were started in 1976, but many factors have changed the way search and rescue is coordinated since then.
Current navigation technologies, alerting technologies and communication technologies allow us to safely and efficiently coordinate search and rescue efforts from one centre within each of the search and rescue regions that cover Canada.
By consolidating the sub-centres of St. John's and Quebec, this initiative would see the integration of all search and rescue coordination functions, both marine and air, at the three existing centres. Marine search and rescue mission coordinators will work side-by-side with their Canadian Forces colleagues facilitating a stronger co-operation in search and rescue mission coordination.
The consolidation of rescue sub-centres will improve the efficiency of Coast Guard operations.
I would like to emphasize that consolidation will not impact the excellent search and rescue coordination service that we currently provide to the maritime community in Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec.
As we move forward we will ensure implementation will be seamless and there will be no negative impacts to the aeronautical or maritime search and rescue services in Canada or to the safety of life at sea.
I would also like to point out that by joining Coast Guard marine search and rescue coordination service currently provided in St. John's and Quebec with the joint rescue coordination centres in Halifax and Trenton, we expect to improve coordination by locating all Coast Guard and Canadian Forces search and rescue services within the same centres.
I would like to reiterate that no changes are being made to the Canadian Coast Guard's capacity on the water. Canadian Coast Guard response resources will continue to work with other search and rescue service delivery partners such as Canadian Forces assets, volunteers and other local resources to respond to every distress call.
All officers, helicopters and vessels, including the two heavy icebreakers that were recently moved to the St. John's area, will remain in Newfoundland and Labrador.
We will continue to ensure that local knowledge and expertise is embedded in the tools and training of the crews, mariners and Coast Guard employees.
Finally, I would like to reaffirm the department's commitment to ensuring the safety of the maritime community in Newfoundland and Labrador and in the rest of Canada through the Coast Guard's search and rescue service.