Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I'm going to confine my comments today to who we are and what we do on the west coast with respect to the marine environment. We are the Pacific Pilotage Authority, one of four pilotage authorities across Canada and a fed

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the interest of time, I'm going to jump ahead slightly. I think the question comes down to why have pilots at all. In short, it's a country's insurance against a marine disaster. By placing a pilot on the vessel, you're ensuring that at least one member

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Absolutely. First of all, we've been handling tankers for 50 years and we've had no incidents with tankers at all. The only spill we had was one that was purely accidental. There was a bolt sticking out of the dock when the vessel was pulled back alongside the dock. But from th

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I've been on the coast for 20 years, so I'll speak from that perspective, and I've been with the authority for 13 of those 20 years.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  From the authority's perspective, we don't get involved with the CEAA part of the project. What we deal with is TERMPOL, and there are no changes to that.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak about marine pilotage and our SMS update. I will give just a short overview of who we are to set the stage. The Pacific Pilotage Authority is a federal crown corporation operating pursuant to

Transport committee  That's correct.

Transport committee  For any change that's going to affect the Pacific pilotage regulations and, in addition, for anything that we believe could pose a risk to the environment or to the pilotage operations.

Transport committee  The end result is. Yes. It's called a PRMM, a pilotage risk management methodology. It's a formalized process and is passed on to Transport Canada at the end result.

Transport committee  There is full public consultation. For each one we do, we notify first nations communities in the area so that it's across the entire board.

Transport committee  The west coast has always had quite a robust joint review process. Many of the guidelines, practices, and procedures that we have in place are of long standing. Most predate my time. What we do on a constant basis is revisit those practices and procedures, look at what we are p

Transport committee  For post-docking, it would all fall under the port authority's jurisdiction, where their regulations would hold sway.

Transport committee  There are differences. The employee pilots are what we call fast-water pilots. Their primary job is to operate on the Fraser River, which is a little system on its own. If you don't do it every day of your life, you will lose the ability to know where the sandbar is moving or whe

Transport committee  Under our mandate, we have to operate a safe and efficient pilotage system. The Pilotage Act gives us certain responsibilities and authorities, and that's one of them.