Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 18 - Evidence, May 26, 2003
OTTAWA, Monday, May 26, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 6:07 p.m. to examine and report on the need for a national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. This evening, the committee will hear testimony on Canadian coastal defence and security.
My name is Colin Kenny. I am a senator from Ontario and I chair the committee.
On my far right is Senator Jack Wiebe. Prior to his appointment to the Senate in 2000, Senator Wiebe, who is from Saskatchewan, served as Lieutenant-Governor of that province and as a member of its legislative assembly. Senator Wiebe is deputy chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, as well as a member of both the Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament and our Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs.
Beside Senator Wiebe is Senator Tommy Banks from Alberta. He is well known to Canadians as one of our most versatile musicians and entertainers. His talent and dedication have earned him a Juno Award, a Grand Prix du Disque-Canada, and many other honours. He was appointed to the Senate in 2000. Senator Banks is chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. That committee is currently studying the Environmental Protection Act.
Beside Senator Banks and on my immediate right is Senator Norm Atkins from Ontario. Senator Atkins came to the Senate in 1986 with a strong background in the field of communications and with experience as an adviser to former Premier Davis of Ontario. Senator Atkins is a member of our Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs as well as a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. He also serves as chair of the Senate Conservative Caucus.
At the far left is Senator David Smith from Ontario. Senator Smith was appointed to the Senate in 2002. He previously served as a Toronto councillor and deputy mayor, a member of the House of Commons, and a minister of state in the Trudeau government. Senator Smith is also a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs as well as the Standing Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament.
Our committee is the first permanent Senate committee mandated to examine security and defence. Over the past 18 months, we have completed a number of reports, beginning with ``Canadian Security and Military Preparedness.'' That study, which was tabled in February 2002, examined the major defence and security issues facing Canada.
The Senate then asked our committee to examine the need for a national security policy. So far, we have released three reports on various aspects of national security: first, ``Defence of North America: A Canadian Responsibility,'' published in September 2002; second, ``For an Extra $130 Bucks...Update On Canada's Military Financial Crisis: A View from the Bottom Up,'' published in November 2002; and third, and most recently, ``The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports,'' published in January 2003.
The committee is continuing its long-term evaluation of Canada's ability to contribute to security and defence in North America. As part of this work, the committee has been holding hearings on the federal government's support to the men and women across the country who respond first to emergencies and disasters. However, the committee has decided to give priority to an ongoing evaluation of Canada's ability to defend its territorial waters and help police the continental coastline. These hearings update an earlier committee report, ``Defence of North America: A Canadian Responsibility,'' September 2002, which found the Canadian coastal defence efforts to be largely ad hoc and fragmentary.
This evening our witness will be Mr. James C. Kelly. Mr. Kelly is a research fellow at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University. He is a former Director of International Relations with the Canadian Coast Guard. He has studied the role of the Coast Guard in many countries and has consulted internationally. This evening, he will share with the committee knowledge based on his research and 30 years of experience as part of the Coast Guard.
Mr. Kelly, we welcome you to give us your opening comments.
Mr. James C. Kelly, as an individual: First, I should apologize for not having a formal presentation or a paper to present to you, but I was invited to come before you last Thursday, late afternoon. I agreed to do that, recognizing, of course, that I would have to really scramble to get an intelligible play of words down for your benefit and consideration. Having said that, I should like to address five key points in my initial remarks.
The first one, just to prepare the ground, or should I say the sea state, is the Canadian Coast Guard itself, where I spent some 30 years employed on the coast and also here in headquarters. I wish to discuss the Coast Guard as one of the major coast guards of the world and to comment upon its domestic roles and responsibility, as well as reference to some of its international involvement.
As I am sure most of you are aware, the Coast Guard is the operational arm of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It is responsible for providing operational services and platforms for en route safety, navigational aids, precision navigation, marine environmental protection services, waterways development and protection, fish management enforcement, emergency planning, scientific oceans research support, and services to industry and other government departments.
In the course of applying and administering the Canadian marine standards, and providing like services, the Coast Guard has developed over time an extensive knowledge and understanding of the larger marine sector in this country, including the capacity to support and the credibility required to deal effectively with the many stakeholders that make up the marine community here in this country. These interfaces range from representation at international for a, such as the International Maritime Organization, through negotiation of policy matters with various shipping interests in this country, to dealing with provincial authorities here in Canada and special interest groups and small craft operators on statutory and marine service matters.
The Coast Guard, it may be a surprise to many, is one of the major coast guards of the world. It operates in one of the severest climatic conditions on this planet. It is served by 5,000 trained and disciplined men and women, and assisted by the Canadian Coast Guard auxiliary, which has an equal number of volunteers, drawn from the fishing fleets of Canada as well as the recreational boating community.
The fleet of the Canadian Coast Guard is the largest federal government fleet, with over 100 vessels, ranging from polar and riverine icebreakers to major buoy tenders and scientific research vessels, to search and rescue cutters or lifeboats.
Out of this sizable fleet, the Coast Guard currently employs 38 vessels — I believe that is the number — in maintaining a primary search and rescue standby mode on a 24/7 basis. It also operates a fleet of helicopters, hovercraft and some fixed-wing aircraft. Some 13 marine communications and vessel traffic service centres are positioned along our coast, to assist in commercial and other marine navigation.
The Coast Guard is administered by a commissioner. I understand that John Adams has been before the committee on a couple of occasions. He in turn is assisted by five regional administrations, located along the coasts. There are also bases and sub-bases of the Coast Guard throughout the country.
The training arm of the Canadian Coast Guard is the Canadian Coast Guard College, which is located in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Incidentally, it may be the closest thing that Canada has to a national maritime training institution. It has a solid reputation, and apart from training Coast Guard officers, navigation officers, marine engineers and other specialists in the Coast Guard, it also provides services to certain sectors of the Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Through its exposure in being involved in traditional functions, and in conducting sometimes unusual operations as required to meet the rising need over the years, the Coast Guard has earned a significant international reputation for its ability to respond and to undertake a broad range of maritime activities here in Canada as well as abroad. Some cases in point are as follows: operating weather ships — at one time we had such things, by the way — for global atmospheric tropical research off the coast of Africa; escorting the MV Manhattan through the Northwest Passage; delivering relief supplies to hurricane-struck Jamaica; recovery of the Pisces mini-submersible and Air India Flight 172 wreckage in the deep ocean off the Republic of Ireland; and providing Canadian scientific research platforms for polar expeditions over the years.
The Coast Guard is regarded as a leader in integrated civilian-marine operational services. In the world community, our country, Canada, is regarded as an honest broker. We often hear this metaphor with regard to Canada, and an honest broker meaning a non-threatening entity with no history of political aggression or of colonizing.
Evidence, I think, to some extent, of this perception of Canada is the acceptance by regional players of its role in support of the Middle East peace process. Here, I am referring to a series of maritime safety colloquia known as MARSAF, with the lead agency being the Canadian Coast Guard, in cooperation with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in a highly sensitive and volatile part of the world, that is, in the Middle East, North Africa. I do not have time in my opening remarks to elaborate on this, but time permitting, I would be happy to provide further detail on that subject in the question and answer period. I think it might be of relevant interest to the committee, if I may say.
We are a port state in this country, in that we rely heavily on foreign flagships to carry our goods to the international market. We have played a very important role in the development of the regulations that underline port state control. We have the distinction, for example, of being signatories to both the Paris Memorandum on Port State Control and the Tokyo Agreement on Asia-Pacific Port State Control. This field, port state control, is of critical interest to this country. As one of the world's major trading nations, we regularly export goods, mostly by sea, in foreign hauls worth billions and billions of dollars annually. It is of particular significance to Canada.
The Coast Guard has been among the leaders in the development and the implementation of vessel traffic services and marine communication systems. Apart from developing its own domestic infrastructure in this area, it has developed the Hong Kong Vessel Traffic Services System, and it has been active in assisting other coastal communities as well.
The Coast Guard is an active participant in an organization called the Asia-Pacific Heads of Maritime Safety Agencies. It has, upon the invitation of the International Maritime Organization, advised authorities in the Malacca Straits, who are keen to implement an electronic highway there, using a state-of-the-art marine communications technology.
In the field of search and rescue, Canada is one of founding members of the International Satellite System for search and rescue, known as COSPAS-SARSAT. Coast Guard is a member of the Canadian delegation of this organization's council and of its various working groups that are involved in the development, the recommendation and approval of changes to the COSPAS-SARSAT system.
Canada is one of the very first signatories of the International Maritime Organization, or the IMO. Incidentally, the current Secretary-General of the IMO is Mr. William O'Neil, a former commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard is also active in other international fora, such as the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities and the International Hydrographic Organization, among others.
Over the years, the Coast Guard's advice has been sought and given to maritime states that are setting up coast guards in their own countries. Examples are Israel, Malaysia, Taiwan and Haiti, among others. It has also left its impress on the wider Caribbean community, in having provided training at the Canadian Coast Guard College to their coast guards in a CIDA-funded program that ran for almost 10 years back in the 1980s.
I should like to briefly comment on coast guards in the world context. I say briefly, and I mean briefly, because it is a big subject area. I wish to underline some emerging trends that are occurring in the world, as well as touch on the traditional roles of Coast Guard as opposed to the variety of models that currently exist.
If one accepts the view that the primary function of the military, of defence forces, is the provision and orderly application of armed force on behalf of the state, on behalf of this country, then its role in the containment of violence in the naval domain, for our purposes, is indisputable. No one would argue with that. However, the role of the coast guard is not always as distinct. Allow me to expand on that a bit.
It depends on the country's history. Historically, coast guards grew out of naval forces or customs and treasury administrations or transportation departments. Normally, Coast Guards are either civilian or paramilitary, disciplined, uniformed and, frequently, but not always, armed. They may report to different authorities from country to country. In our country, the Coast Guard reports to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans; the Indian Coast Guard reports to its navy; and the United States Coast Guard reports to the Department of Transportation. In the latter case, the coast guard is widely recognized as being the fifth leg or arm of the national defence forces in the U.S.
Coast guards are referred to by different designations. In some countries, the coast guard is referred to as the marine or the maritime police, in others, the frontier guard or the border guard, while in others, the maritime safety agency. They are mandated to perform various missions, which may include search and rescue, coastal security, marine environmental protection and response, maintenance of marine navigational aids, law enforcement, illegal immigration, anti-smuggling, anti-piracy, illegal fishing, marine communications, vessel traffic services, ice operations, et cetera. No one coast guard performs all these things, incidentally, but it is a mix. It depends on the situation.
There are maritime states that do not possess a coast guard. I am currently doing research on behalf of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie on maritime security in sub-Saharan Africa. I was somewhat surprised to discover, in the course of my research, that from Senegal around the cape, all the way to Eritrea, there are 25 or 26 different coastal states. All but two have no coast guard. There are only two instances of coast guards in the entire east and west coasts of sub-Saharan Africa. I was really surprised. I will touch upon the reasons for it later, in another context. A coast guard is more attractive in many instances because it is usually smaller, less costly, more cost efficient and so forth. Maybe there is work to be done in sub-Saharan Africa after we finish getting our own shop in order in this country.
In some countries, such as Latin America countries, the navy performs the duties normally associated with coast guard, with the notable exception of the Prefectura of Argentina, which is a formidable coast guard operation.
Whether one decides to integrate military and other security forces such as coast guards, border guards, border police and customs and immigration for defence purposes is one matter; however, the recent emergence of new coast guards in the world, or the expressions of interest in establishing them, is a most interesting and positive development in my view. I have mentioned a couple of these, for example, Israel and Taiwan, but there are also Ireland, Vietnam and Malaysia. Also worthy of note is the news of existing coast guards expanding, such as in the United Kingdom, in Japan, and in India.
I shall now comment on two concepts, safety and security, as well as briefly remark on the security sector family. Recent international legislation, as well as national legislation and concerns for national legislation, has set standards that emphasize a clear connection between safety and security. Indeed, security has become a safety issue. Worthy of note in this respect is the International Maritime Organization's recent rewording of its mission statement. Formerly, it was ``Safer Shipping, Cleaner Oceans. `` They have added security to the mix. We are seeing more and more of this in the world community, at least.
Indeed, security has become a safety issue; I am confident in saying that. In any review of the factors that affect the maritime industry, one thing we can be certain of is that security-related incidents and, by extension, safety-related incidents will increase, causing more harm, more losses, more delays, more injuries and, God forbid, more deaths.
Terrorist and piracy attacks occur. Although we are not afflicted with piracy attacks in this part of the world, they are alive and well in the wider world community. Fishing violations, drug-related incidents and increasing waves of illegal migrants and asylum seekers will cause more problems for us, and they will have an even greater impact on existing resources, services and infrastructure. Often, maritime security is categorized in terms of theft or fraud and other forms of criminal behaviour, but it is more than that. In fact, there is a considerable overlap, as I have just remarked, between safety and security and, consequently, between maritime organizations such as navies and coast guards, whose operations are frequently defined by one or other of these concepts and sometimes by both.
When I think of security, my thoughts are more in line with those of Admiral Garnett's definition of the term. I think of the security sector as a family of entities, in the broader dimension of the term, those that are ultimately responsible within a state for individual security, as well as for national security, such as military, police, judiciary, coast guard, customs, intelligence services and so on. I am sure that representatives of most of these entities have presented before this committee.
One could add to this mix certain non-governmental organizations. NGOs such as the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders — Médecins sans frontières — are heavily involved in major security operations throughout the world, and we could mention others, I am sure. When we view the diversity of players in the security sector family, we gain an appreciation for the size of the team and for the size of the problem, beyond a strictly conventional and predominantly military and political element.
I should like to address the possible advantages that coast guards may have over navies and other defence forces in national and regional cooperation activities and in the provision of human and environmental security pertaining to sea. By now, it must be evident that I am keen on coast guards, having spent 30 years with them and having met most of the coast guards of the world, in one form or another, over the life of my career. Yes, I am keen on them and I regard them as extremely important national institutions with major assets at their disposal. Coast guards have the potential to significantly contribute to ocean governance and to regional security cooperation. The perfect case in point for Canadians, I think, is the degree of cooperation that exists between the United States Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard. There is a plethora of MOUs and agreements between the two coast guards on this continent in respect of a broad range of maritime activity.
I believe that it is important to encourage this type of cooperative development because, clearly, there are opportunities and benefits to the state and to the maritime authorities within the state. In the process, it may even assist defence forces in the execution of their tasks. By the same token, granting the Canadian Coast Guard policing powers on the sea would allow, I humbly submit, the RCMP to concentrate its resources more in the terrestrial domain.
Would bringing the Coast Guard into the security equation more possibly point a way to reducing sensitivities that are sometimes associated with naval or defence forces? If I may, I am speaking to this in terms of the mask of the warrior as opposed to the mask of the lifesaver, or the guardian. I am not suggesting for a moment an either/or proposition of navy over coast guard. Far be it from me to suggest that. The delegation of additional responsibilities over and above that which the coast guard currently has may lessen tensions that would otherwise exist. I am thinking of tasks traditionally undertaken by the navy or by the RCMP and missions that are, for example, not strictly military. This could well go a long way towards enhancing security cooperation, in the broad sense of the term to which I speak.
Many coast guards around the world possess a policing role; as a matter of fact, the majority of coast guards throughout the world have a policing role. They are most often defined in this respect and thus have the necessary equipment and trained personnel to do that kind of work. What would it take to equip our own Canadian Coast Guard with a law enforcement role? I am thinking specifically of drug interdiction, illegal immigration and anti- smuggling. Not only could such a determination reduce the degree of the politicization that I mentioned a moment ago that is often associated with defence operations, but it could also spell some economic advantages in the deployment of smaller, more cost-effective platforms such as fast rescue craft and patrol boats with smaller crews. It could also lessen the already heavy workload of our federal police force and our navy.
My final point, with some brief commentary, concerns the potential scope of cooperation between the coast guard and other players in the security sector when dealing with transboundary maritime problems of a civil and paramilitary nature. Humanitarian aspects are often associated with many traditional coast guard programs, and so I think of maritime safety and marine search and rescue here. Normally, there are fewer obstacles to discussion and cooperation between maritime agencies in a regional context such as in North America. I have already mentioned the relationship between the Canadian Coast Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard. By extension, other program areas often overlap this field of potential maritime cooperation, such as port management, port security, marine environmental protection and the accompanying contingency planning, major maritime disaster planning and coastal zone management.
In summation, the Coast Guard is a valuable national resource. It already contributes, even if nothing were to change, in a significant way to security in the broad sense of the term. In the narrow and more traditional sense of the word, the Coast Guard may fall short of the mark because it is not empowered with a law enforcement capability. However, a policing role for the Coast Guard is doable, should it be desirable. As I already mentioned, in many parts of the world there is a notable emergence of coast guards, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, and invariably they have this capability.
Perhaps even more important in this post-Law of the Sea and exclusive economic zone, EEZ, context in which we live — even though Canada has yet to ratify the Law of the Sea, but it will get around to it, I am sure — is the growing concern with ocean management and the protection of the living and the non-living resources within the EEZ, that 200-mile zone that many countries of the world who have ratified the convention have ascribed to.
The Coast Guard offers real potential here as a player in this more all-encompassing or comprehensive sphere of national security. However, with that determination toward an exclusive economic zone also comes added responsibilities. It is additional territory, and added responsibilities include the maintenance of good order at sea, the maintenance of maritime safety and an increasing role in the protection of this environment which maritime states exploit.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Kelly. Your remarks have been very helpful.
Senator Atkins: I was certainly taken by your enthusiasm for the Coast Guard. That comes through loud and clear. Would you leave the Coast Guard under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, would you move it back to Transportation, or would you consider bringing it under National Defence?
Mr. Kelly: I had a feeling this question would come up. Let me tackle it this way: Most of my career was with the Department of Transport, within the Coast Guard, of course, when the Coast Guard was an integral part of the Department of Transport.
Then there was program review. This country was faced with an incredible challenge in the early 1990s. We had become a debtor country, we had enormous debt, incredible deficits, and some drastic — draconian even — decisions were made. One of the big targets was the Department of Transport, which had in excess of 30,000 people. The Coast Guard was a target within the target, as was the air navigational services component and other aspects of the department.
The Department of Transport is now a shadow of its former self because all the operational entities were hived off. Air Navigation System was set up as an agency and so on, as you all know. I was working in Ottawa in those days near headquarters and I remember very well, within the Coast Guard, we had established a committee to deal with some of these enormous pressures that were upon us. I know they affected every other government department as well, but it was a very challenging thing for us. The senior management board of the Canadian Coast Guard formed a committee — it had all kinds of committees going on in those days — to deal with how we could save money and how we could do things differently.
I was thinking about this as I was flying up here from Cape Breton. We formed a committee of four or five people, and it was our responsibility to look across the world at how governance of other countries' coast guards was being conducted. The committee came up with a number of suggestions, and the one that stands out in my mind was an executive agency. I think this is a British concept, at least originally. The Coast Guard as a special agency would not be within the Department of Transport, nor would it be in any government department for all intents and purposes, although it would report to a minister who would report to Parliament, and it would get its allocations directly from Parliament.
This was not meant to be. However, in those days, back in the early 1990s, this was a very attractive option with my colleagues in terms of the calamitous situation the civil service found itself in in those days. It was not to be, as I said, and we were overcome by events. Ultimately, the decision was made, whether for expediency's sake or for fiscal reasons — and I suspect it was a bit of both — and we were merged with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, where the Coast Guard remains to this day.
Where do we go from here? Well, it is difficult to say. I still like the idea of an agency. As a citizen who is no longer in the employ of the Coast Guard or the Government of Canada, I still like the idea of an agency and the flexibility that it might provide to an operational entity, with some modifications to that entity in terms that I have already addressed with regard to a policing capability and so on.
There are other options, of course, and they can be viewed. I have touched upon them here. In the Indian subcontinent, there is a coast guard. It is an enormous coast guard, a very good coast guard, but it is within the navy. It has its own identity, its own flashings on its hulls, its own symbols, badges and so on — it is a coast guard but it reports to its navy.
There are other instances in the world — I have not talked much about this because we have a limited time — where coast guard activities or coast guard tasks are assumed directly by a country's national defence umbrella. I think, in any case, should this be up for consideration by the government or should this become a recommendation to central government, a comprehensive review of what we have — maybe not just within the Coast Guard but in the broader security sector, and I suspect this is a good deal of what this committee is engaged in — would have to take place in order to make sense of the upheaval.
Senator Atkins: Having listened to your presentation, and reading between the lines, I get the sense that you are waiting for a different kind of mandate for the Coast Guard. Is that maybe the result of the events of 9/11, and do you think the mission of the Coast Guard has changed slightly in terms of Canada's security?
Mr. Kelly: I think our collective perceptions of security have changed. We got a big wake-up call with September 11, 2001. It is not that terrorism began then; terrorism is as old as time, I am sure. However, it was a big wake-up call. For an enormous, powerful entity like the United States to have experienced a direct attack on its geography, on its people, is unheard of in this century, or in the previous century, for that matter. Yes, we are all preoccupied with this field, but at the same time, and I tried to make this clear in my opening comments, it is important for us not to lose sight of the broader dimensions of security.
I regard ocean management, as I commented towards the conclusion of my opening statements, as important as military threats. One day, we will be signatories to the Law of the Sea. One day, we will stake that claim off the coast out to 200 miles like Argentina and Brazil and Venezuela and all the other maritime states in the world are doing, or are in the process of doing. When we do that, we will inherit the responsibility of looking after it. We know the challenge that is presented in the marine environmental mode even with a 12-mile limit. Think of 200 miles off the coast. Yes, I think it is as important a security matter as military threats.
Senator Smith: I would phrase it a little differently. The question is whether or not to ``paramilitarize.'' You have pointed out that there are pros and cons — the vibes you give off, the cop versus the lifesaver. There are also economic aspects. Ideally, we would like a fully funded navy, a fully funded Coast Guard and a fully funded RCMP, but there are costs to take into consideration. Given all these factors, if we were sitting around the table and the question of whether to paramilitarize came up, which way do you lean?
Mr. Kelly: I am sitting before a committee of the Senate of Canada here, so I can be frank, I can be candid, and I can speak as a citizen.
Senator Smith: Sure you can. We can ask an expert too, which you are.
Mr. Kelly: Frankly, I think I would vote for the paramilitary role for the Coast Guard, in the sense of the capability to police and to perform law enforcement activity. We have the platform. We have significant personnel within the Coast Guard and throughout the country from police forces that can be recruited. We can train people. We are very good at training and educating people. In answer to your direct question, my direct answer would be: I think it is the direction to go in.
Senator Atkins: There is one model you have not really talked about. You have talked about India, Brazil and Argentina. What about the United States? I ask the question because I saw a piece on television just within the last week on a Coast Guard authority who is expressing concern. His area of responsibility was Florida, so he was talking about the same kind of issues we are talking about on our coast — that is, container inspections, refugees, drugs, all of those things. He was upset by the fact that the coast was so large their ability to protect it was just almost beyond their capability.
Using that example and applying it to Canada, how do you see our Coast Guard improving our ability to maintain our coasts?
Mr. Kelly: We have a very long coastline, several hundred thousand kilometres, if you include the Arctic archipelago and all the bays and inlets and so on, plus our inland waterways, the Great Lakes. We have very extensive coastlines. When one gets into this exponential area, it truly becomes mind-boggling. Remember the tin soldiers that we had at Christmastime when we were kids? You would line them up and spread them the width and length of the cushion on the sofa. By extension, if you look at the coast of this country, to say nothing of the coast of North America, and if you think in those terms, the deployment of vessels along every periodic segment, including the Arctic, is totally mind- boggling. Of course, one does not have to do that anyway. Fortunately, one does not have to look at it that way. There are other logarithms that come into place, such as aerial surveillance, satellite surveillance.
The security sector family, senator, that I talked about is made up of numerous elements. The Coast Guard itself has a Coast Guard auxillary. A very important aspect of our search and rescue capability at sea is that volunteer Coast Guard auxillary. I think it is a brilliant idea, although I do not think it is uniquely Canadian, because the Americans have one, and the British association goes back before anyone's. With the recognition of the potential players in the game that can provide or contribute to the security of a country with such a vast coastline such as Canada possesses, it is doable.
The other remark that I mentioned in my opening comments was regional cooperation, and I did that for a purpose. Even though you and I have never met before, I did this for a purpose. The regional cooperation concept I have there is that, first, the Canadian Coast Guard and the United States Coast Guard do a lot of this, particularly on the Great Lakes but also in the conduct of marine environmental exercises. These are real exercises, expensive exercises, and complicated exercises. They do not occur every month, six months or every year, but they do occur, and they occur on the Great Lakes, on the contiguous waters between our two countries, on the East Coast, Atlantic Canada and also the West Coast. They are very fruitful, because they put people in an alert frame of mind. They train people. People are out there serving on our vessels, and it puts them in that state of mind and provides them with the capacity to deal with a situation when it arises.
Getting back to where you are coming from, I do not think we can handle every kilometre of coastline or every nautical mile of coastline. That is inconceivable, at least if we are thinking in terms of the tin soldiers. However, there are ways of doing things. We can add investment in surveillance technology, including the Arctic, by the way, including the Great Lakes of Canada, and add investment in the regional stuff we already have to improve it and enhance it, and work in cooperation with other maritime authorities in the world, and particularly in our part of the world, who have something to contribute to the equation.
Senator Atkins: When you talk about the different elements, does it give you comfort where the Coast Guard fits in that scheme, or does it need some significant reform and maybe attachment to say the navy or National Defence or what have you?
Mr. Kelly: I think our entire security sector area needs revisiting. The innate definition of security is such that it constantly needs to be looked at and dealt with, never being satisfied with what you have. I am not talking about in terms of just expending monies and so forth but improving the capability and the technology and so on.
Senator Banks: Mr. Kelly in addition to telling us a number of interesting things, you have asked the largest number of questions, which is terrific.
When we have, in the past, been examining questions having to do with national security and defence, we have always been careful to say, when we are being critical, that we are talking about policy and execution, and never being critical of the people involved. I want to make sure we understand that here, too. We know that the members of the Canadian Coast Guard are dedicated people, determined to do their task.
However, previous witnesses have told us, when the question was raised about whether they ought to be given an enforcement role — in other words, to be able to guard the coast, which we understand they now apparently cannot, because they have no interdiction, no peace officer or intervention role — that there are insurmountable impediments in the way of doing that. We have heard about a long list of things, some of which are cultural and others that are contractual, that is, undertakings that have been made with respect to union undertakings. We have heard people say that members of the Coast Guard must be kept out of harm's way because of obligations that have been undertaken to them under what I understood to be labour agreements. For example, they could not specifically be directed by the captain of a ship to go after those bad people or to stop that bad thing going on over there.
You have said that the policing role — or, to use the word you used in responding to Senator Smith, the ``paramilitarization'' of the Coast Guard — is doable. How would you do it, mechanically? Would that involve the agency concept that you talked about, in order to remove it from the present regime of not just culture, but also constrictions of labour agreements and history in the past? I am asking you a double-edged question here. First, how would you do it? Second, was the concept of that separate agency something that you came up with in order to be able to change the nature of the institution?
Mr. Kelly: If I understand you correctly, Senator Banks, they are almost mutually exclusive. Whether we leave the Coast Guard where it is today, where it has been for a number of years now, my comments concerning organization structure, architecture, the house in which to put the Coast Guard, were more historical, going back to the time when I was within the Coast Guard, and the dilemma, the challenges and the pressures that the Coast Guard was facing at that time in terms of where we would go. Then we were overcome by the decision-making powers, DFO and so on.
Then there is the question of policing. I say that that is mutually exclusive, if you will. It is a separate thing. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans does have a policing role, in fisheries enforcement.
Senator Banks: It does not have to do with preventing a ship from unloading bad people, or trading guns, et cetera.
Mr. Kelly: That is true. However, it is the same domain, it is law enforcement. One of the characterizations, if you will, of the U.S. Coast Guard that differentiates it from our own Coast Guard is this very thing. The broad rubric, I think is the word, is law enforcement. They have a law enforcement capability. Apart from the fisheries enforcement side of things, we do not have that within our Coast Guard.
I was responding to Senator Smith's query when he asked this very direct question, that I do think that a policing capability, a law enforcement capability is bestowable, is doable, with regard to the Coast Guard. It takes appropriate craft, some of which the Coast Guard has.
Senator Banks: I think most Canadians would agree with that. We have about 100 fairly substantial ships, which could be put to a more versatile use than they are. This is not denigrating the work they are doing, which has to be done, but we could have an enforcement capability with about 100 more ships than we have right now, of which some are substantial ships, sea-going ships.
Do you see any impediment to saying, tomorrow afternoon, to the commanders and designers of the architecture of the Coast Guard, we now plan to recruit people to be peace officers, at the very least, and they will live on your ships?
Mr. Kelly: It might be difficult, senator, to effect that tomorrow afternoon. Realistically, and particularly in the context of government and civil service, and I say this in the most respectful tone, by the way, it does take proper planning, design work and consultation with other authorities to put it into place. However, should the Prime Minister and the House of Commons announce that, it will happen.
Senator Banks: If I am a seaman trained at the academy you have referred to, am serving on a Coast Guard ship and find out that, not tomorrow afternoon, but a year and a half from now, the Prime Minister has announced that that will happen, do I have any recourse? We have heard that is the case. You have been in that institution for 30 years. If I am a seaman, do I have the opportunity to say, ``No, you cannot do that, no, you cannot send me over there, no, you cannot make me deliver that policeman with a submachine gun next to that boat where there may be some dangerous people because my labour agreement says that you cannot make me do that?'' Does that exist?
Mr. Kelly: It is an attitude we are talking about. I think that attitude exists.
We might all be law-abiding citizens, but we might not all make great police officers.
Senator Banks: I am not talking about an attitude; I am talking about a legal constraint. Is there a legal constraint or a contractual constraint, to your knowledge, that would preclude that being done, whenever it was done?
Mr. Kelly: This is a hands-on question, getting down to the practical business of how you do something.
Senator Banks: That is exactly right.
Mr. Kelly: My response to that, and I by no means have all the answers, is that it would be like training a mariner, or an officer cadet, or bringing a recruit into the Canadian Coast Guard College and training that person as a navigational officer, as a marine engineer. It is a four-year program, fully funded by the Government of Canada. It guarantees employment to the grave. It is a great career. You really have to scrutinize the people who apply for it. Not everyone applies for it, not everyone wants to be a mariner, and not everyone wants to be a policeman.
I do not think you can force, in our society, because of our democratic nature and so on, nor would we want to, people into a mould that they do not want to be in.
Senator Banks: I agree. If the government decided, as a matter of policy, that it could be done, you do not see any impediment, legally, other than changing the cultural view of the people involved, that it could not be done? You said the policing role is doable.
Mr. Kelly: I do believe that.
Senator Banks: To devise the agency is an intriguing idea that we have not heard before. You said that that occurred during program review, which we all know meant the axeman cometh and which is exactly what happened, but it is an intriguing idea. That would mean that, whereas the Coast Guard, if it were a separate agency, might report to Parliament through a minister, it would not be necessarily of a particular ministry.
Could you tell us in a couple of sentences the rationale behind that at the time you devised it as an idea. It is an idea we have not heard before, and I find it very interesting.
Mr. Kelly: This idea came up as a result of some modest research in terms of the various architectures elsewhere, how other people did things. I did not serve on that committee, but I do remember some of the working documents. One of the attractions, as I reflect on it, for me was the flexibility it afforded. I think of a national institution, a national agency, like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is a formidable force. Yes, it is in the Solicitor General's component or department, but it has the flexibility, enshrined in the legislation and in the regulations and so on, to do its job. For the most part, I think most Canadians would agree that it is something that works quite well.
My notion — and perhaps it is not a really qualified one in the sense that I cannot give you all the data and information that you are seeking — is that my inclination was very positive towards this idea at the time because of the flexibility that it seemed to afford to the Coast Guard.
Remember that, at the time, we were beaten. We lost the maritime safety directorate, which remained in Transport Canada. They were all Coast Guard people, too; a major part of the Coast Guard stayed within Transport Canada, even though it was an operational aspect of Coast Guard. That is the ship safety regime I am speaking of here, the people who do the port state control business I referred to earlier.
Yes, we were beaten up, and this is before any mention of merging with another government department came on. That was a decision that was made higher in the government, of course, but, yes, it seemed to be a bright light.
Senator Banks: It sounds like it is worth considering.
I should like you to tell us your view as to why Canada has not yet ratified the Law of the Sea. I know a long list of advantages having to do with maintenance of fish stocks and the like, not to say natural resources and the sea bed, et cetera, and extending that even further.
Do you know why, or do you have a view or opinion as to why Canada has signed but not ratified the Law of the Sea?
Mr. Kelly: To be honest, I do not know why. I could not give you a satisfactory answer to that, apart from the humble observation that it is an enormous peace of legislation. We were very active in deliberations when they took place some years ago, which is why I think that the size of the legislation might be a factor.
The only other observation I have is that I am an East Coaster, I come from a fishing community, and the Grand Banks is a sensitive area, in terms of traditional and historical fishing grounds, not just for Canada but for the world. It has become an extremely sensitive area with other organizations competing and vying for bits and pieces of this resource as those stocks dwindle. These are just humble observations; I could not pursue it beyond that.
Senator Wiebe: I will follow along the lines of Senator Banks. In your remarks, you made the statement that the Canadian Coast Guard is regarded as one of the major Coast Guards of the world and is served by 5,000 trained and disciplined men and women. At the conclusion of your remarks, you said that granting police powers to the Coast Guard is doable. If we are to take a serious look at it, we have to look at the mechanics as well. What percentage of those 5,000 people would have to receive additional training or special training to perform the police duties that the RCMP does now in conjunction with the Coast Guard?
Mr. Kelly: I would say a small percentage, quite a small percentage. When I think of policing and policing capability, I think of boarding parties, which are usually small in makeup and in number operating in small platforms. Incidentally, those 5,000 employees of Coast Guard are not all at sea.
Senator Wiebe: I know.
Mr. Kelly: Maybe 50 per cent, to be generous, of that number would be sea-going personnel. I would say a very small percentage.
Senator Wiebe: Right now, the police go along on a Coast Guard vessel if there is a need, so there are not police on every Coast Guard vessel.
Mr. Kelly: Nor would there be.
Senator Wiebe: Our concept is that we want to make our Coast Guard vessels capable of reacting to anything they may encounter while they are out patrolling. Hence, the majority of the people on that vessel should be trained to do police work. By implication, then, if we are going to grant policing powers to our Coast Guard there must be personnel on board who are able to react to every situation that may present itself that requires some policing. Therefore, to do the job properly, as we envision it, by saying let us grant them police powers, it is my feeling that considerably more than just a few people will have to receive that kind of training.
Mr. Kelly: Perhaps more than a few people, but not a big percentage, senator, I do not think.
Let us take a fictitious example. We have a vessel with a crew of officers and men at 50. That includes the captain, navigational officers, the deckhands or the seamen, the chief engineer, marine engineering watchkeepers, marine engineering officers, oilers, wipers, non-licensed personnel engaged in the engine room, a galley staff, the stewards and so on, and other people as well. I would not envision marine engineers or galley staff in the context of people being trained for policing duties. I would say that it would be small number of specially trained people, with some modifications to vessels to equip them for policing work. Ideally, in most cases, policing could be performed on much smaller platforms than many of the Coast Guard. Think of the Louis St. Laurent — it has 45,000 horsepower. It would blow the budget of Inverness County just to turn around. It is a very expensive vessel to operate, not ideally suited for the purpose. Many of these major buoy tenders that are in the Coast Guard, similarly, all those that place and recuperate buoys are not suitable for the purpose.
What I envisage, and the coast guards I have visited where they have a policing role, is having craft that can go 40 knots. They could just speed out, with small crews that are armed and have policing training. They would know what they are doing and would do it, not the big vessels that one sees plying the coasts of Canada with the red and white hulls.
Senator Wiebe: Are you suggesting we set up a separate police force?
Mr. Kelly: Within the Coast Guard.
Senator Wiebe: Their job would be policing. They would be on shore waiting for these speedboats to whip out. Is that it?
Mr. Kelly: I am not an authority on policing vessels. I am not an authority on very much, actually. The way I envisage it, based upon my experience of having seen maritime policing or marine policing in the coast guard context, even Zodiacs can be platforms for this kind of work. It depends upon the call or the nature of the villainous act, if you will.
Senator Wiebe: If we do that, would that make our coasts safer than they are now?
Mr. Kelly: I think so.
Senator Wiebe: What would the cost be?
Mr. Kelly: I do not know, sorry to say.
Senator Smith: In answer to Senator Wiebe, you said that you did not think many people would need training. I thought you might say that the Coast Guard already perform a policing function to some extent with regard to fishing matters.
If the Coast Guard thought illegal activities were taking place with respect to a boat they spotted on the St. Lawrence, say, are they versed and trained in how to have a boarding party board that boat, at present? Do they ever do that?
Mr. Kelly: It is an interesting question. We are in a constant state of evolution on the planet. We are talking about a bit about history here with the Coast Guard merging with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Remember that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had its own much smaller fleet of vessels, including patrol vessels, before these two entities merged. They had their fisheries enforcement officers from the get-go or prior to the merger.
Now the fleet itself is an integrated fleet, consolidated under the Canadian Coast Guard. They all have the same colours and training. The fisheries enforcement officers come from another silo, if I can use the term, within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Senator Smith: If a Coast Guard captain had reason to believe that a boat was fishing in an illegal zone, say, or was doing something illegal, doing something that clearly was within the mandate of the Coast Guard, would the Coast Guard not exercise a policing function and board? What would it do? Does it not even do that?
Mr. Kelly: Are we talking about a fisheries incident or some other activity?
Senator Smith: We are talking about a captain believing that a boat that he encounters out in open water is breaking the law with regard to fishing matters — fishing where they should not be, say.
Mr. Kelly: That is the Coast Guard's role.
Senator Smith: When that happens, would the Coast Guard board the boat? What would the Coast Guard captain do? Would the captain phone his counterparts in Halifax, say, and advise them of the situation?
Mr. Kelly: They usually are action-oriented, but you can appreciate in the real day-to-day world that communication will go on between a region of the Coast Guard where the vessels are deployed and with the fisheries enforcement component or contingent that is serving on the platform of the vessel to engage this particular incident.
Senator Smith: Do they perform a boarding party function where they believe it is warranted?
Mr. Kelly: They can and do.
Senator Smith: Does that happen much?
Mr. Kelly: There is less and less, but I think it still occurs.
Senator Banks: Is the short answer to Senator Smith's question that if the crew on the red and white ship sees what they believe is an illegal activity with respect to, say, fishing but does not happen to have any DFO enforcement officers on board, the Coast Guard ship cannot do anything?
Mr. Kelly: I believe that is correct.
Senator Smith: That is pretty inefficient; is it not? You do not have to answer that. It seems inefficient to me.
Let us go back to when they restructured eight or nine years ago, or whenever it was. You seem to infer that the primary reason was financial, and maybe it was, but were there not others things there, too? Was it not a statement as to their primary role, de-emphasizing what limited guard activities they had? Was this primarily financial? It sounds to me like there were anxious moments for you people in Transport at the time that probably were not universally applauded.
Mr. Kelly: In many government departments, I think. My own view — just my view, my recollection of the time — is that the big wind in the sail at the time was a fiscal issue, for example, our bond rating in New York, and we were being threatened at every hand's turn. The company, while not going to wrack and ruin, was facing some serious fiscal challenges and ushered in the program review of the central government that affected, as I say, not just Transport Canada, where we were ensconced, but every department of the government.
Senator Smith: I do not understand why it would matter to a bond person in New York whether the Coast Guard was in Transport or DFO.
Do you not think there was much more to it than that? Maybe there was an Atlantic push that this thing be their baby or something?
Mr. Kelly: A government faced with making hard and fast decisions, such as those times reflected, looks at a large department such as Transport Canada. We had airports, harbours, ports and things we do not have anything to do with any more.
Senator Smith: What about the lighthouse keepers?
Mr. Kelly: They would be included in that group. You are causing me to reflect on the moment, so to speak. We were an easy target, in that Transport Canada had in excess of approximately 33,000 employees in those days. It was only natural that it would ``go under the knife,'' as it were. The predilection was that Transport Canada would be a regulatory agency for air, marine and surface and that all the remnants of operational entities would be hived or moved out, et cetera. So it was and so it is.
Senator Smith: My last question: Let us say that the current mandate did not change and that the status quo remained indefinitely. Do you think the name ``Coast Guard'' is misleading, in that the word ``guard'' implies a function that would equate that of our U.S. counterparts? Does it imply that there is a paramilitary or policing function that really does not exist? You identified some other names, and I wrote a few others. I rather like ``marine patrol,'' because it is a play on words. I also like ``coastal protection'' and ``coastal patrol.'' Is the name ``Coast Guard'' a bit misleading? Should that name be revisited? Is it hardly worth the effort?
Mr. Kelly: The name may be a bit misleading, but please bear in mind that even without a policing capability the Coast Guard does perform guard-like responsibilities and does provide safety services. It is within the network of security, in the broad sense, that I have been talking about it this evening.
Senator Smith: I guess there is tradition, which I also like.
The Chairman: Perhaps I could wrap up with a couple of points, Mr. Kelly. You were asked about what was involved to take on the police function that we have been talking about in respect of the Coast Guard. You would need a crew to man a machine gun that would be mounted on the deck of one of the vessels. You would need a boarding party of six to one dozen people and a Zodiac or other small craft to transport them from the Coast Guard vessel to the ship being boarded. You would need to have a command structure of, presumably, watchkeeping officers, one of whom, probably a junior, would be charged with actually leading the boarding party. It would be important for all of the watchkeeping officers charged with commanding the ship to understand the police function so that it would work.
Mr. Kelly: The orientation would be mandatory.
The Chairman: Would that describe the nature of the group of people on the vessel who would need to be retrained if the Coast Guard were to carry on a police-like function?
Mr. Kelly: That is a fairly good assessment. Again, I am not an expert in policing, but it sounds like a good outline to me. There is another thing, which I believe Senator Atkins mentioned — or perhaps it was Senator Banks. We started to get into the area of recruitment. There are many sources for recruiting individuals with the right mindset or aspiration or ambition to perform policing responsibilities. It is not everyone's cup of tea. Not everyone in the marine community would line up for this kind of activity, but there are certainly people who have the right attitude and the desire to perform these kinds of functions.
Perhaps we are getting into a level of detail that should be preserved for others to examine. When we talk about recruitment, remember that we have a constabulary force in Canada that is enormous. Consider the RCMP and the police forces in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg. They recruit police officers, and they even recruit some people for marine policing duties in harbour and estuaries, as you know. The RCMP does that as well.
Historically, the RCMP had lovely patrol craft in most of the harbours throughout the country, but another decision was made and another transformation occurred. That was a long time ago, senator, but it was quite an entity. Recruitment does not have to begin and end within the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard recruits new personnel for its vessels and shore stations from the broader Canadian populace. I do not think it would be any different in terms of getting the right people for the job of policing.
The Chairman: We have been led to believe that it would be a significant cultural change for the Coast Guard, as it currently exists. Perhaps you could comment on that. The question was put to you earlier in the context of the following: If tomorrow you had to have a Coast Guard vessel perform police functions, what would happen? What would it be like? The question was intended to be: What would the reaction from the seagoing component of the Coast Guard be when it learned that, in the coming days, months or years, they would be required to perform police functions? Your response, thus far, has been about recruiting new people who had more interest in policing and the desire to combine policing with a maritime experience. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that a great many people who are in the Coast Guard right now would end up being involved in this policing experience. Would we hear many more grievances if this were to become a reality? Would we see crews out on strike because they would not want this kind of work? What sort of reaction would there be? Would some people think that it was great and they should have been it all along? Would they wonder why someone else has always had to come in when they could have done it themselves? Or would some say, ``Whoa, we did not sign up for this''?
Mr. Kelly: I think there would be a mixed reaction — a bit of both. Whenever there is an attempt to effect change, it is the Canadian tradition to let people down gently. We orient, consult with and educate them. These are changing times, folks. This is post-September 11 and, yes, I think it is important that we invest the time, energy and the conscientiousness in the people who are already serving in our Coast Guard, for example, in respect of a new direction, should that come about.
The Chairman: Concerning the Department of Transport, you mentioned that it should become a policy department and that its role should be to develop proper policies for air transportation, ground transportation and marine transportation. You also underlined that the marine inspection portion of the Coast Guard did not go and that it is an operational function. Why did that stay with Transport Canada?
Mr. Kelly: I do not know. I think it was a midsummer afternoon — hot and sweaty or whatever — but it is at the back of my mind, and other colleagues of mine too, because up to that point we just assumed that the marine safety directorate, which included the ship inspection regime — which is obviously an operational thing, you go aboard ships and inspect compliance to national and international standards and so on — was coming with the Coast Guard and we were going with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but that did not happen.
The Chairman: These guys would be good at getting into difficult spots in a ship, checking places that members of this committee might not want to wander around in.
Mr. Kelly: I did not catch that.
The Chairman: The members of the marine inspection unit would be very good at getting around the tight parts of a ship, the difficult parts of a ship.
Mr. Kelly: Yes.
The Chairman: If you had to pick someone to find contraband on a ship, would the marine inspection people be good people at finding that?
Mr. Kelly: I think a marine engineer would be the best choice. A marine engineer knows the architecture of the ship, knows ship construction and hidden recesses. When we were involved in Haiti — the Canadian Coast Guard in cooperation with the American Coast Guard — we helped build the Haitian Coast Guard after the overthrow of the junta and the return of President Aristide. I remember one of our Coast Guard officers, an engineering officer, was down there performing a training function in French to a francophone community — getting these guys alongside, these new recruits in the Haitian Coast Guard, with regard to small engine and boat repair and that kind of thing — and there was a bust. Now the U.S. Coast Guard, of course, are into this sort of thing all the time, and they were the interceptor and my friend was aboard the vessel. When they went aboard, it was this fellow, this Canadian Coast Guard marine engineering officer, who found the recess where all the cocaine was, so they decorated him in Washington.
The Chairman: Would I be putting words in your mouth if I said that the marine inspection unit still fits with the Coast Guard and, from an organizational point of view, you see some logic in that rejoining the Coast Guard?
Mr. Kelly: Well, I am outside of it all now, but I could never understand why it occurred in the first place. Legislation had been enacted in order to accommodate these changes that we have been discussing here. However, yes, I regard it as a part of the Coast Guard. I regarded it as a part of the Coast Guard then and I still do.
The Chairman: Is that because it has a special fit?
Mr. Kelly: Because it is made up of mariners and licensed personnel. If you go into Transport Canada's marine safety, you will discover many of these people are graduates of the Coast Guard college that we talked about earlier, have served on Coast Guard vessels — not all, some of them have come from the commercial navigation stream. However, it seemed to be a fit to me prior to these changes that we have been talking about.
The Chairman: Are there other functions that would be a good fit with the Coast Guard? If you were looking at port security, if you were looking at the security of harbours, are there functions that have either disappeared — port police, for example — or gone to other agencies that you could see in a new and revitalized Coast Guard?
Mr. Kelly: I did mention in my initial comments the potential for moving into other program areas where it begs cooperation. The navy will not do everything — the Coast Guard will not do everything either, by the way — and I did mention port management and port security. Environmental protection is an enormous field. When we talk as Canadians about Canada, we are talking about an enormous field, almost unimaginable given the length of our coastline.
There are other areas. The capability of responding to national disasters — just as an ordinary citizen, this is a question I ponder from time to time. What is our capability? We see on the newscasts, almost on a regular basis, such and such a place — a hurricane or volcano erupting or major oil disaster and so on — and how would we deal with that? How would we do it? Are we able? Are we up and at the ready? Could we really effectively deal with containment, with rescue and a major disaster such as that? That is an area that I feel engages everyone involved in the security business.
If a country has invested sufficiently and is conscious enough to plan ahead, it will be up and at the ready; but if it is asleep at the wheel, perhaps a lot of unnecessary casualties and destruction will occur.
The Chairman: Are Coast Guard assets underutilized?
Mr. Kelly: I have been away from the Coast Guard now a couple of years. I have been retired, but I still talk to Coast Guard people from time to time. One of the very serious comments I hear is the lack of resources to do the job they are supposed to do anyway. What do we mean by that? We talk about 100 vessels. It is easy to glibly drop the name of 100 in terms of these units. To maintain vessels, especially in the climate that we live in, in the northern latitudes with very harsh winters and so on, to maintain vessels, they have to be refit according to a schedule of events. The resources have to be there in order to see that that happens. You can delay it. It is like delaying the work on the automobile in the driveway. You can put it off for a while, but then you put yourself at risk, if you are not dealing with it. So not to avoid the question, more to deal with it in a more comfortable level in an area that I think needs address, perhaps the Coast Guard is underfunded to maintain, to operate — to say nothing of taking on any new responsibilities — what it has.
It is an aging fleet. It is an excellent fleet in terms of the condition of the vessels and the resources that are available to maintain that condition. However, to my knowledge, apart from the Class-1000 vessels, there is no planning for replacement for vessels. I am not talking about 25-foot boats; I am talking about vessels. There are no plans afoot. This is a significant issue with people who serve in the Coast Guard of course.
While we are on the subject, I suppose if we look at the broader gamut of the marine industry in Canada, where are the shipyards that would do this work? We have the Halifax shipyard still operating, still quite capable, still active, taking on contracts and so on. We have a formidable shipyard in the Saint John dry dock, in mothballs essentially. After the frigate program, there were dribs and drabs. Shipyards do not just come into being at the flick of a switch, nor do the crafts and the skills that are necessary to operate them.
That is not answering your question.
The Chairman: I could rephrase my question for you, sir. When a Coast Guard vessel is underway and on patrol, is it underutilized?
Mr. Kelly: The Coast Guard is a multi-tasked service. This is a decision that was made quite a number of years ago following the Osbaldeston study and report. I worked on the Coast Guard committee of that study. That was a determination that was made, and I think a wise determination inasmuch as it can be managed and manoeuvred in a practical sense, and so it is. To my knowledge, the Coast Guard fleet is a multi-tasked fleet. It has the icebreaker. The Louis St. Laurent does things other than breaking ice. The Louis St. Laurent has an incredible capability, by the way, in performing all kinds of missions and platforms, except that it is very large and is expensive to operate, but nonetheless it does have that capability. It is quite able.
The Chairman: Mr. Kelly, on behalf of the committee, I thank you very much for appearing before us. You have brought a very interesting and refreshing perspective. I think your experience has equipped you very well to assist news our studies.
Next week, we will be hearing from officials from Transport Canada and Captain John Dewar about cutters. We welcome comments and inquiries from members of the public. You may visit our Web site by going to www.sen-sec.ca. We post witness testimony as well as confirmed hearing schedules. Otherwise, you may contact the clerk of the committee by calling 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting members of the committee.
This meeting is now adjourned, and we will continue in the adjacent room in camera.
The committee continued in camera.