Mr. Speaker, each year, search and rescue, SAR, crews and coordinators respond to approximately 10,000 marine, aeronautical and humanitarian incidents nation-wide. The three search and rescue regions, SRRs, in Victoria, Trenton and Halifax work together to oversee SAR operations across Canada, which includes over 18 million square kilometres of land and sea. SAR crews follow a schedule of 40 hours a week of 30-minute SAR response time. Outside of the 40-hour week, SAR crews continue to respond immediately and must be airborne within two hours.
With regard to (a) to (d), the Canadian Armed Forces, CAF, are not currently carrying out a project as described in the question. However, the CAF are in the final year of a project composed of a set of annual trials of SAR response times held over the course of three years. The purpose of this trial project is to adjust response times to better align with the hours and days during which SAR incidents are most likely to occur. While the pre-existing response time will not change, this trial, which will vary for squadrons and aircraft, aims to align the 30-minute response posture with periods of greatest SAR activity based on historical data.
The 2013 trial included the Trenton SRR and in 2014, was refined and expanded to include Victoria. This year’s final trial will be further expanded to include Halifax and will run from May 15 through September 7, 2015.