Mr. Speaker, in 2011, the Conservative government announced the closing of the Quebec City maritime search and rescue centre. The closing will lead to the transfer of more than 1,800 calls for assistance to the coordination centre in Halifax and the centre in Trenton, Ontario.
Shift personnel in these centres are still not bilingual, and we know that, since the announcement of the closing of the Quebec City maritime search and rescue centre, three staffing processes have not been successful in finding enough bilingual officers who could become maritime SAR coordinators able to handle urgent requests in French.
No matter what the results of the forthcoming staffing actions are and no matter what the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans says, over the years it will be impossible to maintain the required level of bilingualism in these rescue centres.
The most logical solution, the simplest and least expensive solution, would be to keep the Quebec City centre open. If the government does not quickly overturn this misguided decision, incidents involving francophones will be handled in centres where the language of work will still be English, and we will lose the geographical knowledge that is essential for quickly identifying the location of an incident, local resource capabilities and local crisis solutions. To date, no effort has been made to train staff in Halifax or Trenton on the specifics of the Quebec City area.
I think it is important to point out that, on January 9, 2013, Guillaume Gagné, a resident of Cap-Saint-Ignace, in the Montmagny area, found himself in difficulty when the ice pan on which his fishing hut stood broke off and began floating down the river with the tide as night was falling.
The man’s life was in serious danger, because later that night violent winds destroyed the ice pan. It is important to recognize the work done by the Quebec City maritime search and rescue centre, the Canadian Coast Guard and the Lachance family, who joined forces and used local resources that were tailored to suit the circumstances.
Dominic Lachance, who saved the young fisherman, said that things could have gone very differently if the maritime search and rescue centre in Quebec City had been moved to Halifax, as the Conservative government is planning.
This is what Mr. Lachance had to say after the rescue:
If the office were located outside, the connection would probably be slower… They are going to have to find a way of communicating and mobilizing the people on site, because otherwise I think some very unfortunate things could happen.
With that kind of example of effectiveness, and given the repeated statements by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who says that the safety of Canadians is the government’s priority, do we have reason to hope that the minister will order the Canadian Coast Guard to keep the maritime search and rescue centre in Quebec City in operation for good?
Can we count on this government to reconsider that decision instead of postponing the shutdown? The government has postponed it twice so far and will continue to do so because it is very clear that the decision makes no sense. What can the minister tell us today? Good news, I hope.