Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue No. 26 - Evidence - March 22, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 22, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day in public at 8:38 a.m. to study Maritime Search and Rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities; and in camera, for the consideration of a draft budget.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good morning. My name is Fabian Manning, a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador, and I am pleased to chair this meeting this morning.
Before I give the floor to our witness, I would invite the members of the committee to introduce themselves but I would like to first take the opportunity to welcome our newest member of the committee, Senator Mary Coyle from Nova Scotia, who will be a permanent member of our committee.
Senator Gold: Marc Gold, Quebec.
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine, British Columbia.
Senator Poirier: Rose-May Poirier, New Brunswick.
Senator McInnis: Thomas McInnis, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. There may be others joining us shortly.
The committee is continuing its study on maritime search and rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities. This morning, we are pleased to welcome Brian Cook, Vice President, Canadian Lifeboat Institution.
On behalf of the members of the committee, I thank you for become here today. I understand you have opening remarks, and following the presentation, members of the committee will have questions for you.
Brian Cook, Vice President, Canadian Lifeboat Institution: I went on a bit in my paper so I won’t be able to speak to everything, but I hope you have a chance to read it as I think this is an issue that provokes great passion and concern with you, Senator Manning.
I think I can speak for my people in that, although we are a voluntary private organization, our people are very passionate about becoming skilled in being able to conduct search and rescue at sea and assist people in distress.
With your permission, I will start with reading but there is far too much so I will mention where I am speaking if I switch paragraphs.
The Canadian Lifeboat Institution is a small, federally registered charity comprised entirely of volunteers and founded in 1981 as a search and rescue organization dedicated to promoting marine safety and assisting mariners in distress.
Our primary area of operations is in the Lower Fraser River and the southern Strait of Georgia, known as the Salish Sea by many West Coasters. In the fishing village of Steveston, we have the Fraser Lifeboat, an ex-Tyne class offshore lifeboat, which we purchased from the RNLI in England a few years ago.
Across the river in Ladner, another fishing community of old, we have the Delta Lifeboat, formerly called the Steveston. She’s very familiar to mariners on the West Coast over the last 30 years and is owned by one of our long-time members, who has conducted hundreds of rescues at sea, and is leased to CLI.
Over the past 35 years, CLI has been involved in many hundreds of rescues and assists to fishing vessels, commercial craft such as tugs and barges and, increasingly, to pleasure craft. I believe our successful experience and some of our lessons learned can be of interest and value to committees such as yours, which are concerned with the complex and compelling task of ensuring a sufficient and effective marine search and rescue architecture on the West Coast as on the East Coast, the Great Lakes and in the North, of course.
To a certain extent, CLI can represent a non-governmental volunteer component and provide details about the challenges and opportunities of working with such entities as the Canadian Coast Guard and the former Coast Guard Auxiliary which, in B.C., is now called the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue. I understand you visited their facility in Sooke.
Our crew members include retired naval personnel, coastal tug masters, retired fishermen, boaters, diesel and other heavy equipment engine engineers — who are very important when you’re running older vessels that require a lot of care — and some pilots, actually, who have been involved in air search and rescue and bring interesting skills to our group.
Then we have specific people, such as nurses, to ensure that our first aid training is up to scratch, plus people who have no knowledge of going to sea; we do want to bring in younger people and people new to the environment, and we do a lot of our own internal training.
Just to place us in a larger context, we are an associate member of the International Maritime Rescue Federation, the world body under the United Nations’ auspices for dealing with issues of search and rescue safety at sea. One of our members, who is European but has lived in Canada for many years, attended two of their mass casualty exercises that are conducted pretty well every year somewhere in Europe. Europe is the centre of highly skilled and very experienced search and rescue organizations, many of which are non-governmental. They’re societies.
We’re also active with the Marine Emergency Response Coordination Committee, MERCC, which is co-chaired by the Canadian Coast Guard and the Port of Vancouver operations centre. I think it is a very worthwhile effort, only under way for about four years, to try to bring all possible players — federal, provincial, municipal and volunteers such as us — together so we at least get to talk to each other.
We exchange views, we do some specialized training and we do exercises. I think the idea is to be able to have some basis, even if it’s rudimentary, so that if there is ever a major emergency such as an earthquake or a mass casualty, particularly in the Vancouver area, all the players can be contacted, called out and participate.
For us, as a volunteer organization, it’s important that we are able to participate in these groups because it gives our people a sense of doing something valuable but we also learn each others’ languages. The marine language can be specialized, and I hope I don’t use too many acronyms or anything today.
But before you can actually work together, you have to at least know who the other players are and I find organizations like that are very useful. If you have an opportunity to call of one of those people as a witness, I think it would give you an interesting perspective on some of the very large coordination efforts on the West Coast within the crowded waterways from Victoria up to Vancouver, and even in the Strait of Georgia.
I understand next week you have a witness from the Fish Safe river safety committee. It’s a component of WorkSafe B.C., which was Workers Compensation, and they have been active in dealing with the issues of safety among fishermen.
Senator, being from Newfoundland, I think you know fishermen can be a very independent and opinionated lot. One of the concerns we’ve had is that they’ve been around forever but partly that means some of the newer lessons may not have been learned.
I think organizations like Fish Safe, because they come from fishermen, they understand fishermen and they are trying to bring that dangerous business into a healthier situation where people will police themselves. They will wear their protective gear and take lessons in how to load their vessels properly, so we’re pleased to be part of that group, as well.
If I can refer you to paragraph 9, it’s a follow-up from CLI activity in the Fraser River and the Strait of Georgia. We’ve carved out a niche over the last 35 years. Although in the early years of our growth, we did do on-call kinds of responses. Coast Guard radio would call us in the middle of the night but because our people are drawn from all over the Vancouver area, we cannot do the on-call 50 minutes to the boat flash up and go. That’s what the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue organization does in B.C. and what the Coast Guard Auxiliary does in other parts of the country.
We have planned our times at sea and from experience those plans often include acting as a patrol and safety boat during large fisheries, particularly in the Lower Fraser River, where every four years there is a major sockeye run that’s coming up this summer. My experience is the one in 2014 where, in a period of seven or eight weeks, our two boats were out day after day, and often long days of 12 to 16 hours.
One of the things we ended up doing was patrolling to provide a safety backup to the fishermen, many of whom had not been on the water for many months. Some boats were somewhat suspect and some of their people were new to the industry, so there were a fair number of accidents. We were there for that.
Our other function, which we developed a lot in 2014 and expect to happen again, is we would often lead through commercial craft, like tugs and barges, rail ferries and deep sea ships coming in, upriver and downriver, all the way to New Westminster. We would proceed them at a distance and try to get the fishermen to part the waters.
The Fraser is a busy, fast and dangerous river and when the fishermen are there, their nets almost completely block the navigable channel of the river.
These fisheries are very fast openings and closings. The fishermen are compelled to work as quickly as they can, which means they sometimes don’t look up when this big bow is getting closer and closer. We found we had a useful function in running ahead of the deep seas, going up to fishermen and saying, “You have a few minutes to pull your nets,” and then standing by if there were close quarter situations, and there were a few.
The result is we worked more with the Coast Guard, the marine emergencies committee in giving everyone a clear sense of how complex the river can be. Consequently, I think this year and next year, you will find the coordination of activities in the Fraser during mass events will be even more productive than it has been in the past.
We also work with other large groups, such as yacht races. The weather can be lively in the Strait of Georgia, particularly in the swing seasons, and there is great opportunity for people to get themselves into trouble. Perhaps I could tell you about a couple of the constraints we have. We are small, we’re volunteer and to a certain extent, we’re an aging group, like many volunteer groups. One of our constraints is trying to get younger people in. We’re approaching marine colleges. I was in the navy so I go to my local Naval Reserve unit to encourage people to join us as well. Fundraising is a big concern for us. I won’t whine about them here but I put down a couple of our concerns in that regard.
We have an active file concerning import duties we had on our boat that brought from England. It’s unresolved and has been going on for a while. However, we are able to raise sufficient funds to get out on the water a lot, and I think our role fills a niche that is valuable to the Coast Guard, in that we can be eyes on the water, not just on call outs when somebody is in extremis but when there are large activities occurring. We often call in events to Coast Guard and then are tasked because we’re eyes on the water, and we find that’s a valuable niche for us. We’re not competing with other Coast Guard entities, of which there are not enough in my view, but we can complement those activities and be available if and when there is a requirement for a mass call out.
We’re always looking at how to improve our training. Any way that we can be trained with and by a federal entity, such as the Coast Guard, is good for us and for them. They get to know us. We get quality training. Your Coast Guard on the West Coast is a first class group of people. They are hard working, they are smart and they’ve been good to us. They’ve drawn us into the fold, the team and make training available. More of that is valuable to our people, who are volunteers and are already devoting a lot of time. We can’t afford to train them in very demanding courses.
We do first aid and basic courses like that, but any time we can take training from the Coast Guard or with the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, it is valuable to us. I will leave it there, if I may, and answer any questions you have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cook. We’re going to go to our deputy chair, Senator Gold, for the first questions.
Senator Gold: Thank you, Mr. Cook, for being here. It was very interesting.
You participated, in April 2017, in the annual Port of Vancouver major incident response exercise. And on your website, you indicate this exercise was of great value to the crews because you were able to test your equipment and refine your procedures. Could you expand on the lessons you learned from that type of exercise, and particularly whether you think the capacity of the search and rescue teams and systems on the West Coast are adequate to respond to a large scale incident?
Mr. Cook: The first lesson you always learn in one of these events is the primacy of communications, meaning how communications can be fouled up. That’s always a good one. The more we talk and use the same radio procedures, try to use the same radios, know what the controlling authorities are. There are a variety of entities in the Vancouver mainland area. They don’t always run on the same radio frequencies. We only see each other sometimes two or three times a year.
That’s the biggest lesson, the more you can do together the more effective you will be when there is a real demand on your services. We always learn new procedures, everything from how to recover people in the water to transferring injured people from one kind of craft to another. We’ve worked with the big hovercraft on occasion, transferring people we picked up or taken out of smaller boats and transferred to them. It’s those kinds of situations, the complexity of the harbour, the whole port complex of Vancouver, which isn’t just Vancouver harbour. It’s the coal complex down near White Rock and even into the Gulf Islands where there are anchorages. It’s a busy place.
There was a big mass casualty exercise in the fall involving a B.C. ferry. We weren’t able to get to that one, but a lot of the smaller outfits were there. Those teach you a lot of lessons about command and control, how to respond and work within a larger picture where there is always a fog of war. You only know 70 or 80 per cent of what’s going on, you have to ask the right questions, listen carefully and position yourself where you can be of some use.
I don’t believe, and I think many of my colleagues don’t believe there are the resources on the West Coast, yet. That’s not just in the Vancouver area, which is very demanding but, of course, mid-province if and when there’s more deep sea traffic coming out of Prince Rupert. Several aspects of the West Coast marine environment are hugely demanding. The weather can be very disruptive. Senator, you know that about Newfoundland, but I would say the north coast of Vancouver Island, Hecate Strait and the west coast of Haida Gwaii can be demanding as well.
There is increasing traffic, a lot more pleasure craft and also a lot more commercial activity in the lower mainland. If we don’t have the actual resources, making sure that the available resources are well coordinated and can talk to each other I think is a very good first step to try and maximize capability and close some of the gaps that I think are apparent.
Senator Gold: I will go on second round to give my colleagues a chance.
Senator Poirier: Mr. Cook, thank you for the presentation and for being here.
From what you have told us and from what I see, your organization is roughly made up of about 30 volunteers and like most organizations, you mention there are challenges in recruitment and retention and in the importance of getting the youth involved to be able to carry on. That’s a challenge we hear from different groups out there.
In contrast to a lot of other voluntary maritime SARs organizations, what’s different about yours is you don’t depend on any government funding whatsoever, from what I can see. You described that you’re doing fundraising and different things and I can just assume the costs of having an organization like yours. You’re looking at training. Do you have your own equipment? If yes, obviously you have maintenance and operational costs, insurance for the volunteers, I would imagine. And I’m just naming a few.
I’m asking if you can share the type of fundraising you are doing, what challenges you are facing. It is a contrast to a lot who we have heard from and talked to where they depend on some type of government funding, federally provincially or locally. So if you can share that, it would be great.
Mr. Cook: Over the last three or four years, we’ve had to expand our activities. We’re like the little engine that could, in a way.
For many years, we were a small society dedicated to supporting one boat or maybe two boats which belonged to our members. In 2013, we bought this very impressive retiring offshore lifeboat from the RNLI in the U.K., so now we have to buy our own boat, do the maintenance and upgrade and train to it. So that compelled our fundraising to be more imaginative. It’s still not as coordinated. We’re looking for someone who really knows fundraising and those are valuable qualities. We think we have a couple of people who might assist but a lot of what we do is personal contacts. Some of our senior members know people in the marine community, tug companies, stevedoring companies and import-export.
We get some funds from them, but it’s usually after an event and it’s simply paying for our fuel. So we just ask them for a donation, and it doesn’t cover our actual costs.
For the last four years, as with many other search and rescue organizations in B.C., we apply to lottery and gaming, so all B.C. citizens are supporting us, in a way, with that grant. That has helped us buy new equipment, to a certain extent. They have a component of their granting that is for specified equipment.
We all contribute vast amounts of time, which can translate into a dollar amount and is then used for us to go out to organizations and say, “Our people are contributing X number of hours, say at an hourly cost.”
We get some money from some service clubs. We will go and make a presentation, particularly if some of them are boaters and we have an in there: army, navy and air force organizations, as well as legions. You can usually ask for an annual grant at a legion. It’s not a great deal of money, but it helps us with our specified projects.
All in all, it means we have to prioritize our repairs, purchases and upgrades for better equipment.
I will say we’re proud of ourselves. We bought this boat from England, and we had a nine-year period to pay it off. Through our own efforts, we paid it off in three and a half years, which meant we could turn funds to repairs and maintenance. Fortunately, we get a considerable financial benefit from our own members who are good mechanics. They’re worth their weight in gold. We can do a lot of first- and second-line maintenance and repairs. Many times I’ve thrown something in my trunk and taken it to a repair facility simply to keep our costs down. We can’t go running to ship yards every time we have issues.
It’s a variety of fundraising efforts. I don’t believe we’re working as well as we should yet. We try to regularize what we do and reach out to any organization with an interest in search and rescue. Of course, every other search and rescue organization is making appeals to them as well.
Senator Poirier: When you say CLI is not dependent on government funding, is it that you’ve never applied, or you applied and—
Mr. Cook: No, we never applied. We took the model from RNLI in England, which, for 200 years — it grew out of fishermen and villagers helping themselves, rowing out to vessels in distress. Gradually, it grew into a national organization, and now it’s a huge corporation. We have people who visited them. We buy their boats on occasion. We’ve taken them as a model for our fundraising.
Some of our people have been in at the inception of the Coast Guard Auxiliary in B.C., which only started in the early 1980s. Until then, there had been nothing like that as an assist to the Coast Guard. Our people found once you get into an organization with those types of constraints, you may end up having to meet financial, administrative or other demands that you just don’t have the resources to meet. We always decided we would be our own boss as much as possible, but always trying to integrate, at least at a working level, with other entities.
Senator Poirier: Congratulations, because it looks like you guys are doing a good job.
Mr. Cook: I think we are right now, particularly in our reaching out to other groups like the Coast Guard, Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, and federal entities.
Senator Poirier: We’re doing a study and the committee will be writing a report. We will be sending recommendations. Which recommendations do you believe are crucial and absolutely needed that you recommend be in the report to improve marine search and rescue?
Mr. Cook: As I said, I believe the Coast Guard on the west coast is an impressive entity — and RCSR. If you want to do evidence-based planning, if you get it from groups like that— where are the major sources of instance, who is involved — it can allow targeting for educational campaigns, navy enforcement campaigns and equipment purchases. I believe the Coast Guard has not received the kinds of resources on occasion they could use on the West Coast.
My recommendation would be to grill them but listen to them as real experts in the field. If they say they need a particular type of craft or equipment, I would say, “There is the evidence,” which can be checked out easily enough. You can compare with other coast guards, U.S. or the RNLI, to see what is necessary for this marine environment.
I don’t think those issues can be solved by centralized planning. They should be localized or listened to from where the events are happening. That would be my recommendation.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
Senator McInnis: Thank you for coming.
Just apropos of your answer, I’m not sure Transport Canada gives enough attention to the Coast Guard. We’ve heard that at a couple of hearings. I don’t remember when they took over the Coast Guard, but it’s just not given the importance. Perhaps that’s something we should mention in our report.
In any event, it’s wonderful work you do, but would you distinguish for me your organization from that of the search and rescue auxiliary? Are you event-driven? Are your boats on the water on a daily basis?
Mr. Cook: No.
Senator McInnis: Would you just distinguish that for me?
Mr. Cook: Yes, thank you. Our roots were in the Coast Guard Auxiliary back in the 1980s. A couple of our people had been involved in the development at that time. It was user-driven; a man, person or family had a boat. They would be qualified by the Coast Guard, however that used to be. They would have a certain amount of equipment installed, and then they would be subject to on-calls.
We did that for several years, until our population base spread all over the Lower Mainland. We found we couldn’t be an on-call organization. We also found we developed a niche, and that niche was based originally around the fishing industry. When there were major fisheries on, we would be out. That’s still the case, and it will be this August, September and October, if the sockeye come back.
So there were those events.
Because some of our people were avid sailors, we’ve often acted as safety boats for sailing races. The next will be in two weeks.
We’re often event-driven, but we also do patrols. If there’s a major event on the water in Vancouver, we’ll be out waiting for the inevitable calls for assistance. We try to plan six months in advance for our training, either general or specialized training.
For instance, today, we are getting our annual training from Transport Canada about boating safety. We will be able to provide volunteer boating safety checks to pleasure boaters. We think that’s an important part of education. Many boaters are not well equipped or don’t know what resources they should have on the water. That’s an important activity. We’re trying to get more into that — not just events and individual patrols at sea, but various kinds of marine safety through other organizations or actual events like going to a marina on a Saturday and asking the boaters if they’d like their boats to be checked for safety equipment. It’s a combination of those events.
We’re definitely not on call. Our niche has been planned events when there might not be any Coast Guard presence immediately. They know the event is happening; we always check in with Coast Guard radio when we’re out doing something, and we keep them updated when there’s an event on. And we’re their eyes and ears if something should occurred.
It’s that kind of activity.
Senator McInnis: I took it from your answer to Senator Poirier that the idea of this came from the U.K.?
Mr. Cook: Some of our people, yes, grew up in the harbour where the RNLI is centralized. We take some of our modelling from the RNLI, yes.
Senator McInnis: But it hasn’t caught on on the East Coast?
Mr. Cook: No, it’s Coast Guard Auxiliary. I don’t know how the RCM-SAR started because they did change nature. I’m sure you gathered that. They’re not auxiliary with people with their own boats. These are all fast, rigid-hauled inflatables. They’re on call 24/7. A different population group. Younger people are in that group. It’s not owners of boats anymore. But everywhere else in the country, I understand the Coast Guard Auxiliary is still based on owners affiliated with the Coast Guard.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much, Mr. Cook, for being here and for giving us a good understanding of a small but very important organization because you do look and see where the events are happening, where they need this extra support. There’s no way you could have staff up for that on an year-round basis.
Mr. Cook: No.
Senator Raine: It’s like you can’t build a cathedral for Easter Sunday.
Mr. Cook: Exactly.
Senator Raine: So I totally appreciate what you’re doing. In reading your report, which you didn’t go into detail on, I was astonished and very distressed to see that you are being treated very badly by the Treasury Board on classifying your boat that you have gone to so much trouble to raise the money to purchase. You’re having to pay duties on it at a rate higher than pleasure crafts. Can you explain that, and how can we do something to change that?
Mr. Cook: Thank you, senator. You never want to provoke Treasury Board. I was in the Navy a long time. So you never want to do that. I had just joined the outfit when we bought the British boat. We used brokers. We brought it in. We thought it was all organized. A year later, our organization was subject to one of these assessments by CBSA, an import duty. I don’t think we’re being treated badly. I think we’re being treated as any other importer. But I think our situation is one where we’re still hoping to bring it through our MP back up to the ministers for a discretionary decision, perhaps, based on administrative fairness or equity, really— the equity principle— in that we are a volunteer organization. We don’t bring these boats in for pleasure. Well, we have a lot of fun at sea, but we don’t bring them in for pleasure. These are boats we know are capable of doing a job that assists the Coast Guard and the government. We were shocked to find that we were not only subject to a duty that any big yacht owner would pay but three times the duty, based on what I believe is quite an old regulation dealing with lifeboats.
The nature of lifeboats has changed. We all saw the movies in World War II. Lifeboats were open boats, and people rowed or had a little outboard. Well, they’re very sophisticated vessels now, and they’re often purpose-built, like the one we got from the RNLI. This boat is old. We knew it would have maintenance and other issues. That’s where we were putting our budget. As soon as we get it, we had it in for a refit and update. Then, within the year, we had to divert monies we only just had in order to pay off this import duty, which was three times the amount that a yacht owner would pay. That I just do not understand. That’s why we’re going to be taking it forward, again through our MP. We went through the process. It more or less drifted away, so we have to make another effort.
I’m glad you read that, senator, because it was a concern to us.
Senator Raine: We’re talking an import duty of 25 per cent of $3.5 million.
Mr. Cook: No. The boat cost us $64,000. We had hoped for no duty because we made the case we are a volunteer organization. We raise all our own funds. We are not driving pleasure boats around the water. So we thought for a 0. Then, we hoped for 8 or 9 per cent, which would be any other private boat, but we got hit with a 27 per cent duty, based on a definition of a lifeboat in the regulations that we think is very old and outdated.
Senator Raine: So because it’s not an open lifeboat, it gets classed as a luxury liner?
Mr. Cook: I don’t know what classification it fell under. In fact, I think some of the documents said it fell under a catchall kind of description that would even be things such as small warships and so on.
Anyway, thank you for bringing it up. It is an ongoing concern because the funds we had to divert from that are still funds we need for our repairs, maintenance and upgrades of the boats. We hope to prevail eventually, but we’re not sure.
Senator Raine: I’m sure you’re going to submit something soon. Could you send us a copy, and perhaps we could make a recommendation to support your application?
Mr. Cook: Yes, thank you.
Senator Raine: Because you’re right; it doesn’t make sense. I’m sure any person with commonsense would say, “Here you are, totally volunteer, raising the money from charity, as a charity, and having to pay an amount that we’re saving the taxpayers of Canada on the whole operation.”
Mr. Cook: Well, we certainly virtuously think we are. So that’s why we’re hoping we can have a change in that regard. I think, there, we’d be speaking for any volunteer organization. If there are any ways they can be exempted from commercial kinds of payments, where possible, it translates immediately into a more effective organization.
The Chair: This fee, is that a one-time?
Mr. Cook: It was a one-time, yes.
The Chair: A one-time fee. Okay. I just wanted to be clear.
Senator Coyle: Thank you so much for your presentation but also for the important work you’re doing. Most of my career has been in the non-profit sector, and I’ve been very much associated with a variety of charities. I really appreciate what you’re going through and what you’re contributing.
Just on that last point, before I get to my main question, we have a committee of the Senate looking at charities right now, do we not? Not to say that this shouldn’t be dealt with more expeditiously than that, but it’s another little aspect because, meeting with people like you, we learn about different aspects of our charities and the needs that our charities have that are distinct from other sectors in Canada. So thank you for bringing that to our attention and to Senator Raine for putting the emphasis on that.
My question is about your sustainability as an organization. You’ve raised it yourself. Senator Poirier also mentioned the common issues that charities have across Canada, both with fundraising and the need there is for personnel with that expertise but also just replenishing your volunteer base for the main purpose of your organization.
You operate in a part of our country where there is a very large concentration of Indigenous peoples and a growing young population, particularly, in that population.
I’m just curious. Have you had any luck in reaching out and recruiting people from the Indigenous community who are engaged in fishing and are on the waters there and, in particular, some of that younger generation?
Mr. Cook: Thank you for that question. I didn’t include it. Yes, we have had members from two of the local bands, and we also work with them as part of our work with fisheries. Often these major fisheries have divisions within them. There’s the Aboriginal food fishery. There are two or three other components of that and then the major commercial operations. We’re often out patrolling when the Aboriginal food fishery is on. We have a couple of friends who are on their fisheries protection boats. So they often come alongside, and we exchange our experiences for the day.
So, yes, some members have been Aboriginal. No, we haven’t reached out well enough to the young people. We found that one of our challenges across the board is reaching out to younger people. That’s why I, with my Navy background, look at potentially Navy or young Coast Guard people or the marine colleges, where there are many young people undergoing training. They are two- or three-year courses.
We can provide them a practicum where they can get plate time and hopefully we have the capability of signing off some of their sea requirements, which would be a useful quid pro quo for us to get younger people as well.
Senator Coyle: Just as you have from your Navy background brought on folks who would be able to relate to you and your background, I’m sure that’s a strategy you’re using with your other members, including those few people you’ve mentioned who are in the Indigenous community. They would be the logical links so the young people or middle-aged people would see themselves there. Right?
Mr. Cook: Absolutely. There’s a value to us doing it. I believe — and mainly from what I’ve read — that it’s the mid-coast where some of the Coast Guard initiatives will be now with some of the Indigenous communities. They were the people who turned out when the Queen of the Northwent down. They were there within an hour in the dark of the night. They’re a great resource. I believe the Oceans Protection Plan will increase the amount of emphasis on that part of the coast where there are many very skilled seamen who could be involved in search and rescue, given basic amounts of equipment and training.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much.
The Chair: I believe Senator Raine has a supplementary to that question?
Senator Raine: Yes. We heard during our visit to British Columbia that because the Canadian Coast Guard College is located on the Atlantic coast it isn’t really serving the needs in an efficient way of providing some of the training that could happen with groups like yours and reaching out to First Nations and the expansion of their capacity.
Would you see the need for some form of training facility on the West Coast? Would that help?
Mr. Cook: Selfishly I would say absolutely because maybe groups such as ours could also participate. The simulation training is a proven skill. Navigation simulation or even just handling of boats kind of simulation. It doesn’t take a big facility to have a good simulator now. It could be a couple of boats. That kind of training facility would be very useful. It would become a centre of excellence.
Senator Raine: And then you can see that your two boats, which are unique in their own way, could provide actual hands-on experience for young people or people entering into the maritime SAR?
Mr. Cook: As it stands now, we do to some extent with one of our boats — it has not bad accommodations — take out groups whenever we can. We make ourselves available. The power squadrons are often teaching their people navigation. That’s a very good group that engages many civilian boaters. They offer good courses. We can be an at-sea platform.
My colleague who owned the other boat has worked with the marine colleges in past years, taking out groups of students for 24 or 48 hours and running them through basic seamanship training. Our boats are useful platforms for that and gives us a sense of being plugged into the training and marine community.
And that’s one of my other recommendations. There are many different entities. With more coordination, there could be more bang for the buck because there are some facilities out there, Senator Raine. There are simulators and fire-fighting schools, for example. These could be used for a wider audience. Many of the resources are there already but they could be expanded.
Senator Gold: That really was a wonderful segue to my question, because in your remarks, your text and in our discussion, you’ve alluded to the importance of collaboration. As my colleagues have pointed out and as we’ve heard, we are under-resourced in terms of the Coast Guard for a number of reasons and our geography is such that even if we had more resources we would always be challenged to prioritize the deployment of those assets.
In order to enhance collaboration and joint training so we deploy our assets in the most effective and efficient way, what recommendation would you recommend we make to take the different pieces and create a framework within which we could really do a far better job on the West Coast in bringing your groups, the Coast Guard and others together to take a quantum leap forward in the important coordinated effort to save lives at sea?
Mr. Cook: My recommendation would be getting the existing leadership of these organizations for a purposeful discussion. They could provide numerous, very practical ways of improving that coordination. That’s what they’re all trying to do, but if they were then challenged to give us a plan or give us the constraints and the challenges and then we can build a plan, I think I would start with the people on the ground and ask them specifically how better to coordinate, to communicate, and you would get a wealth of very doable kinds of procedures.
Senator Gold: We can make a recommendation but a recommendation has to be acted upon. To whom should that recommendation be directed? It doesn’t sound like it would cost a lot of money to convene all the relevant players and provide them with the resources both to think and produce a blueprint for action. To whom should the recommendation be directed? Who is the best entity to make this happen?
Mr. Cook: I believe I would start with the Coast Guard. I’ve known Roger Girouard, the Assistant Commissioner for the Western Region, for many years. He is formerly of the Navy as well. He has a larger picture. As the admiral for the West Coast, he was in charge of search and rescue for the West Coast before he retired and then joined the Coast Guard. And he’s a very good administrator. There’s someone who would drive it.
The senior Coast Guard people I’ve met, right down to the coxswains of boats, are very experienced and knowledgeable people. Port Metro Vancouver is important because there is a lot of expertise there. The master mariner community should be involved if there is an increase in tanker or deep-sea traffic in the river into the port. A couple of them are on our board and are very experienced. They’re an entity used to working with other entities in a complex environment. I think all the leadership is there. I would probably start with the Coast Guard as a coordinating entity.
Senator Gold: Thank you. That’s very helpful.
Senator Raine: I would ask you if you can elaborate. I was a bit surprised to see there was a change of policy where in the past when you were doing your services for the roe herring fishery you got no-cost barracks accommodation at HMCS Quadra in Comox, and now you’ve been informed that Treasury Board wants you to be charged at commercial rates available in the surrounding community. This is a tourism community. They will charge $200 a night. It doesn’t make sense. You were volunteering your services and will stay in the barracks because you’re providing an open lifeboat.
Mr. Cook: Thank you for that, senator. Again, that was our other concern because the base was very supportive of us. I would go over a month or two in advance and talk to base commander and the operations people. They understood we didn’t have the resources to live on the economy for two or three weeks at a time. We needed to come alongside somewhere. They were very supportive for a couple of years. They apologized for the change. They said it’s out of our hands. So we talked to the West Coast admiral at the time, he took it up through his chain, we’ve talked to a couple of MPs, but so far we have not had a change in that.
I put that in not just for our complaint, but also I think it would affect other small charitable organizations. If they’re doing an activity of benefit to the public, whether provincial or federal or large communities, these barriers make life much more difficult.
It made it cost prohibitive for us until we got our other boat refitted. For the last three weeks, we were sleeping on air mattresses in sleeping bags on the boat because we wanted to have a 24/7 capability at the roe herring fishery.
I’m glad we went because the year before, a boat went down and a young fellow was lost, and a couple of our people knew him. And we were very sorry we weren’t there to assist; I don’t know if we could have. But I think our presence was well regarded there. I wasn’t surprised. I was at pleased how many fishermen came up and said, “Thanks for being here. This is helpful to us.”
It partly resulted in us being able to live aboard our other boat. It just made it much more difficult for planning.
Senator Raine: The barracks is there, and cots that are empty and you can’t sleep in them with your sleeping bag because Treasury Board says you have to pay $200 a night; ridiculous.
Mr. Cook: That’s how we took the issue. I never like to provoke Treasury Board. We’re a small organization.
Senator McInnis: You said earlier in your comments that fishermen are an independent lot, and it’s hard to get them to change and nothing will ever happen. But there are two things I want you comment on that could change, and Transport Canada could bring about regulations imposing it. I know it’s a challenge for Transport Canada because they have to talk to the fishermen’s associations and all the interest groups.
I remember there was a fisherman in Newfoundland who told us at one of our hearings that EPIRBs, the beacon, would take the “search” out of search and rescue. They’re probably reasonably costly but there is no regulation imposing this, and the same would apply to stress load. Many of these vessels — I think the one in Newfoundland went down because it was overloaded. Do you have any comment on hose two points?
Mr. Cook: That is one I believe is really being wrestled with. Regulation is difficult on an industry that is economically just hanging on.
Every time there is another regulation — and I have heard the fishermen say this — it means more paperwork, maybe having to go to lawyers for advice or finance people. An EPIRB can cost $1,200 to $2,000. Education is important and if there could be support to these groups, I think they’d be more receptive, including involving them in the decision-making. I did mention that we are a member of the Fish Safe organization, which I think on the West Coast is doing a really good job at both bringing fishermen’s interests forward, educating them in the requirements, trying to change their ways of thinking and doing some safer kinds of procedures. They represent the fishermen but also understand the fishermen.
Fish Safe has been initiating an EPIRB program in which essentially they will be given to fishermen at low cost or no cost, I believe, if they will participate in some of the kinds of Fish Safe training, like stability training.
A lot of those boats go over because they are badly loaded. The weight is too high, there was too much free surface of fluids inside when they are bringing in fish. If they are given the opportunity to learn and improve their skills and get something out of it, I think that is the way the change some of their behaviours. But I think more regulation would have a rocky beginning with them, or maybe a judicious combination.
Senator McInnis: I agree, and education is important, there is no doubt about that. But we’ve heard and seen some really sad stories and it’s the value of a life. Very good, and thank you for what you’re doing.
The Chair: I thank the senators and Mr. Cook for his participation. It was an opportunity to answer some questions for us and certainly some interesting discussion for us to contemplate, so thank you again for your time.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: Is someone prepared to move the motion that we adopt the following budget application for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019, in relation to a special study on maritime search and rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities, be approved for submission to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration. We are looking at a fact-finding trip in Ontario and Quebec, and fact-finding and public hearings in Nunavut.
Right now, we have a cost of $184,247, and I would like to have the discretion of the steering committee to adjust that downward if necessary to facilitate the fact of less senators travelling and splitting the whole trip into two different activities, if needed, in our discussions for the end of the day.
Senator Gold: So moved.
The Chair: Senator Gold moved. All those in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Contra-minded? Carried.
(The committee adjourned.)