Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue No. 4 - Evidence - May 10, 2016
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 10, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 5:47 p.m. to study Maritime Search and Rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans as we continue with our study on maritime search and rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities.
My name is Fabian Manning, a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador and chair of this committee. I will ask senators to introduce themselves before we begin, starting to my right.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan from Toronto, Ontario.
Senator Eaton: Nicky Eaton, Toronto, Ontario.
Senator Hubley: Elizabeth Hubley, Prince Edward Island.
Senator Poirier: Rose-May Poirier, New Brunswick.
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine from B. C.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Carolyn Stewart Olsen, New Brunswick.
Senator McInnis: Thomas McInnis, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. This evening we will receive an overview of the SAR environment. We have three guests with us. I will ask our guests to introduce themselves. I understand Mr. Lick will make the presentation. Please introduce yourselves to committee members and then feel free to begin your presentation.
Gregory Lick, Director General, Operations, Canadian Coast Guard: I am Greg Lick, Director General, Operations for the Canadian Coast Guard and on my left is my colleague Mr. Evans.
Clay Evans, Superintendent, Marine Search and Rescue, Western Region, Canadian Coast Guard: Clay Evans, Superintendent, Marine Search and Rescue for Coast Guard's Western Region, based in Victoria.
Neil O'Rourke, Senior Director, Policy, Canadian Coast Guard: Neil O'Rourke, Senior Director, Policy.
The Chair: Thank you, witnesses, for taking the time to join us this evening. The floor is yours.
Mr. Lick: It is an honour to be here today to brief you on the Canadian Coast Guard and our leadership role in the search and rescue program in Canada.
My remarks today will cover the following themes: The Coast Guard's mandate and role in preparing for, coordinating and responding to search and rescue incidents; the current maritime search and rescue, or SAR, environment; and I will describe some challenges and potential opportunities for search and rescue in Canada.
I apologize for the slide numbering. I will confirm the slide titles for committee members as we go through to make it easier to follow.
Following my remarks, all three of us will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
On slide 3, the "Search and Rescue Mandate'' slide, the Canadian Coast Guard plays a crucial role in saving lives and protecting our waters. Our people work in dangerous conditions and sail into rough seas when others are turning away and coming back home, but we don't do it alone.
The search and rescue system is a shared responsibility led by the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces, and it's made up of a myriad of partners. The Coast Guard, for its part, leads the on-water component of the federal search and rescue system. As you may know, the aeronautical portion is led by the Canadian Armed Forces and on-the-ground responsibility is shared amongst provinces, municipalities and territories.
Throughout the entire SAR system, volunteers are on hand to assist and are a critical component of our SAR system. As you can see, it is really a unified effort that makes the SAR system successful. The search and rescue system covers over 18 million square kilometres, and our SAR system is divided into three regions.
If we look on slide 5, the "Asset locations'' slide, you will be able to see the asset disposition of our vessels and helicopters as they are deployed across the country into our three regions: the Western region, the Central and Arctic region and the Atlantic region. As well, we included there the disposition of some of the Canadian Armed Forces airplanes, helicopters and so on.
On slide 6, in terms of the current environment, as you have heard, the Coast Guard has an important search and rescue mandate to fulfil. We are working toward enhancing our capacity to provide these services.
I now want to talk about our current operating context and the risk posed to mariners. On a daily basis there are thousands of recreational, fishing and other commercial boaters.
The Chair: I am not sure we have that slide.
Senator Raine: Number 13?
Mr. Lick: Yes. It should be entitled "Current Environment.''
The Chair: I have gone from page 5 to page 13.
Senator Raine: Me, too. We don't have that.
Mr. Lick: I will just present, then. I apologize for the slide numbering.
The Chair: Maybe you can forward the full document afterwards.
Mr. Lick: Absolutely. I now want to talk about our current operating context and the risk posed to mariners.
On a daily basis, there are thousands of recreational, fishing and other commercial boaters operating on Canada's waters. There are inherent risks in going to sea. In any mode of transportation, when vessels are operating on the water there are risks to the lives of mariners, of others and to property. That is inherent in going to sea.
In 2014 there were approximately 6,155 maritime SAR incidents, to give you a sense of the number of incidents that we respond to, both in the maritime environment and in some cases in the air as well.
Who is most at risk? In our vast country, with the world's longest coastline and greatest concentration of freshwater lakes, pleasure boaters are at the top of those at risk. That includes the uncle towing his niece behind his boat on water skis at the cottage, the group of friends canoeing in a provincial park and the couple who use their boat to get to their isolated summer home. Pleasure boaters, in terms of the total number of incidents, make up over 4,000 incidents annually and quadruple the next category, which is fishing vessels.
Let's talk about our commitments in terms of the government's commitments that we are acting on right now. The Government of Canada has made it clear that it is committed to ensuring that the Coast Guard is ready and able to respond to people in distress in Canadian waters 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Minister Tootoo announced the reopening of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base back in December, which is an important investment in a stronger Coast Guard in the B.C. area and a critical step toward improving marine safety off the West Coast. It is now open and ready to respond 24/7. On the East Coast, we are developing options over the coming year to ensure search and rescue capacity is enhanced in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In terms of our SAR resources, the Coast Guard ensures that safe, reliable, professionally crewed and operationally capable vessels are able to respond to those in distress.
In terms of our assets, what do we have out there? There are 40 research and rescue lifeboat stations, and this now includes the Kitsilano Coast Guard base. In the Vancouver area, at Sea Island, there is a dedicated hovercraft station which also houses our dive team and 25 inshore rescue boat stations ready to respond in 30 minutes or less during peak seasons. In many cases these are manned by students — highly professional students at that. We also have Coast Guard patrol mode vessels which patrol our offshore SAR zones in six of those zones.
As for the rest of the fleet, we have over 80 multitask vessels and 21 helicopters that can respond at any time to a search and rescue case. All of these assets, as you saw on one of the slides, are located strategically across the country.
In terms of our key messages, what do I want to leave with you today? The Coast Guard as an entity, as a national institution, has a vital marine leadership role in our search and rescue system. Canadians benefit from a system of federal, provincial, municipal and volunteer partners. All of these are layered together to provide one of the best systems in the world.
The Arctic, in many ways, is our last frontier, but one that is vital to our national identity. It is a focus for our efforts as we seek to improve the SAR system across the country.
We at the Coast Guard, National Defence and all of our SAR partners each have an opportunity to contribute toward SAR prevention. This is the first link in the chain in saving lives at sea.
In terms of opportunities, we see the Kitsilano Coast Guard base as a great opportunity for the West Coast in terms of emergency response training, SAR response and engagement of our indigenous communities and integrating them into the SAR system. We also see in stations like Bamfield, where there is training going on both for Coast Guard crews and other government departments as well as now integrating indigenous peoples into that SAR training.
Finally, there is the Arctic. We have received investment that is expanding the Coast Guard auxiliary into the Arctic and we are starting off with that as we speak now.
Thank you very much for this opportunity. We are pleased to take your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lick. We will get a complete document afterward and send it on to the committee in case someone missed one of the pages. Sorry about that, committee members.
As usual, our first questions will go to our deputy chair, Senator Hubley.
Senator Hubley: Thank you all for being here and making your presentation.
The Auditor General's report on federal search and rescue activities from the spring of 2013 made note of a few areas of concern, one of which was the availability of trained search and rescue personnel. The report examined whether the Canadian Coast Guard had a sufficient number of qualified personnel to conduct SAR activities and it was found that the Coast Guard does not always have sufficient people, particularly marine coordinators and rescue specialists. The Coast Guard agreed with the findings and pledged to make changes like cyclical reviews of the fleet crewing profiles.
Can you provide us with an update? Have changes been made and has any progress been made? Has the Coast Guard undertaken any recruitment initiatives?
Mr. Lick: Thank you, senator, for your question.
I will ask Mr. Clay Evans to talk about Bamfield specifically in terms of the training that goes on there. However, it is my responsibility at headquarters in Ottawa — in the NCR in this case — to review those crewing profiles periodically. I can attest that those crewing profiles are being updated periodically. Over the last number of years we have started with updating the SAR lifeboat crewing profiles. We have completed most of those and are starting off with the next level up to the larger ships.
In terms of recruitment, it is a continuous process for us. Many of us in the Coast Guard graduated from the Canadian Coast Guard College; many of us have come from other areas, right from being a deckhand up to being a commanding officer of a vessel. That recruiting process is an ongoing one. In fact, coming up in June of this year we will have the next group of officer cadets graduating as officers and joining the Coast Guard fleet.
That crewing and recruitment process is an ongoing one for us. That also extends to the Joint Rescue Co-Ordination Centres, which I will ask Mr. Evans to talk about.
Mr. Evans: There are two pieces there: rescue specialists and marine coordinators. The Rescue Specialist Program is nationwide. Essentially, they are ships' crews that we train to be emergency medics, EMTs. They also have other components, like marine emergency duties and firefighting and so forth.
This was identified as an issue because recruitment was a problem. It has been handled differently in the three regions, and I would say there is a significant improvement. We have over 200 rescue specialists now in our region. Essentially it is an extra duty; they are compensated for it. It is quite popular. We actually have to turn people away from the program.
I believe in other regions, one of the solutions is to identify a position on the vessel that's actually a rescue specialist position — instead of a leading seaman who is also a rescue specialist — so you can identify that it's specifically a rescue specialist's job. That is improving; it certainly has in our region.
On the marine controller side, those are the individuals who work in the Joint Rescue Coordination Centres and the Maritime Rescue Sub-Centre. They are the people who coordinate search and rescue, like the 911 for air/sea rescue. It has improved. Because of the calibre and quality of individual that you want in the centre, you want somebody with a marine certificate and a lot of seagoing experience, because you want them to be able to understand what is going on out there when a SAR call is going on. It has certainly improved in our region. I know that remuneration has been an issue. I will leave it at that.
Senator Hubley: Is there anyone who could speak for the Atlantic region, whether similar changes have been made in the Atlantic region?
Mr. Lick: I think Mr. Evans' consideration and exposé of the West Coast, of the Western Region, is very similar to the other regions as you move across the country. The efforts that have been made in the Western Region are very consistent with those we have made in other regions to improve training and the quality of the marine controllers that are in the JRCCs.
Senator Hubley: In Atlantic Canada we often hear stories of fishermen responding to and aiding other fishermen who find themselves in distress. It happens in most if not in all places; it's a matter of proximity.
Does the Coast Guard work with civilians in any way to help them prepare to assist? Can you provide any kind of training for fishermen responding to such emergencies?
Mr. Lick: Absolutely. The Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, which I didn't touch as much on in terms of my opening remarks, is a critical component of our SAR system. In fact, the Coast Guard Auxiliary has five units or, in essence, organizations across the country. They make up about 4,000 members in that Coast Guard Auxiliary, which supports the efforts of search and rescue across the country. As you say, senator, that includes in some cases the fishermen on the East Coast, but it also includes a number of those fishermen and pleasure craft operators, and in some cases more full-time people across the country.
We provide training opportunities for Coast Guard Auxiliary members. As well, the Coast Guard Auxiliary itself has training programs for their members. In addition to that, though, the training needs to be used, both in responses to search and rescue incidents, which is obviously an important element of it, but also in exercising.
Every year we have a number of exercises across the country that involve Coast Guard Auxiliary, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Coast Guard itself jointly in those exercises. All of that together is a way and means of improving the skills and knowledge of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, as you say, fishermen, in order for them to be able to support the SAR system.
The Chair: I have a quick question. Going back to slide 3, when you explained the maritime SAR and the provincial- territorial SAR, for explanation purposes, how does it work in relation to ground search and rescue requests for assistance? I understand it's a provincial-territorial lead, but could you explain to us the process? If they required further assistance from maritime SAR, would you go forward without a request? I'm wondering what the process is, how that works.
Mr. Lick: I will start off and then ask Mr. Evans, who has experience in that area in terms of working with the JRCCs, to give the experience on the Western Region, which is consistent with the other regions.
The Canadian Coast Guard has a primary role in maritime response, obviously, as we spoke about. We are a resource agency for any type of search and rescue, any type of emergency in any case. There are formal means of actually getting requests for assistance. I will ask Mr. Evans to talk to the details of that.
Mr. Evans: Again, I will look at it from a national perspective. It depends on the province, but generally a call for humanitarian assistance for a land-based search and rescue will go through the provincial or territorial police force and then to the provincial emergency dispatch centre for ground SAR, and then to the JRCC.
In the case of British Columbia, the RCMP are in charge of land SAR. In the case of Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Victoria, we do about 3,200 overall SAR cases per annum. That's what we did in 2015. About 400 of those were what we call humanitarian. That can be a request for assistance on a GSAR, or ground SAR, or it could be a request for assistance on a medical evacuation, similar-type thing. Sometimes it will come from the RCMP directly to the JRCC, but generally it still has to go through what we call Emergency Management BC. It is a similar situation in the other provinces through OPP, QPP or RCMP. But it's definitely, as Greg said, a layered system.
For federal SAR assets, aeronautical marine to be utilized for humanitarian, it comes from the province. As long as it is communicated in, it generally gets dealt with.
The Chair: The request will come from the province or the RCMP to SAR?
Mr. Evans: Yes, generally through the provincial or territorial GSAR body, which in the case of B.C. is called Emergency Management BC. They have a dispatch centre, and they'll press a button and it goes off at the JRCC. They say, "We need a boat'' or "We need a helicopter.'' Joint is aeronautical or marine, so they might need an air asset or a marine asset. That is the great thing about the joint system.
The Chair: What will happen in the case where someone is lost on the ice?
Mr. Evans: Don't forget, you are asking a guy from British Columbia.
The Chair: You don't see much ice out there; I understand that.
Mr. Evans: Just above 10,000 feet.
It's the same system that I described. The request would come in from the land-based entity, the ground SAR entities, either through the provincial dispatch centre for GSAR to the JRCC; or, again, depending on the territory or the province, it might go directly into the JRCC. A judgment call is made. It is like triage, what other incidents are going on. Can we utilize this aeronautical or marine resource to assist in this humanitarian incident or not? So a call is made.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thanks again for being here. I have a lot of questions; I will try not to ask them all now.
The responsibilities that you have, that is not all the Coast Guard does, is it? It is a portion of your job, and I assume you are layered and have specific people assigned to specific tasks. This is dedicated to search and rescue: How many people would you have, approximately, in your search and rescue division?
Mr. Lick: It's a bit of a complex question to answer, but I will try to give you a sense of it. We will follow up with a better response. A written response will give you a bit more detail than I am able to give you today.
As we talked about in my opening remarks, and which Clay alluded to, the SAR system that we have in the Coast Guard in this case, but also with our SAR partners, is a layered system. But in case of our vessels and our helicopters — particularly our vessels — we have primary vessels that are dedicated, and their primary role every day is search and rescue. The primary role of all 40 of our search and rescue lifeboat stations across the country is in search and rescue.
They may do a little bit more in terms of going out and checking an aid on the water, but that's fairly limited and may count for only 1.1 per cent of the time they deal with a particular situation across the year itself.
We have dedicated assets like that. All of our other vessels have a secondary role at a minimum in responding to SAR. Their first priority, if they ever get a search and rescue call, if they ever get a mayday, if they ever hear a mayday or get a tasking from the JRCC, their first priority and their first task is to respond to that search and rescue call. That just doesn't come from our mandate; that comes from the Law of the Sea.
It's a critical component to get across to the public. That's fairly well understood, I hope. Most of our assets are multi-tasked, doing a number of other duties, whether it's aids to navigation checks, icebreaking or going out and doing maintenance on a marine communication tower with a helicopter. All of them have at least a secondary role in being available to respond to a search and rescue call.
In fact, all of our vessels have, at a minimum, the capability, the equipment on board and the people trained to be able to respond to a search and rescue call.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Do you find with the amount of people you have on the various jobs that responding sometimes to a search and rescue might be longer than if you had totally dedicated? How big are the areas that you would cover out of each base? You're going off to one area and you have an emergency in another area. How do you cover that off to get people there as quickly as you can?
Mr. Lick: As Mr. Evans talked about, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre's primary role is to assess the situation or situations that are out there in terms of the risk, in terms of the impact upon lives, and to then task our vessels or helicopters possibly to respond to those particular calls.
That's their primary role. They have the best situational awareness of the incidents, as well as the area and the weather, to be able to task appropriately. They will call upon the Coast Guard assets, Armed Forces — usually naval assets but also air force assets — they will be able to call upon vessels of opportunity, and they would be able to call upon auxiliary vessels as well.
That is what I was getting at in terms of the layer, because for the Coast Guard to have all of the responsibility to respond to every search and rescue call in Canada would be almost an impossible task. That's why that layered system is an important element of our federal SAR system.
Senator Stewart Olsen: People can get assistance by dialing 911 if there is an emergency at sea?
Mr. Lick: There are different ways of calling an emergency. The simplest way for mariners who have a radio is channel 16. Channel 16 will get through to our JRCCs or they will primarily get through to our Marine Communications and Traffic Services centres, which are then linking into the JRCCs to respond to a call or to task someone.
Each region may have a slightly different way of taking 911 calls and getting them into the JRCCs. There are a couple of different ways across the country, but 911 will get you into the JRCC one way or the other.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I know you are talking layered responsibilities but, I'll be perfectly frank, that concerns me a lot. Any time I've ever seen organizations try to function well, they usually have one boss and that's who you go to and not this layer of the province and the maritime, whatever. Do you have that one overreaching entity that can override what the province wants or what anybody wants? I can see this as being really complicated, and I sympathize with you even having to try to explain it. It's like a piecemeal organization that was kind of added here and there as the needs arose, but no one really looked at the organization as a whole.
I'm not really asking you to comment on that because it's not fair, but I'd like to hear if you have one big boss.
Mr. Lick: I'm very comfortable responding to that, because I'm actually very proud and very comfortable with the SAR system we have. To respond directly to your question though, in terms of responding to and tasking and coordinating the maritime and air side of the equation, we do have one boss and that is the SAR commander. The SAR commander is always from the Armed Forces, but there is a SAR commander in each of our three SAR areas: the Pacific or Western Region, Central and Arctic Region in Trenton and the East Coast. The Western Region is in Victoria. That's where he or she is. In the Central and Arctic Region they cover Trenton, and on the East Coast they are in Halifax.
Those three SAR commanders are responsible overall to coordinate and task our assets from the Coast Guard, the auxiliary, vessels of opportunity, and under the Law of the Sea they have to respond. We actually do have one boss for every SAR call in Canada.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Senator Stewart Olsen, if we need to, we can come back to your other questions later.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for being here and for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. The first one goes back to the report Pathways: Connecting Canada's Transportation System to the World that was tabled in Parliament last February and contained a number of recommendations regarding the Canadian Coast Guard and offered an analysis on its current state. One of the recommendations was to remove the Canadian Coast Guard from Fisheries and Oceans to Transport Canada.
In your opinion, would it benefit the Canadian Coast Guard to transfer from Fisheries to Transport and, more specifically, the maritime search and rescue and, if so, why?
Mr. O'Rourke: Thank you for your question.
In the Canada Transportation Act review there are a lot of recommendations, and specifically on that front, given it's a machinery of government, the Coast Guard's perspective is more looking at authorities. We work closely with Transport Canada and the Department of National Defence on the SAR side, but with the delivery of our other programs, as well as SAR, we work closely with Transport Canada.
One of the areas where we work closely is on the prevention side. Greg walked us through all of what we do and how we respond, but one of the biggest focuses is on ensuring that we don't get to the situation where there is an emergency in the first place.
There is a shared role right now. The Office of Boating Safety is a Transport Canada responsibility and they are responsible for essentially going out and educating the population generally on how to be safe. At the same time, we have a key role through one of our other programs, which is our Aids to Navigation program, where we ensure with our partners, including various stakeholder communities, on where to best place those aids to navigation. That can be anything from lights to fog horns to buoys in the water. We make sure they are in the right place so that mariners can transit safely.
Right now our focus is looking at how to more closely integrate ourselves with Transport Canada. We do work well together, but there is always room for improvement. Our focus is on working with them and, wherever we may lie within the federal structure from a departmental perspective, our mandate is our mandate and we will focus on delivering it.
Senator Poirier: If I understand correctly, you are staying with Fisheries and Oceans for now?
Mr. O'Rourke: Ultimately, it would not be our decision. We are really just trying to focus on working well with all of our partners.
Senator Poirier: Fair enough. Our study is beginning and we're looking at the challenges and opportunities for maritime search and rescue activities. Could you please share with the committee the biggest challenge for maritime search and rescue and offer some solutions on where to begin to improve the Canadian Coast Guard maritime search and rescue activities?
Mr. Lick: My opening remarks focused on opportunities with respect to the Kitsilano Coast Guard base integrating indigenous communities and peoples into the SAR system.
To answer your question, though, probably one the biggest focuses of our efforts at this time is the Arctic. That's because we are seeing more traffic go through the Arctic and more adventurers go through the Arctic. In many ways, those cause us the most concern because generally they are not well supported. There are people snorkeling and using Sea-Doos through the Arctic. Those are maybe some extreme examples. However, I talked about pleasure boaters across Canada causing the most number of incidents. Well, adventurers may not be as well prepared either.
Senator Munson: And cruise ships as well. They are massive.
Mr. Lick: Yes, the cruise ships as well. I will be pleased to answer that question as well, senator.
In terms of Arctic, as more and more people think that this is the best place to go for adventure and so on, that's causing us most of the concern. Given the remoteness of that particular environment, its importance to Canada as a country and that the vessels that can transit up there for the Coast Guard are icebreakers, we generally deploy six throughout the operating season. However, six vessels cannot cover the entire Arctic season. That's why we also have that layered approach with vessels of opportunity and the auxiliary. As I said also in my remarks, we are making investments in the auxiliary in the Arctic to try to cover some of the risk areas.
In addition to that, though, we are also studying where the risk areas in the Arctic are and what risk areas are opening up as traffic opens up? That will inform where we need to make investments as well.
Mr. O'Rourke: The Coast Guard has been working with various organizations inside of government and out on what we heard in March when the Prime Minister visited Washington for the summit: a low-impact shipping corridor. It may be a concept that you've heard about. It's tied to where investments are made in the Arctic.
As things stand right now, these low-impact shipping corridors are based on existing traffic patterns. We're at a point where we're looking to further engage. We have been engaging with northern communities, but we are engaging in a more detailed way with northern communities to ensure that these shipping corridors that may be put in place minimize the impact on their way of life and on the marine environment. The focus is very much on further developing this concept which will then guide, as Greg mentioned, where investments might be made.
I talked about prevention and aids to navigation. That is a key component to us avoiding search and rescue in the North, by making sure there are the correct aids to navigation. The other piece of that, the Canadian Hydrographic Service, which is part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans but not the Coast Guard, is responsible for charting. We are working closely with them by using multi-beams being installed on our vessels to increase the charting of these corridors, all in an effort to try to prevent search and rescue from happening in the first place.
Greg mentioned that our concern, if we are asked about challenges, is more on adventure tourism than on cruise ships. In our view, cruise ships are a low risk but have a high impact if something happens. They are of concern. Certainly on the cruise ship that's going up this summer, we have been working closely with the company and feel well prepared — as well as we can be. We expect this traffic will grow in the future.
As Greg said, we have begun focusing not only on the corridors concept but also on doing analysis of search and rescue requirements in the North so that we can make recommendations on where investments on the response side should be made to minimize the risk for all Canadians.
Senator Poirier: My next question is about the slide where you talked about the shared responsibility among the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal organizations.
It's more or less on the ground where SAR falls under the provinces, territories and municipalities. What percentage of your workforce is involved in this part on the shared responsibility side? Give me an example of a scenario where you would play a role with that as a shared responsibility?
Mr. Lick: In actual fact, ground search and rescue makes up a limited amount of the support that we would provide to provinces and territories. One of the examples that I'm most aware of — and I would ask Clay to expand on it more in terms of other scenarios or situations — are some of the humanitarian tasks that we have from provincial emergency management organizations sometimes for the transport of individuals who may get hurt on an island, for example. Typically, that is obviously a ground search-and-rescue effort. However, in order to get from that remote island into an emergency hospital, they have to be transported by air or by water. It could be a transport tasking for the Royal Canadian Air Force. In a lot of cases we are tasked to be able to transport those individuals from the island into a hospital on the mainland.
I'm not sure if there are any other situations, Clay, where we get involved like that.
Mr. Evans: Humanitarian service represents probably 14 per cent of all the SAR calls that the JRCC handles. The ground SAR portion is probably 20 per cent of that in terms of assisting provincial organizations. As Greg mentioned, it's the air-land interface and the land-sea interface, and whether you are in Newfoundland, in Conception Bay; or in Barkley Sound, in the Broken Group Islands. Sometimes they need Coast Guard boats to get the land SAR or the GSAR team out to the island to look for the missing hiker who went into the woods to look for mushrooms or whatever, and they didn't make it back out. It's not a huge percentage.
To go back to Senator Stewart Olsen's question about capacity, there are about 40 stations and they are strategically located for that SAR coverage. Generally those stations will be in a location that will work because of the GSAR requirements, the marine SAR requirements and the aeronautical SAR requirements. The system is there, and I think it's great that we review it every once in a while to make sure everything is in the right spot.
Senator Poirier: Thank you.
Senator Eaton: Looking at your uniforms brought to mind the navy. I would have thought you would have been an offshoot of the navy. Do you work closely with the navy? Do you patrol the coast in between your search and rescue activities?
Mr. Lick: There are a couple of situations, senator, in your question that I'll speak to.
Certainly the lifeboat stations are on call 24/7. Most of them operate 365 days a year, depending on the season and where they operate, obviously. Those vessels may go out and patrol or exercise, but on many occasions they are waiting for a call. They are preparing their vessel and making sure it's ready to go. That's one case. A lot of times they are out on the water exercising or training. They are also ready to respond at that point in time.
The other vessels that I talked about in terms of our patrol mode vessels are larger vessels covering the offshore zones. In those cases, they may be patrolling or doing other work as well. For example, we will use the vessels that cover our NAFO regulatory area for international fisheries patrol. They may cover some of our SAR offshore zones as well. It depends on the particular area of the country where they are located.
Senator Eaton: For instance, if you were off the Grand Banks and you saw a foreign nation illegally fishing or it wasn't supposed to be there, would you call in the navy? Are you working for the navy? Are you the eyes out there for defence?
Mr. Lick: For that particular question, senator, the vessels patrolling off the Grand Banks, their primary tasking is for international fisheries patrol. They will do the job of possibly boarding with fisheries officers from our department who are professionally trained to do those types of boardings.
With respect to the navy, though, we have a primary leadership role in terms of our maritime components. All of our vessels are secondary SAR capability. Our 40 search and rescue lifeboats have primary SAR capability. The navy, like any other ship in the world, will also have a responsibility to respond to a search and rescue call or a mayday. We absolutely work cooperatively.
In fact, on the East and West Coasts, when I talked about the one person in charge, our SAR commanders, those are naval personnel on the East and West Coasts.
Senator Eaton: With the Arctic, as we all know, we don't have enough infrastructure up there yet in terms of ports or where you can take in icebreakers, or do we?
Mr. Lick: Certainly we have infrastructure: the question of whether it is enough or not is a broader one.
Senator Eaton: No, I think this is the place you should tell us. Do we have enough infrastructure up there?
Mr. Lick: For the Coast Guard's purposes at the present time, we are fairly sufficient when we are sailing up in the Arctic. For our purposes, we do have enough infrastructure. As more traffic goes up there, do we have to spend more time up there? In that case we would look for investment in infrastructure that will allow us to fuel and provision.
Senator Eaton: I would think, yes, because it is a huge area.
Mr. Lick: That would also benefit other traffic going through, whether it is the navy or commercial traffic as well.
The Chair: Senator Raine and Senator Ataullahjan have a supplementary to your question before you ask another one.
Senator Ataullahjan: I was on a trip with the navy and I was in a Sea King helicopter. We saw a ship and they said we are going to come around and look. If there had been an issue, would they have informed you or would they have dealt with that?
Mr. Lick: Certainly if it's a search and rescue call where the navy is there, they would have been tasked and responded immediately.
Senator Ataullahjan: What if there was an illegal ship in the water, or some other issue? We swooped down low enough to see the name, and they waved at us and they checked and said it is okay. In case there was an issue, who could they call or would they deal with it themselves?
Mr. Lick: That is probably a better question for the navy when they come to the committee. I will give an initial response. It would depend on the particular situation that the vessel is in. If it's a search and rescue call, no issue, they will respond. If it is a marine security issue, a borders issue, immigration issue, other government departments have those mandates. We will inform and do the analysis and intelligence gathering to understand what the issue is. It may be a Coast Guard vessel that responds or is tasked to support another government department; we have that mandate. It may be that the navy is asked to help and support in that particular one. It will depend on the particular situation. I encourage you to pose that question to National Defence as well.
Senator Eaton: I am asking this because I am intrigued. Why are you not part of the navy and why are you not part of National Defence?
Mr. Lick: That's a good question.
Senator Eaton: They use a lot of the same boats and helicopters.
Mr. Lick: In terms of the Canadian Coast Guard, we have been a civilian organization since we were organized back in 1962 — my birth year, actually. That is just an interesting sideline.
We have been a civilian organization. We pride ourselves on being a civilian organization. We are not an armed organization except for two international fisheries patrol vessels which patrol off the NAFO regulatory area.
Senator Eaton: May I stop you there? You are not armed. What if we had boats of migrants coming or people smuggling?
Mr. Lick: Absolutely. As I was talking about with the previous senator, the other government departments will gather that intelligence and understand what the threat is. They may ask us to support them in responding, and we have done that, whether it's on the West Coast with some of the immigrant vessels that even Mr. Evans has been involved with in terms of responding, or on the East Coast with a lot of the drug smuggling you tend to get through the East Coast. We have been tasked many times to respond and support, whether it is the RCMP emergency response teams or the CBSA. We are available to respond and support those government departments. We do that quite often.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much. I want to go back a bit. I think I understand how our system works. We have ears out there listening for the mayday. That is part of our system that then feeds these signals into central MCTS areas.
In British Columbia they have just closed one of those centres to merge it with the Victoria centre. There is one in Trenton and one in Halifax. Those main centres could be located anywhere because they are getting the information from ears all over the place, listening for the maydays.
Can you bring us a bit more information on what is the latest state of the technology in the Canadian MCTS centres?
Mr. Lick: Yes, I would be pleased to answer that, senator.
In fact, as we were walking over here we received the news that the consolidation, the cutover as we say, from Comox into Victoria has been carried out successfully today. That is great news for us as an organization. We will then work through responding to the other committee report in terms of the recommendations.
In terms of the technologies, though, we will have, at the end of the consolidation projects, 12 MCTS centres across the country, all the way from Placentia, Goose Bay to Prince Rupert and Victoria with many across the country. There will be 12 modernized centres. They will have modern technology.
In committee and in interviews with the media I have likened it to going from a Touch-Tone telephone to the technology of a smartphone.
It is not simply a technology change and not simply updating it from one technology to another. All that technology was getting old. It was becoming less reliable and needed to be updated in any case.
This technology will allow us to become more efficient in terms of some of the activities that are carried out in a MCTS centre, like the continuous marine broadcast of weather. Before that was recorded by voice and you had to read it through a number of times. Now it will be an automatic system of text to voice. That is being handled very successfully across the centres modernized so far.
In addition to that, the technology will also allow us to evolve over time. The changes that may occur in the future — expansion, adding more towers, more infrastructure to allow us to communicate across a broader area — can all be handled through software rather than trying to create another piece of hardware. It allows us to be expandable. That is a huge change for us, and it will be a big benefit to us as we move into the future.
Senator Raine: I was getting my acronyms wrong. MCTS is the communication hub.
Mr. Lick: They are the Marine Communications and Traffic Service Centre.
Senator Raine: There are 12 of those across Canada, and then there are three of the joint command centres?
Mr. Lick: There are three of the Joint Rescue Coordination Centres: one in Victoria, one in Trenton and one in Halifax. In addition to that, we also have one Marine Rescue Sub-centre in Quebec that allows us to deal with the bilingual capacity that's difficult to get on the East Coast.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much. We are moving into state-of-the-art technology at this point?
Mr. Lick: Absolutely.
Senator Raine: Great; thank you.
The Chair: I have a couple of questions on the Kitsilano Coast Guard base, which has reopened, I understand. I have seen some media reports. I was trying to track them down, but I don't have that right now. Comparing the hours of operation and personnel, what was there prior to the closure? Can you give us a rundown of before and after, the differences compared to what they are today?
Mr. Lick: I will start off and ask Clay to expand if there is a need.
In terms of the vessels that we have there currently, we have an interim set of vessels until we are able to procure the new search and rescue vessel for that particular area. That takes a bit of time, as you can understand. Certainly we have what I would call an all-weather enclosed cabin search and rescue vessel, the Moorhen. We used the idea of an enclosed cabin that gives us more all-weather capability. They give us more ability to handle bad weather, rain, cold, during part of the year.
In addition to that, we have a fast rescue craft, which is a typical asset that we will have for response in every one of our search and rescue lifeboat stations. If it is a quick call, say maybe just 100 metres off the station, it is a bit easier to take that vessel than to take the Moorhen, but the Moorhen will allow us to go a little further than a fast rescue craft.
In addition to that, we have a pollution response vessel. That gives us three assets there for both search and rescue and pollution response.
In terms of the crewing that's going on there, initially, as we were ramping up or phasing in the crew that is there now, we started off with a crew of three, which can operate either the fast rescue craft or the Moorhen. By the May long weekend, we will have exactly the same type of crewing posture, which is four crews of three that will be there 24 hours a day. In this case, they will work 12 hours on, 12 hours off. That is the same crewing posture that we had there before.
In addition to that, I would indicate to the committee that during the summer period we will take the opportunity to work with our search and rescue partners, whether from the Vancouver Police Department, the auxiliary, the province, and also the indigenous peoples who are in that area, to look at the best crewing posture for that particular area, what will best meet the demands of the Vancouver area. We have a posture across the country that works well, and we want to understand what will work best for Vancouver. We will get there during the summer period.
The Chair: Do you want to add anything to that, Mr. Evans?
Mr. Evans: In addition to the three boats, there is another vessel, Coast Guard 701, which is undergoing a refit now. I understand it is going quite well. It is a 40-foot, multi-task vessel of 20 knots. It will be there probably by June as well, an interim vessel until the SOR, statement of requirements, is done and a new vessel is procured. I am looking forward to that.
The Chair: When the centre was closed, where were those vessels located then?
Mr. Lick: Certainly the Moorhen was off doing something else, primarily supporting search and rescue efforts, I think from Sea Island. That's what both Clay and I are talking about. These are interim vessels, certainly the Moorhen and the 701, until we are able to procure the vessel that will be more appropriate and what is needed for Vancouver.
The Chair: Of the three JRCCs, Trenton serves Central and Arctic Region; correct?
Mr. Lick: Yes. This is sometimes one of the difficulties. Our Central and Arctic Region within Coast Guard is very much from Manitoba over to Ontario, up into Quebec, up into the middle of the gulf and the Lower North Shore of Quebec, but then it also covers all of the Arctic.
The SAR boundaries are a bit different. In the eastern JRCC, JRCC Halifax covers the whole Atlantic Region, plus a large portion of the Arctic, and then Trenton covers a larger part of the Arctic as well. The document that we will send you will clearly outline where the SAR boundaries are and which particular SAR commander or JRCC covers what.
The Chair: Senator Watt is a member of our committee. He is from the North. He is not here today. He is always advocating for more on the ground in the North than what is already there. His concern is where the coordination of it is. He believes that, with the discussion that we have had here this evening and the increased activity in the North, that we need something on the ground there.
What would be your take on that? He is not here to ask the question. I am going to ask it for him, just to raise a concern that he has raised in the past.
Mr. Lick: As one of the senators mentioned, particularly with the technology we have nowadays and with the training of the maritime SAR rescue coordinators we have in the JRCCs, we simply don't put just anyone in those particular positions. They are well trained for the geographic areas that they have to cover.
In this case, the primary coverage for the Arctic is, most importantly, from JRCC Halifax. Those individuals are well trained for those geographic areas. They understand where the traffic is. They have a great idea. They have tools that allow them to see where the traffic is. They have the ability to call in any kind of asset that they need.
It's not truly important where the coordination centre is. What's most important is that the people, and the tools they are provided in those centres, give them the ability to see and understand what is there, and to understand where the response assets are to be able to respond as well.
It is the same for the MCTS centres. Consolidating those centres from 22 down to 12 is accommodated by the technology we have. Also, in those centres we do not allow anybody to take on a geographic area of coverage, whether at the distress stands or at the vessel traffic stands, until they are trained in it, they are familiarized with the particular geographic area, and they are checked out by an individual who is an expert in it. Until that checkout is signed off, they are not allowed to cover that particular geographic area. It is the same with the coordination centres and the people who are there.
The Chair: I have one more question. It comes up from time to time, especially when there is an incident and maybe it doesn't work out as well as some people would hope. There is always a concern with the response times. In my own experience in Newfoundland, sometimes if it happens at two o'clock on a Tuesday the response time is much quicker than at two o'clock on a Saturday, realizing that the centres may not be fully functional.
Can you talk to us about response times and how that is determined or delivered? That seems to be a concern with people. If you are going to have an incident on the water, you better have it between Monday and Friday at certain hours.
Mr. Lick: Certainly, we can all understand that when you are on the water in distress, you want the asset and the people who will come and help you to arrive as fast as possible. I think everyone can understand that around this room.
However, with the Coast Guard search and rescue postures, the search and rescue lifeboat stations that we have and other assets that are on the water, those assets, vessels and people are there 24/7 and able to respond. It doesn't matter whether it is Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Friday. It does not matter to us. They are there seven days a week, depending on the operational area they are in. During the winter, in the Great Lakes, the lifeboat stations aren't operating there for obvious reasons. But almost every other station, where they are operational, they are operational 24/7. That means there is no difference in the reaction time for them to get the tasking and for them to then get out on the water.
The important thing is that response times are affected by a number of factors. One of the major factors is the distance to get there. The other factor is the weather. When you are pounding through two-, three- or four-metre seas in a small search and rescue lifeboat, it will take a bit longer to get there. The weather and God and everything have more effect on response time than anything.
Senator Munson: This is sort of a follow-up to Senator Eaton's questions. I know there are different mandates in search and rescue, but I am reading the United States Coast Guard's mandate and what it says about us. Earlier in my career here in the Senate, I sat on the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence and we talked to U.S. Coast Guard people in Washington — pretty macho kind of guys — about what they do. It says here:
The U.S. Coast Guard is one of the five armed forces of the United States and the only military organization within the Department of Homeland Security.
It talks about the Coast Guard as being an adaptable, responsive military force of maritime professionals, and moves into where its presence is.
Do you think the Canadian Coast Guard should be armed?
Mr. Lick: I would say that the question has been asked of us before. We've been asked by the previous government to look at that particular question. We've provided some options to that government in order to answer their question. There are certainly options in that way. The government at that point in time decided not to provide us that mandate, but we are certainly willing and able to respond in any way the government asks.
In terms of arming, though, if we were to look out on the water and see where our mandate might expand, and this is something that I will ask Neil to expand on as well, I would say that arming wouldn't be the first opportunity for expansion. As Neil talked about it, if we want to look at other areas and authorities that we may take on that may allow us to take on more of a constabulary role, that might be an opportunity we may look at.
In terms of arming, that's a decision that comes from the government, and we are willing and able to respond as needed. At this point in time, however, I think there are other avenues that would be better suited to the people we have, the assets and our mandate as it stands now.
Senator Munson: You are a good politician. As Senator Eaton said, we are now on the Hill here, and I don't think a lot of senators liked it but are beginning to accept looking at RCMP walking on Parliament Hill with machine guns that we have never seen before. They are there and are showing a presence of protecting what Parliament is and the rest of it.
This is a sovereign coast. You have to adapt to a new age. You talked about people moving drugs through and maybe migrant workers. We are in a pretty different situation. I know you talked about the assets and the navy doing this, and so on. We will have to make a recommendation here on the value of the Coast Guard. You talked about the civilian nature of this Coast Guard but, at the end of the day, I am thinking that perhaps it's just a natural evolution of the times we live in that, it would seem to me, the people who work for you would be more comfortable having some sort of arms.
Mr. O'Rourke: I can try to address that. A lot of it is tied to our overall mandate. We are looking at search and rescue here, and this gets back to Senator Eaton's comments earlier about us aligning well with the navy or not.
When we look at search and rescue, there is a clear alignment with defence, and we work closely with them. When we look at all of the other programs we deliver, not so much. We are talking about environmental response or aids to navigation, icebreaking, et cetera. As Greg pointed out earlier, they are civilian shipping-type activities, and that is a big portion of what we do in addition to search and rescue.
Certainly, it comes back to a mandate question for us and whether or not the government would expect us to be enforcing our sovereignty. At this point in time, that's not an activity we are mandated to do but, as I can see through the questions, it is an interesting question for discussion. Tied to any change in mandate, of course, we may have more of a need to arm.
As we are looking today at our kind of core program delivery of putting buoys in the water, environmental response, search and rescue and icebreaking, there isn't a clear role, perhaps, other than as Greg mentioned, maybe on the constabulary. Right now, if there was something happening on the water, for example, we might get the call to go see what they are doing, but we don't have any legal ability to stop them. We would need the RCMP to do that with us. Certainly there could be a potential.
Senator Munson: Do you really have enough assets to do your job properly? What would you like? What is your ask? We are a friendly group of senators. You can tell us and we'll tell someone else. You must have something that you really need, whether it's a ship, more personnel, money — whatever the case may be. I think there must be a specific ask, which we would like to know.
Mr. Lick: I will certainly try not to be a politician this time.
We are investing in our fleet. We are investing in the renewal of some of our vessels at this point in time. That program is direly needed because our vessels are growing old. They are still safe. I always have to emphasize that, particularly for the media, that these vessels are safe. They are getting older and they take more maintenance, but certainly investments in the fleet.
In terms of the number of vessels, as traffic in the North expands and as more traffic even down South starts to occur, we may need more icebreakers. Rather than saying we need more, we are doing the work now to understand what we need. That's an important thing.
Not this past year, but certainly in the previous two years we saw some very severe seasons. Those will not occur every year, but we have to be able to meet that demand as it occurs because our economy suffers when we are not able to deliver that icebreaking service as required to commercial shipping.
Because we are talking about multi, in this case, sometimes close to billion dollar assets, it is not simply about asking for two, three, four or five more. We have to demonstrate a need for that. That is some of the work that is ongoing now.
If we were to look at areas for investment, I think we are seeing the climate and the sensitivity of the public for environmental response, environmental incidents and pollution on the water. We definitely see that on the West Coast, but across the country as well. We are seeing that demand for our services grow and grow. If I were to say any particular area that I was to ask you for more funding today, that is one of the areas we are focusing on. We are doing some work in that area to look at where we need investment. I will ask Neil to expand on that as well, but it is a great question, senator.
Mr. O'Rourke: Certainly, with respect to search and rescue as well as other programs like environmental response, the North is a place where growing traffic patterns will likely mean we need investment.
There is a lot of work going on right now. There is the shipping corridors initiative that I talked about earlier as well as our RAMSARD activity, which is looking at search and rescue requirements in the North. Both of those ongoing pieces of work in collaboration with the Inuit will ultimately lead us to a place where we will know specifically so we can specifically answer that question.
At a higher level, we can say that investment will be required in the North. We see the Chinese, for example, announcing that they will be coming and looking at it as viable shipping. We see all of this stuff in our immediate future. I think the Coast Guard's position is very much that we need to be there first.
We need to have a capability not only on the prevention side, which I've discussed, but we need to respond in search and rescue and environmental response. Canada needs that capacity before we see this big increase in traffic.
The other piece I would highlight is what Greg mentioned with the ships. Our ships and our shore-based assets are all aging. There is some investment and we are making some replacements, but certainly the maintenance of those assets is a challenge for us today as well.
Senator Raine: Page 16 shows a yellow map around the SAR resource locations that are divided up between the three centres.
I'm just curious, because I was on another study trip to Nunavik. Why is Nunavik split in half? Why isn't it part of Halifax or Trenton rather than half and half? It is a jurisdiction, and most of the other borders follow jurisdictional lines. You can get back to me on that.
Mr. Lick: That's a detailed question with some history behind it, and I'm probably not the best person to answer it. I think that's a question we can take back and get you an answer to. It would also be a good question for National Defence when they come, or if you invite any of the SAR commanders or on a tour. They will also have a good answer.
There is sometimes a lot of history in behind it, just as many boundary types of questions have.
The Chair: Thank you for coming here this evening. It was a very interesting conversation we've had as we begin our study into the search and rescue. It's a great foundation to start with. Thank you for your time. As always, we reserve the right to call you back just in case we need clarification on something down the road.
I would ask committee members to stay for an in camera discussion regarding future business. Thank you very much.
(The committee continued in camera.)