Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House on behalf of the government to respond to the motion in question and to the speech just made by the member opposite.
Unfortunately, the government will not be able to support the motion for reasons that I will outline at some length. However, it is principally because we do not agree with its premises and we do not agree with its conclusions.
On the premises, we do not agree that Canada lags behind international search and rescue norms. I must take this opportunity to defend not only the Canadian Forces and other Government of Canada agencies and departments involved in search and rescue, but also the provinces, territories, volunteers and municipal governments, all of whom play an outstanding role in meeting the very highest standards of response to search and rescue across the country. Just by the very phrasing of the motion, the member opposite has implied that somehow not just the Government of Canada, but all of those private, volunteer, civilian responders to search and rescue incidents across the country in every province and every territory are somehow lagging behind. We simply reject that premise.
We also do not think it is the place of the House, this member, or other members to determine what the actual response times of the Canadian Forces, or any other body, ought to be on these matters. The House has never set those standards in the past.
I see some members opposite expressing disbelief. They clearly have not read into this file. They clearly have not understood the proud history of search and rescue in this country and they clearly have not understood how other countries determine these things. It is not a matter for Parliament. In the case of the Canadian Forces, the standards are set by the Canadian Forces in accordance with their operational determinations on the basis of their resource base, and that is the way it should be. That is a best practice not just in Canada but around the world. It is one for which our friends and allies looked to Canada, and continue to look to Canada, for leadership and not for political interference in these matters.
Therefore, we will not be supporting the motion because it is both misleading and inaccurate. It is inaccurate because it suggests that a 30-minute response posture is prescribed by international search and rescue standards; it is not. It is misleading because it seems to imply that instituting a readiness standard of 30 minutes for the Canadian Forces would significantly improve the service provided to Canadians on the basis of the resource base the Canadian Forces have and on the budget they have, which it would not.
I believe it is important that I set the record straight on these two points today so that we can have a properly informed debate about Canada’s search and rescue services and how government investments can make the most meaningful contribution to their continued strength and improvement.
I would take this moment to add that we are engaged with the Canadian Forces in a constant campaign to improve service. A new helicopter was added in Goose Bay recently. The member opposite did not mention that. In the wake of the very unfortunate incident recently in Makkovik, there was a review, led by the Chief of the Defence Staff, which has resulted in an improvement to procedures in response to those very critical search and rescue incidents in the Arctic.
With respect to international search and rescue standards, Canada is a signatory to several search and rescue treaties: the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, the Convention on International Civil Aviation, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, and the Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue. Together these treaties set a framework for search and rescue. None of them has a mandate of a 30-minute response posture. That is because the international community recognizes that geography, varying characteristics of different countries, and the varying institutional structures of different countries dictate that each one must design a search and rescue system tailored to its own needs.
For example, it would be of little use to mandate exactly the same kind of search and rescue system for both a small, evenly populated European country with little or no coastline and for a country as huge as ours—surrounded by three oceans and with a population dispersed over vast distances.
Canada has built up its own traditions, its own institutional framework, its own best practices in the area of search and rescue, and they suit Canada. That is why it is a mistake to suggest that Canada lags behind some kind of international standard. In fact, it is even a mistake to suggest that other countries like Canada or remotely similar to Canada maintain a 30-minute response posture.
Of course, no country has exactly the same ties or features as we do. No country but ours has the longest coastline. No country has 18 million square kilometres of search and rescue responsibility.
In the case of Australia, for example, I must differ with the member opposite. Australia, another large country with long coastlines and a thinly dispersed population, has a military fixed-wing response posture of between three and 12 hours for search and rescue. That was not the kind of fact that the member opposite put before us. He put a different fact forward, but I think if he looked to military fixed-wing search and rescue response times from Australia, he would find the standard is much lower, and much longer than it is for Canada.
Contrary to what this motion suggests, it is generally accepted that each nation must design a search and rescue system that is uniquely tailored to its own needs and utilizes available resources in the way that best benefits its population. Canada has just such a system—one that serves Canadians extremely well.
And I would be happy to discuss the Canadian Forces’ role in this system, as well as why a move to a continuous 30-minute response posture is not in our country’s best interest.
When we talk about a response posture, we are referring to the maximum timeframe in which Canadian Forces can become airborne after being tasked. When it comes to search and rescue, Canadian Forces have two different postures: from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, the posture is 30 minutes; after hours, at night or on the weekend, the response posture is two hours.
However, I want to make absolutely clear that regardless of their response posture, regardless of whether they are on base or at home, crews always respond immediately when a call comes. They do everything they can to get out the door and off the ground as quickly and effectively as they can.
During regular business hours, takeoff is routinely accomplished within 30 minutes, and response time is even better if the crew already happens to be in the air when the call comes in. After hours, Canadian Forces crews become airborne, on average, just over 60 minutes after the call comes in.
That is an impressive feat when you consider that they must first get to the base, evaluate mission requirements against prevailing conditions, start their aircraft and manoeuvre for departure.
And response time is even quicker during peak periods—such as periods of high-intensity seasonal fishing—when crews may be kept on base even in the evenings and on weekends.
When it comes to mobilizing a search and rescue response, the actual difference between the 30-minute response posture and the two-hour response posture is usually measured in minutes, not hours.
When we consider the vastness of Canada's area of responsibility as well as the complexity of our terrain and the unpredictability of our weather, studies have shown that the significance of these minutes usually pales in comparison to the significance of other factors that can influence mission outcome, such as the time between an emergency situation arising and the appropriate authorities being notified, the time it takes to cover the significant distance—which is often a factor—between the nearest base and the site of the emergency and the time it takes to find and recover the people in distress, which is often no easy task.
We can all mention any number of incidents in which an earlier response time might have changed the outcome or a tragedy could have been avoided if there had been a helicopter in another part of the country closer to the zone of the incident, but the disposition of the resources we have is on the basis of a statistical base that extends over years, decades, and indeed even centuries.
Some of these factors—such as the speed of notification and the mobility of our assets—can be influenced to one extent or another. Others—such as the weather or the characteristics of our Canadian landscape—cannot.
Members of our SAR crews, our SAR techs, want to save each and every individual who needs their help, and in the vast majority of cases they do just that.
Military assets are deployed for about 1,100 of the approximately 9,000 search and rescue incidents reported annually in Canada—meaning a minority, the more serious ones—but they help to save an average of 1,200 lives every year.
I also know that our SAR techs deeply regret those rare instances when weather, distance or a delay in notification prevents them from getting there in time.
But rather than focusing on the relatively narrow issue of response posture, as recommended by the motion before this House, we want to invest public resources where they will have the greatest possible impact on the safety and survival of Canadians.
Our latest plan is to acquire a new fleet of fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft, as promised in the Canada first strategy. We are supporting the Canadian Forces in deepening their partnerships with other departments at all levels, including federal, provincial and territorial. We are also strengthening our international search and rescue partnerships, particularly in the north, through joint initiatives like the Arctic search and rescue agreement that was signed under this government in 2011.
A huge amount of work happens every day to improve the effectiveness of search and rescue resources in this country. Unfortunately, this motion is not a contribution to that effort.