Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue No. 27 - Evidence - March 29, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 29, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 8:31 a.m. to study Maritime Search and Rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities.
Senator Marc Gold (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Our chair, Senator Manning, will join us in a few short minutes, and I will yield the chair to him at that point.
Good morning. My name is Marc Gold. I’m a senator from Quebec, and I’m very pleased to chair this meeting, at least au début.
Before I give the floor to the witnesses, I would like to invite the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Coyle: Hello. I’m Mary Coyle from Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Pierrette Ringuette from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Raine: Nancy Greene Raine from B.C.
Senator Poirier: Rose-May Poirier from New Brunswick.
Senator Deacon: Marty Deacon, a replacement today, from Ontario.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, senators.
Today, we are continuing our study on Maritime Search and Rescue activities, including the current challenges and opportunities. On our first panel, we will be hearing from a senior official from Transport Canada regarding a series of announcements that were made on February 8 in relation to subject matter that was discussed before this committee by representatives of the Transportation Safety Board, when they appeared before us. So we’re very pleased to welcome back Donald Roussel, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Transport Canada.
On behalf of all members of the committee, Mr. Roussel, I thank you for being here today.
I understand you have some opening remarks, following which, members of the committee, I’m sure, will have questions for you.
[Translation]
Donald Roussel, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Transport Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to address the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. Transport Canada plays a key role in ensuring the safety and security of all modes of transportation. The department’s overall goal is to have a transportation system in Canada that is safe, secure, efficient and environmentally responsible in all modes.
In the marine sector specifically, the department’s mandate is to develop, administer and enforce national and international laws and policies governing marine safety, security and pollution prevention. Transport Canada is responsible for legislation and regulations that govern marine transportation and also fulfils an oversight function by issuing licenses, certificates and permits, as well as conducting inspections and audits. In cases of violation, Transport Canada is the responsible enforcement authority.
While Transport Canada plays no direct role in search and rescue incidents, it has a supporting role through its responsibility for regulating safe, secure and efficient marine and air transportation. The department regulates safety equipment, including emergency distress beacons for ships and aircraft to help reduce the severity of search and rescue incidents. It also implements programs and activities to promote safety and prevent accidents in those sectors. Transport Canada is also responsible for the national aerial surveillance program, whose aircraft are often tasked by joint rescue centres to assist with search and rescue incidents.
Transport Canada is part of the interdepartmental committee on search and rescue, ICSAR, along with National Defence, Public Safety Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard and other government departments. In addition, the department and the Canadian Coast Guard attend the International Maritime Organization subcommittee on navigation, communications and search and rescue, where search and rescue is discussed.
Internationally, Transport Canada is the Canadian representative at fora related to the International Maritime Organization. Adopted regulations from the organization’s subcommittee are reflected in Canadian legislation and regulations that govern marine transportation.
Our legislative framework includes the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, the Pilotage Act, and the Marine Transportation Security Act. There is also a strong regulatory regime under the authority of these acts which supports marine transportation while placing rigorous but achievable requirements on industry.
Transport Canada considers all relevant Transportation Safety Board recommendations when undertaking regulatory development. The department also consults with industry and other stakeholders as part of the federal regulatory process. Once a policy issue has been identified and a regulation is determined necessary, a formal and extensive regulatory process must be followed. This process includes, but is not limited to, extensive consultations, regulatory impact analysis statements, legal drafting, pre-publication and publication in the Canada Gazette, Parts I and II, and review by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.
Transport Canada is the second largest federal regulator. The department has responsibilities under 47 statutes, 18 of which are significant regulatory statutes administered primarily or exclusively by the department. Some 236 regulations have been enacted under these 18 statutes. In a typical year, Transport Canada publishes up to 30 regulations in the Canada Gazette, Part II. Approximately 90 per cent of the department’s regulations relate to the safety and security of transportation by air, road, ships, rail, and the transportation of dangerous goods.
One area of continued focus for Transport Canada is fatalities in high-risk areas, such as the fishing industry. Statistics show a current downward trend in this area. The Transportation Safety Board’s figures indicate that fatalities per 1000 active fishing vessels declined from 0.24 in 1999 to 0.18 in 2009. Similarly, in 1999, there were 24 fatalities per 100,000 fishermen, compared to 18 in 2009. From 1999 to 2012, an average of 13 fishing vessel fatalities were reported in Canada.
We would like to bring the numbers down further. On July 13, 2017, the regulations amending the small fishing vessel inspection regulations came into force. Phase I updates existing safety equipment and vessel stability requirements, and introduces new requirements for safe operating procedures. We consulted at length with the commercial fishing industry about these changes.
Currently, work continues on Phase 2, which deals with the construction requirements for small fishing vessels. Awareness of safety is key to behavioural change, and Transport Canada actively seeks to educate those in the fishing industry about safe practices.
Through the commercial fishing safety component of the department’s boating safety contribution program, which was established as a pilot program in 2015, Transport Canada supports projects delivered by organizations that help educate and raise safety awareness within the fishing industry across the country. The program has a budget of $900,000 over three years, and aims to ensure knowledge of best practices and tools for safety are made available to fish harvesters.
In closing, Transport Canada focuses on preventing accidents wherever possible, protecting people on board vessels in the event of an incident and making it possible to detect vessels in distress. We take our mandate very seriously and will continue to update our regulatory regime in the best interests of Canadians.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[English]
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Roussel. I want to thank Senator Gold for beginning the meeting for us. With that, I want to give him the first opportunity to ask a question.
[Translation]
Senator Gold: Good morning again, Mr. Roussel, and thank you for joining us. Let me start with a broader question. The committee is seeing some frustration in terms of the time currently required to pass the regulations needed to better protect everyone involved, especially the fishermen. Can you describe, not the process, but the challenges you face in implementing the recommendations that are intended to improve the situation for the fishermen?
Mr. Roussel: Thank you, Senator Gold. The challenges are of several kinds. First, despite what one might believe, fishing is a very regional activity that is very diversified within each of these regions. By the very nature of the structures and types of fisheries, we are dealing with challenges at local levels. There is an in-shore fishery, often done very close to shore, then you have a midshore fishery, up to twenty miles or so off-shore, and you have the deep-sea fishery, which extends to the end of our exclusive economic area, our 200-mile limit. So, we are now 300 kilometres or so out to sea and we have different kinds of vessels.
When developing regulations, the consultations are extremely complex, despite all the efforts of the various fishing associations, be they industrial or First Nations, which have particular needs to put forward. The consultation is extremely complex, both nationally and locally. When we come in with proposals for regulations, the ongoing exchange becomes extremely complex for the leaders of the fishing organizations, who have to convince their members to adopt what was discussed in Ottawa, despite all our best efforts to have regional consultations. Just when we think we have reached an agreement, we often find that we do not have it, or that we no longer have it.
We are as frustrated as everyone else: spending 14 years to get regulations passed, is “beyond the call of duty,” as they say. Absolutely, we want to improve that performance. That is why the second phase will be published this year. That is why we have unblocked that kind of backlog with the first publication. We are starting the second phase, which deals with the construction aspects, and it will probably be published this year.
Senator Gold: In search and rescue, one of the most important aspects is clearly the coordination between everyone involved, the Coast Guard, the volunteers, and so on. In terms of the process of implementing regulations, is there any coordination between the associations? Perhaps it is too much to ask nationally, but, even regionally, there must be a number of associations, representing the fishermen or the industry, with interests that may diverge a little. Is there any coordination when it is their turn to give you their opinion on the recommendations you are putting forward?
Mr. Roussel: At Transport Canada, our main forum is the Canadian Marine Advisory Committee, here in Ottawa. We also have marine advisory councils in each of the regions of the country. These advisory councils have different committees. Naturally, the fishery committee is one of the standing committees for discussions with all the partners, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Transportation Safety Board, the Canadian Coast Guard, and all the other stakeholders. When we need to prepare proposals for regulations, to discuss those proposals, and also to decide how they will be implemented, we also add all aspects of awareness and education in the areas. That is why you are going to hear a presentation from Fish Safe BC in a moment; it is one of the organizations we have funded.
As for the fishery and its various regional stakeholders, we have some governance problems, but we want to make sure that we have an effective round table and the appropriate representation, when we are holding discussions with groups. That brings us to the experience of the Standing Committee on Quebec Fishing Vessel Safety, of which I gave you the background. The Transportation Safety Board and various other stakeholders, including those from the marine sector, participate on that committee, which they see as the best governance structure to ensure dialogue with all those involved. Fishing, as I have explained, is regional, but it is also very horizontal in terms of the responsibilities. For example, all the workers compensation boards, as they are called, the ones that deal with worker safety, are very important. In Quebec, it is the Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail, or CNESST. In British Columbia, we have Fish Safe BC. For us, these are the groups that must be at the table for the discussions.
We have three major avenues that we work on quantitively. These are reducing loss of life, which is everyone’s concern; reducing workplace accidents, which, for every $100 of work, cost almost $10 in Quebec and $6, $7, or $8 in British Columbia and the Maritimes, depending on the type of fishery; and material losses, the things insurers worry about. Then we have the qualitative aspects, everything to do with improving the culture of safety in the fishing industry.
Those four major pillars must be included in all the discussions, in everything the various stakeholders bring in terms of regulations, whether it is about the way in which the fishery is deployed along the coast, or about dialogue. To answer your question, we do not yet have a pan-Canadian formula for appropriate governance in this area. We feel that the Standing Committee on Fishing Safety is a good model, but — and this is the mandate I have been given for the next two years — we really have to make sure that we do a tracking study to find out what exists in the other regions and how we can help those groups to better structure themselves.
[English]
Senator Gold: I will go on second round, if there’s time.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Ringuette: Mr. Roussel, thank you for your contribution this morning. One thing bothers me. In terms of Transport Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, are all marine incidents, including search and rescue incidents, reported? What are the board’s criteria to launch an investigation as part of a search and rescue activity?
Mr. Roussel: Your question deals more with the Transportation Safety Board. Ms. Fox, Mr. Laporte and Mr. Poisson appeared before your committee. There are a series of criteria; I believe there are five levels of severity of incidents before they decide to deploy teams to conduct formal investigations, in any area of transportation, depending on whether there is a loss of life or an accident that involves only material losses. They have a whole series of criteria to meet. In all cases of loss of life, you can rest assured that a formal investigation is conducted. In cases where there have been accidents and serious injuries, formal investigations are initiated. In the department, because we have our alert network system connected with search and rescue, we receive information for all modes of transportation, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Sometimes, we ask the TSB whether it will investigate. Its first reaction may be no, but after discussion, it’s yes. When a formal investigation is in place, we have a memorandum of understanding to place an observer. The Minister of Transport has the power to assign an observer. We make sure to follow through with the investigation to determine the cause of the accident. The department checks for compliance with the regulations. These two processes go on in parallel. The work is complementary to ensure that we keep all the evidence and the Transportation Safety Board’s independence on the one hand, and to ensure compliance with the legislation, on the other hand.
Senator Ringuette: I asked that question because, in your presentation, you said that your regulations were developed largely based on the results and the reports prepared by the Transportation Safety Board. So, there are criteria, such as death, for launching an investigation. This committee’s concern is that, in a region, there may also be a series of small incidents that do not result in death or serious injury, but that should still indicate that there is a lack of protection or regulatory safety aspects in those areas. Do you understand my question? It is good to launch an investigation in the event of an accident, but an investigation must sometimes take place and recommendations must be made when a series of small accidents reveal other factors to be taken into account when regulations are developed.
Mr. Roussel: Your question is extremely relevant. You have heard the officials from the Transportation Safety Board, who have shown you that they are trying to establish correlations between the elements of a series of incidents. We have the same concern. Take, for example, the discussion on the stability of fishing vessels. Based on a series of incidents in British Columbia, in Quebec or in the Atlantic, we realize that stability is still a major problem, and we have to deal with it. We have addressed part of it in the first part of the Fishing Regulations, and the second part deals with construction. When the Transportation Safety Board makes a recommendation, sometimes, as they say, the strokes are very broad. When the regulations are developed, they have to be acceptable, in terms of technical feasibility, but also in terms of the relative cost for an industry.
So we have tax rules when we develop the regulations. Our Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement takes 25 pages to explain each item. For example, the stability aspect in the TSB proposal, imposed costs to the tune of $15,000 per vessel. It’s a challenge that probably took us almost a decade to implement. You can imagine that $15,000 per ship, for large vessels, may be acceptable, but for a small operator, it’s huge. In the dialogue with the fishermen, we therefore add flexibility to the regulations that allows us to come up with an acceptable proposal that will cover the vast majority of all these vessels. Are our analysis and our regulatory requirement sufficient? Only time will tell.
For example, in the case of distress beacons, this is a concern. In the regulations, beacons were first proposed for all vessels. For smaller vessels, radios with an emergency alert were also proposed. This has been accepted by the industry. However, it is considered a flexibility that, perhaps, for the Transportation Safety Board, does not fully meet its recommendations. It would like to see distress beacons deployed more widely.
[English]
Senator Ringuette: I’m assuming that all these reports you do in considering the slate of consulting committees you have across the country, either from your office or the TSB, are forwarded as communication material to all these consulting bodies you have.
Mr. Roussel: The Transportation Safety Board’s reports, of course, are made public. The minister has the obligation to give a response. These responses are available. We share our responses with the different stakeholders on what is feasible and where our challenges are.
Then, it is for the board to decide, and you saw how they are categorizing our responses: fully satisfactory, satisfactory in intent and right down to not satisfactory. This is this nuance of about maybe five different qualifications that sometimes keep those recommendations open and puts pressure on us to continue our dialogue with the fishing sector and say, “Do you know what? We need to do better. Even if we have this downward trend, we have those accidents and every one of the accidents is a trauma for the family, the people and the community. We have to work more actively.”
For example, during the Comité permanent sur la sécurité des bateaux de pêche du Québec, we had the review of the loss of life of someone who fell overboard without a life jacket, still, in today’s world. That was traumatizing, but the impact in the crowd, when you have close to 150 people listening to this and the committee says, “You know what? We’re also charging the captain,” that goes deep in a community where an individual says, “I have a fine of $50,000 and with all my precautionary measures I still have lost one of my men.”
These are the types of things on which, with a more collaborative effort, we can have a better impact with those recommendations and the wearing of the equipment. But we have to give the flexibility to the industry.
Senator Ringuette: There’s a range.
Mr. Roussel: There are options that can be perceived by some as loopholes, but there are options to give an equivalent level of safety. That’s what these regulations did produce, is this flexibility.
The Chair: I come from a small fishing community in Newfoundland where we have boats that go out in the morning and come back in the afternoon, boats that go out for two days and boats that go out for 10 to 12 days. There are different levels going farther out to sea, which is all safety once you’re on the water, but you can understand why there are different levels.
[Translation]
Senator Poirier: I have one or two questions in response to your presentation. You mentioned that Transport Canada implemented a pilot project in 2015, with $900,000 in funding. To my understanding, it was for a three-year period, and it should end this year. Can you tell me how many groups across the country have benefitted from this program?
Mr. Roussel: I think the next witness, from Fish Safe BC, will be better able to answer your question. It is the organization that obtained all the funding to implement the education and awareness program at the national level. They will be able to provide you with this information.
Senator Poirier: If I understood correctly, the groups were not applying to Transport Canada, but to Fish Safe BC?
Mr. Roussel: When the request for proposals was open, we received more than 3 million applications with only $300,000 available in the contribution program. So we decided, internally, to promote a major program across Canada. They set up an education and awareness program across the country.
We realize today, after three years, that the $300,000 was probably very inadequate. We also realize that the entire analysis that we continue to do did not always address local concerns appropriately. We are about to see the results, and I think they will be excellent with Fish Safe BC.
As for the aspects of the overall governance in terms of the consultation, we would like to receive a proposal to set up a new contribution program that would allow us to better respond to the regulatory compliance needs of the fishing industry. But the four points I raised in my presentation are reducing loss of life, reducing workplace accidents, reducing material losses and improving the culture of safety in the fishing industry.
Senator Poirier: You mentioned the success of the program, with the pilot project ending this year, and you are saying that you have requested additional funding to continue. Would those funds allow the pilot project to continue?
Mr. Roussel: The amounts used for this program were part of our grants and contributions envelope. We did not have a program specifically for that purpose. We are currently looking internally at whether it would be possible to continue the project for another year in order to complete the analysis and then see whether we have something larger in scale for a Canada-wide program. However, our preliminary analysis clearly shows that it would have to be sensitive to local features. This is one of the requests we are receiving across the country right now.
[English]
Senator Poirier: I want to talk about EPIRBs. Can you tell us what is preventing Transport Canada from establishing regulations that would make the carriage of EPIRBs mandatory on fishing vessels?
Mr. Roussel: There is nothing preventing us from doing it.
Senator Poirier: So why not?
Mr. Roussel: It is a question of balance in the dialogue we have with the fishing sector. If you read the regulations, you will see that EPIRB is across what is proposed for some of the vessels you have on board, and there is an EPIRB on many of the vessels. It’s when we get to the coastal — less than 20 miles from shore — type of fishery that we give flexibility to the fishermen that they can carry an EPIRB or they can have a radio on board that will give this emergency alert.
It is a question of costs and size of the vessels. Some of the proposals of the TSB is that we want those to be free-floating. When you consult with the industry, they say that depending on the size of the vessel, it might not be appropriate. It’s a question of whether it’s fully feasible.
We think what we put inside the regulations — we met some of the preoccupations of the Transportation Safety Board, but we go a step further. We are modifying the regulations regarding navigation safety. In the proposal, we are proposing to have EPIRB right down to the smallest size of vessel. These regulations are under discussion this year.
Even if we published phase 1 last year for fishing vessels, we are going back across the sectors and saying that EPIRB is still an issue; let’s make sure we are pushing this — to your point — of imposing it across.
Senator Poirier: What are the costs for small fishing vessels to have EPIRB?
Mr. Roussel: It depends on the type. This is where the complex discussion appears. You have free-floating that have — release and so forth. Those are more expensive and require maintenance every year. Then you have the small ones that are portable. They vary from a few thousand dollars down to a few hundred, depending on the type.
Senator Poirier: We heard from groups in testimony that they often feel the cost savings would be to the Coast Guard in rescue if the fishing vessels were to have it on board. I know that sometimes the commercial industry may be hesitant because of the cost. It would be interesting to see if a program could be put in place and if it would become cost-saving at the end of day if the boats would have them on instead of putting pressure on the Coast Guard.
Mr. Roussel: This is what a regulatory impact statement will demonstrate — the number of lives you will save — but there’s also the number of false alarms if you have 16,000 vessels all with EPIRBs. A false alert costs in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Senator Coyle: Most of my questions have already been answered, so I’ll just go to a very specific one.
You know the case of Pop’s Pride off of Newfoundland — the tragedy. I’m just trying to understand the various regulations that are not yet implemented but that we have all been talking about here. You have highlighted reasons why they are not yet implemented. You fleshed that out — that was some of the discussions I had hoped to have.
In that specific case, what do you think would have prevented the tragedy that we saw? Would any of the regulations that are yet to be implemented, if they had been implemented at the time by that particular vessel, made a difference?
Mr. Roussel: That’s a very speculative question. But three main things: If you don’t want a boat to sink, make sure it doesn’t fill with water. This is simple. This is it. Again, so the way it is constructed. If you don’t want a boat to sink, don’t go in places where it will be facing conditions the vessel cannot sustain. It’s fairly complex.
Senator Coyle: Those are basic.
Mr. Roussel: Those are basics, but those basics — you have accidents because all those elements all align, and then the vessel and crew get into situations where they are loading the vessel too much for its capacity, they have not prepared the voyage properly, they are facing waters that are not appropriate, they’re not well equipped to survive in cold waters and when they are in distress situations, and either nobody knows or the rescue doesn’t come fast enough. Correct all that, and you will not have the incident occurring. Remove any of these, and potentially, you will not have the incident occurring.
This is where we are coming in with the overall approach, the phase 1 of our regs, which deals with the immersion suits, life-saving equipment and the EPIRBs. The second phase is the construction. Phase 3 for the larger vessels is the ratification of international instruments that govern la pêche roturière.
Senator Coyle: I understand that it’s speculative, so some of what you have mentioned has nothing to do with these regulations that are not yet through the process.
Mr. Roussel: If you look at the fishing vessel safety regulations in the foreword part and the recommendations of the Transportation Safety Board, we are talking about procedures. We are talking about training of the crew, and they are pushing us, in one of their recommendations, toward safety management systems.
Those are elements that we have enshrined at the front of regulations, and this is where Fish Safe BC and the program of awareness come into play where we ask the industry to structure their voyages with better planning. Yes, in those particular cases, in all accidents, the planning portions would have saved lives in the Brier Mist that was highlighted in this committee, and many other fishing vessel accidents.
Senator Coyle: I’m relatively new to this committee so I’m coming in at a time where others have more information, but your presentation and discussion was very important this morning.
What I’m gathering — and I want to test it with you — is that there are some pretty solid regulations already in place, there are more to be negotiated, and then to be implemented. And in the challenges that were mentioned and have been discussed here, I’m hearing a variety of things. The resistance may be sometimes a financial case, with the costs of certain things. Also, as every person who interacts with Mother Nature to make a living, there are those tradeoffs that people make which also has a financial — it’s not the cost of equipment, but it’s a financial “I’ve got to get out there and make some money for the family.” There are all kinds of financial things, and then there are cultural — I don’t mean culture from Scotland or Ireland or Nova Scotia, but cultural in terms of the fishing culture.
Are you seeing, though, certain things that the people you are working with — and I know we’ll know much more after the next presentation and after that has been tested — what kinds of things have been effective in working with the fishing communities to get the adoption of these safer techniques and safer systems?
Mr. Roussel: The most efficient way of dealing with many of those, what we would call the implementation of those regulations, is awareness and education. This is critical. We have to have these pieces, and those pieces are taken on locally by local schools, but when you are pushing the awareness and the education, you get to have a series of goals and the elements that you want to correct. When we’re developing that awareness and education, the use of the life-saving equipment, the type of life-saving equipment, the knowledge of the stability of your vessel, the preparations of the voyages, all those elements are critical to put the pieces in place.
But the other pieces that are also critical is how we collaborate with other departments, and we have MOUs with Fisheries and Oceans to have a better dialogue in how we are interacting regarding the type of fisheries and the length of the opening and when you are opening the fisheries. We are doing better on those fronts, but it is still extremely challenging on the timing of the fisheries and how far you are allowing certain vessel sizes to go and get a catch at the limit of our economic exclusive zone 200 miles offshore.
These are questions that if you are in a domain of fishery management maybe you are not too worried about, but at TC we are worried. The dialogue with DFO, the Coast Guard and ourselves help at improving the fishery safety as a whole, but it is still a challenge. The committee of the House of Commons is now discussing elements regarding the lengths of ships, which is causing some other problems.
We are trying to harmonize that better. We think we are making progress, but, again, at the local level, we have to have the right governance to engage properly with the full stakeholders. Working, like I mentioned, very horizontally with the other key players which are worker compensation boards, insurance providers and awareness education providers to support the sector.
Senator Coyle: We’ve talked about awareness as being important. I’m also interested in the stick side, the issue of the fines that you had mentioned. How effective is that as a deterrent?
Mr. Roussel: I can tell you, if you would have been in the room when the CNSST mentioned they would fine a captain $50,000 of public domain of the bout de ligne incident, you could hear the vibe in the room. It is extremely efficient. They are talking among each other and pinpointing the other guys. There is a lot of peer pressure in the sectors, and fishermen don’t necessarily like to see one of their colleagues who has a rogue operation and not be caught. They like to have this level playing field, and they put a lot of pressure and pride in the way they are maintaining their vessel in general.
Senator Raine: I appreciate your lines of questioning because it answered most of mine. We heard, when we were out West, that between the Coast Guard, who are standing on guard and sometimes have time to do things, have somehow not the responsibility for public education. Is there a way that that can be improved so that the public education is ongoing and isn’t what I call passive, like it is on the website? You need to have someone out there who has a uniform on, visiting docks and marinas to educate the uneducated public. I am aware we are going to hear that from Fish Safe BC, but I would like to hear your perspective from Transport Canada.
Mr. Roussel: In the past, we had extremely successful programs with the Coast Guard, and it was fantastic. We had people out there 7 days a week, 12 hours a day on the dock working with the small fishing vessel sectors. We are reopening that dialogue with our colleagues of coast guards who have those types of exchange programs to really have a better impact out there. But the main thing is for us to work with the civilian partners.
So maximizing the use of public service time would be potentially more on the compliance and enforcement portion regarding small vessel inspections using the Coast Guard staff and leaving the awareness and education portions to outside partners who are good at this. That’s what they do for a living. Yes, we are extremely interested to continue our dialogue on that front, and the timing is very good now between us and DFO Coast Guard.
Senator Raine: When you say “outside partners,” you don’t mean the Coast Guard.
Mr. Roussel: I’m talking about, for example, a marine school, a fisheries school, that can do awareness and education.
Senator Raine: The Coast Guard certainly has the experience and the credibility, and they are the ones that have to go and rescue them. They need to have a role in the public awareness.
It’s a question of money. Nobody ever has enough money and they are seeing the money for this, if you like, in Transport Canada and the job should be done by them. I’m worried that you’ll let somebody else do it when the logical people to do it is the Coast Guard.
Mr. Roussel: If I have a priority at Transport Canada, it will be the compliance and enforcement application of the law. If I can work with my colleague partners in the DFO and Coast Guard, it will be to maximize both their assets and personnel. When it comes to the element of awareness and education we have in the contribution program, we think there are good partners out there, and we can also work with others who have a significant interest, such as our compensation boards. They also have significant financial capabilities.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Roussel, for a great conversation. Sorry we had to rush things at the end because time is of the essence, but it is great information you provided this morning and I’m sure the senators appreciated you taking the time.
I would like to welcome John Krgovich, Program Coordinator with Fish Safe BC. I understand you have opening remarks. We’ll get to those and then our senators will have questions for you.
John Krgovich, Program Coordinator, Fish Safe BC: Thanks for the introduction. My name is John Krgovich and I’m the program coordinator of Fish Safe BC, and also a third-generation commercial fisherman out of Vancouver.
Fish Safe BC is a fishermen-funded, fishermen-developed and fishermen-run health and safety association that brings programs, tools and awareness to commercial fishermen, with a goal that all fishermen come home safely. All our programs are developed for fishermen by fishermen. Hands-on activities done on their boats with our gear are our classrooms. We have a fishermen-helping-fishermen model.
First, I’d like to tell you about myself and my history and role with fishing safety. I started fishing with my father on our salmon seine boat when I was nine years old. I spent the rest of my summers growing up on the water and seeing all areas of the B.C. coast. My father never encouraged me to become a commercial fisherman and always said I needed to go to school. Being a good son, I followed his advice and got my university degree from Simon Fraser University and then I went fishing.
I fish mostly for salmon and herring, but as these fisheries changed, I tried to adapt and did some long lining of halibut and did some deep-sea tuna trolling 1,000 miles off the California coast, due north of Hawaii, basically in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I also did a stint at neon flying squid fishing, which was a great adventure with lots of stories, but I will save that for another time.
I have a good understanding of the challenges that the Coast Guard must face in trying to service a mobile and aging fishing fleet over a vast coastline.
About 12 years ago I was asked to change my focus on fishing after a career of over 35 years on the water to become the safety director for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union. While this was a huge change, I felt it was time to try to help the fishermen become more safety conscious.
As a young boy, I used to sit around the galley table after the tragic loss of a family friend and see my father and other fishermen talk about what happened, and while being saddened by the death it seemed to me they just thought that was just fishing — part of a dangerous job.
Through the years, I came to question this fatalistic approach to fishing and felt there was more that could be done.
In 2009, I joined Fish Safe BC as program coordinator. I was already a facilitator for their Stability Education Program, a program funded by fishermen in Transport Canada, which was highly recognized in Canada and around the world. In fact, I was invited in the fall of 2009 to present our stability education program at the World Fishing Expo in Vigo, Spain. That’s quite a departure for a guy who spent his life on the deck of a fishing boat.
As program coordinator at Fish Safe, I was part of a small team that helped develop what was to become our core program, called the Safest Catch Program. This was funded by the Search and Rescue New Initiatives Fund that saw fishermen being trained as safety advisers who would then provide tools and information to other fishermen to help create a vessel-specific safety program on their vessels. All this was done with the hope that this would help them come home safely and reduce the number of search and rescue calls.
The program is built on three pillars: safety procedures, safety orientation and emergency drills. Our safety procedures section sees fishermen do a risk assessment on their vessel and work to understand how to minimize those risks. We then developed the template that allowed them to write down those procedures and print them out so they have a vessel-specific safety procedure manual.
The second pillar sees fishermen do an orientation of the safety equipment on their vessel. This is an inventory of their safety equipment; we help fishermen understand how it works, how it is maintained and where it is located.
The program’s third pillar, emergency drills, allows them to understand that while they have a comprehensive safety procedures program, at times things go wrong and at these times having an emergency plan will just make sense.
During this section of the program, we help them create this emergency plan and then practise it in the form of fire drills, man over board drills, flooding drills, calling for help drills and abandon ship drills.
Once these three pillars are completed, we have a Safest Catch Program decal we award, which signifies they have their own vessel-specific safety program and all the tools they need to come home safely.
Also, as a by-product of completing this program, their vessel should be compliant with Transport Canada regulations. Fishermen are becoming proud of their participation and their Safest Catch decals.
This was a three-year, funded program that created so many positive and even lifesaving outcomes that the fishing industry decided to take on the program on its own and, through a funding initiative, saw the Safest Catch Program become part of Fish Safe BC’s core funding.
Since then, we have been asked by a number of different funders to bring the program to a broader audience of fishermen. Since 2012, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, through their PICFI program, or the Pacific Integrated Commercials Fishing Initiative, has funded Fish Safe to bring this training to all First Nations communities throughout B.C.
We have been to almost every coastal community in B.C. and even visited the Okanagan Nation in Penticton and Osoyoos. If you had told this old fisherman I would be training fishermen in Osoyoos Lake, I would have said you were crazy, but it was done.
The Safest Catch Program has gained national exposure as we were asked to head to the East Coast of Canada in 2013, again through funding through DFO, but this time through the Atlantic Integrated Commercial Fishing Initiative. We have worked with First Nations commercial fishermen in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Quebec, providing tools and awareness with the hopes that they too may come home safely.
More recently, we have received funding through the Boating Safety Contribution Program from Transport Canada to bring the Safest Catch and Stability Education programs to commercial fishermen on the east coast. We have worked with and trained safety advisers in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick with hopes that these groups will find a way to fund these programs in the future.
Since Fish Safe’s beginning, we have reached over 1,000 vessels and over 2,500 commercial fishermen in B.C. in almost every community along our coast. We have built trust and relationships with fishermen and First Nations that I feel aligns our programs — which also includes the Small Vessel Operator Proficiency, Marine Emergency Duties and Radio Operator Certificate — to perhaps partner with groups such as the Coast Guard to assist in bringing education, awareness and training to coastal, which could enhance boating safety and search and rescue response on our coast.
Thank you for the time and opportunity to speak to you about commercial fishing safety. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. It seems you have a great success story there. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” I think works very well here.
We will go to our first questioner, Senator Gold.
Senator Gold: Welcome, Mr. Krgovich. Your success and your reputation preceded you with the testimony of Brian Cook the other week. It’s great to have you here and to hear of the great work you’re doing.
We know how dangerous fishing can be and how economically challenging, if not sometimes fragile, the fishery can be. We also understood, and heard, that there’s a proud culture of independence amongst fishers. It’s wonderful to see how you succeeded in instilling a culture of safety. I guess it’s a work-in-progress; you can always do better within the communities that you’re servicing.
It’s also great that you brought it back east. But speaking for my friend the chair, why is Newfoundland not on the list? That’s the first important question. I’m happy to ask that, having experienced the joy of the coasts of Newfoundland as well. So that’s actually a serious question.
The other question is simply this: What recommendations would you have for us as a committee? We’re engaged in this important study. How can the work that you do be leveraged and scaled so that fishermen benefit from the kind of work you do? What are the keys to your success, and how can it be replicated beyond your work?
Mr. Krgovich: Thank you for the questions. We would love to get to Newfoundland. I think you’ll have to ask them. We have approached, and there just wasn’t the right fit at that time. Perhaps in the future we would love to go there. It’s a great part of the world and great people.
As far as our programs, they started to address gaps that we found — gaps being that the regulations were there, classroom training was there, but still we were having problems on the water. So we looked at things, being that the classroom training perhaps wasn’t the best way to go about it. You spoke of a proud group of people that are quite independent. Trying to get them all into one room is at times really difficult. Our coast is large, much as the East Coast is, so you have to almost tackle it in regions, sections, communities and villages.
Once you do get to those people, they’re quite accepting of people who are of the same background as they are. It opens doors for you. Gumboots open doors for you. It’s something we’ve seen over and over again when we come to these communities.
We train our fishermen as safety advisers, we call them. We wanted to call them “mentors,” but they thought that was too fancy. So we call them advisers, who are there to give them advice on things. They’re comfortable with that, that they can play the role as an adviser and still fish alongside. We’re not the regulators.
I think that’s a strong part of our programs that has been accepted on our coast. And when we’ve come to the East Coast, once we get in there and talk to them, they understand who we are and what we do, and it seems to break down some barriers.
In terms of leveraging that, there are a number of programs we have been seeing as we tour the country that are working on similar things and doing some really excellent work. Sometimes I wonder why we can’t all have a forum to work together. We try to get together, as Mr. Roussel said previously, at the Canadian Marine Advisory Council. Perhaps we should do more of that. And funding is always helpful. It gets us out there and allows us to do the work that we do.
The Chair: Just to speak for Newfoundland and Labrador, we are an island and everyone else is an outsider. Once you’re accepted, you’re accepted with open arms, but getting in there is always an issue.
Senator Poirier: Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a couple of questions, a follow-up from the previous question.
The program that was put together by Transport Canada and that you participated in or were the carrier of the program to participate — and I know you mentioned in your remarks that you had been up in my end of the country too, in Atlantic Canada. How many groups participated in that pilot project?
Mr. Krgovich: We initially did a bit of a barnstorming tour through the Maritimes, first making contact with all the associations we knew of and could get a hold of, and then we visited them and introduced to them our program that we wanted to share and that would be funded with them.
We asked them to put in some proposals of what they would do to partner up with this. We looked at everything from funding one group or multiple groups and spreading it out. We didn’t exactly know how to go about it.
We ended up funding a group through the Maritime Fishermen’s Union. A group Prince Edward Island professional — sorry; the name escapes me right now. Prince Edward Island, though. A school in Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia School of Fisheries. When we met with them, it was down in the south, by Yarmouth, somewhere there; formerly of Pictou, and I think they still are. Black & White Fisheries, a small community group out of Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Those were the four groups.
Senator Poirier: On the east side?
Mr. Krgovich: On the east side.
Senator Poirier: And you had more on the west side?
Mr. Krgovich: On the west side we took our portion of the contribution and enhanced what we were already doing. It gave us the ability to get out into the communities a little bit more. We did a number of events that went quite well. In fact, we’ve got one going on up in Prince Rupert as we speak, with the crab fishermen up there. So we enhanced what we were already doing, and we’ve had no proposals outside of that.
Senator Poirier: The communities that received the program or took advantage of having the program, were they mostly First Nations communities?
Mr. Krgovich: No, there were two parts. The AICFI program was, because that was a separate ask. They invited us out prior to the boating contribution fund. The ones that we met through this were not.
Senator Poirier: Fish Safe BC, from your notes, is an organization that is fishermen funded. Congratulations. I think that’s excellent. We talked a little while ago about the EPIRBs. I noticed that you have supplied, for free, some EPIRBs in qualifying vessels. What are the qualifications? Is it a certain size of vessel?
Mr. Krgovich: With the new regulation, there was a group of vessels that, through the past regulations, were not required to have EPIRBs on their vessels. These were vessels less than 15 gross tonnes and over 12 metres.
We didn’t have a lot of those that were affected on this boat, so if you were in that group, that was the first qualification. The second qualification would be if you had never participated with us before. As I said, there are coast people all over, and they like to keep to themselves, so this attracted people.
The third was a risk analysis. If you were in a fishery that perhaps didn’t require one of these but it made sense to have one aboard, then we considered you qualified for one.
Senator Poirier: I know last year the EPIRBs contributed to over 300 rescues in the United States alone. Have you seen many rescues that have been thanks to the EPIRBs in B.C.?
Mr. Krgovich: Unfortunately, the ones that pop to mind are the most recent ones that they haven’t worked for. The most recent one was a vessel called the Caledonian, where we lost three fishermen, unfortunately, probably three years ago. They had an EPIRB aboard; however, it didn’t deploy.
I’m not sure. The Coast Guard would be better to talk about those. Anecdotally, I don’t have a story on that for you.
Senator Poirier: Do you feel there should be regulations making it mandatory that all fishing vessels have them?
Mr. Krgovich: You put me in a tough position. We’re a fisherman’s organization, so on one side of me I’ve got my fisherman buddy saying, “Do you know how much one of those costs?” On my safety side I say, “Well, it could save your life.”
This is the balance we’re trying to work with. EPIRBs do save lives, and it would be one tool that would help someone on the water.
Would it be the magic one that helped everybody? No, but it would be a tool in the tool box.
Senator Poirier: I made a comment a while ago that it would be interesting to see if we could get the financing some way to help the fishermen with it. The cost saving and the results to the Coast Guard and everybody else would definitely outweigh the investment they would have to make in them.
Mr. Krgovich: Absolutely.
The Chair: EPIRBs are different sizes and costs. There’s a personal EPIRB that you can put on your survival suit and one for the boat itself. There are a variety of costs and sizes of vessel. I know in the offshore of Newfoundland, they have them on survival suits. From a Coast Guard perspective, it cuts down the search part of the search and rescue.
Mr. Krgovich: Absolutely. With one of those, I’ve been told it becomes a rescue mission, not a search and rescue mission.
Senator Raine: How much does one of those personal ones cost?
Mr. Krgovich: I’m thinking in the couple of hundred dollars range. Again, every time I make a statement like that, they change the technology and the price. That would be the range of the small one, I believe.
Senator Raine: So a boat would purchase four of them because there are four men on the boat at any one time.
Mr. Krgovich: Perhaps.
Senator Raine: They would share it. You wouldn’t have to take it home or when you go on vacation for two weeks.
Mr. Krgovich: I’ll tell you a story. I went on a vessel. It was a husband and wife team. He showed me, in his PFD, which was inflatable, that he had put his EPIRB inside. I said, “That’s great. It’s wonderful that you took that initiative outside of requirements. What about her?” He said, “She better stick next to me.”
Senator Gold: Was she there to hear that?
Mr. Krgovich: Yes, she was.
Senator Raine: This is coming, though. More and more people are getting them.
I appreciate the questions my colleagues have had, but fishing boats, they are funded by fishermen, but are they funded on the basis of the amount of your catch or is it membership-driven funding? How is Fish Safe BC funded?
Mr. Krgovich: As fishermen, we have a saying that whenever you sell your catch, whatever you’re provided comes out of the brailer, the cod end. When we deliver to the processors, the processors are paying a portion back through to Fish Safe BC, so it is on pounds of fish caught through the process.
Senator Raine: In other words, you don’t send a bill to the fisherman himself, who chooses not to pay it?
Mr. Krgovich: No.
Senator Raine: That’s a very good model.
Small fishing boats, especially, aren’t the only people out on the water that get into trouble. More and more there are pleasure boats, and probably an increasing percentage of people who get into trouble mainly because they’re not as professional or well trained.
Are there portions of your Fish Safe BC program that could be adapted to pleasure boats through power and sail squadrons and organizations such as that?
Mr. Krgovich: It definitely could be, yes. Your comments are right. Personally, I’ve had to tow pleasure crafts in that had broken down. I’ve had to tow fishing boats in as well, but yes, it could be a program that would work with pleasure boats too, being that if you have safety procedures, you’re going to make sure nobody falls overboard. If somebody does, what’s your plan to get them back on?
Senator Raine: Right now there’s nothing in place for those kinds of captains?
Mr. Krgovich: I believe you’re correct.
Senator Raine: They obviously don’t have a catch that they could bring in that could contribute to the funding of a program, but is there a way that it could be done, maybe through a gas tax or something like that?
Mr. Krgovich: Perhaps. With funding and resources we would have to increase, it could be done.
Senator Raine: Thank you.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much for your presentation and your excellent work. It’s fascinating.
My question plays off of the first question from Senator Gold. You’re obviously onto something very powerful and important, and something we want more of. Your organization, Fish Safe BC, has been very effective in your own waters, with your own fishers — you have the pier to pier — and you’ve brought it on occasion to other locations to some success.
As we are interested in this kind of marine safety and we look at what are good ways of spreading this nationwide, in fact, does Fish Safe BC have the absorptive capacity as an organization, or even the desire, to take on a national role with chapters in other places or help to seed sister organizations in other places?
Mr. Krgovich: That’s an interesting question that we’ve discussed. At our last discussion, our hopes would be that we would be the sister-seeding capacity. We don’t have the capacity, as we sit now, and I’m not sure that when we’ve had discussions that we’ve wanted to see a national program.
We think our programs are good programs. We think they fit with adaptations to the regions. I have done most of the training on the East Coast, and my words to the people across the table who are training are you have to make it your own. This is what we do. The pillars will work here, but you have to make it your own. You have to have ownership of it.
I hope that answers your question.
Senator Coyle: It does. Thank you.
A second fairly quick question, as well. You mentioned presenting in Vigo, Spain. I’m always curious about other international organizations. Obviously, you were there showcasing your success. Were there other really interesting and important successes from other countries that you saw on maritime safety models?
Mr. Krgovich: Yes, there were. It was interesting. That was one of my first exposures. I’d come straight off the deck of a boat. I remember the woman who founded Fish Safe, Gina McKay — it was Gina Johansen then — she came into my office and said, “I need you to do a presentation.” I said, “I can’t do a presentation. I’m a fisherman. I can talk to you in the galley, but I’m not going to do a presentation.” She said, “No, you need to do this.” I said, “Okay, where is it?” She said, “It’s in Vigo, Spain.” I just about flipped. It was a room of naval architects. She said, “You know, they need to hear it from a fisherman. They don’t need to hear it from the architects with the numbers.”
So I did it. It opened my eyes to the stuff that’s going on in other parts of the world. There was a fellow from Iceland who was there presenting, studying waves and the effect of waves on fishermen, not only at sea but when they drove home. They found that accidents were higher until they got their sea legs back or these sorts of things.
It’s been a while, but, yes, there are these things that go on with sharing of safety.
Senator Coyle: Who do you share with? That’s my last question.
Mr. Krgovich: We share mostly with the West Coast American organizations. There is AMSEA, Alaska Marine Safety Education Association, and there is the North Pacific Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association out of Seattle. We subscribe to their newsletters. We bring some of their people back to talk, and we present some of our stuff at the Seattle fishery expos, the Pacific Marine Expo, I guess it’s called more correctly. That’s who we share with.
Through back and forth to the East Coast, we’ve developed relationships where we talk, and, at the Canadian Marine Advisory Council, we talk. Personally, I think we should be sharing a lot more than we are. Why that’s not happening, I’m not sure.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Coyle.
Many people who make decisions in this very important industry, in my humble opinion, need to hear it from a fisherman.
Senator Deacon: I’m just chuckling because, Senator Coyle, for the last two witnesses, I think we’ve had the exact same questions. I was looking at that sustainability and capacity, first within B.C. If John and the top three folks that work this aren’t there, do you have that capacity for this to keep growing and become really supported and strong, continuing in B.C.?
Then I was looking at: How are you pushing your game internationally? What is it you are doing with your network out there, internationally, you folks constantly being learners and improving your game? I think we got most of that answer. I was trying to look at that piece from across the country, from B.C. and internationally. So thank you for that question.
The other part I was thinking about when we’re looking at alignment: You talked about the fact that the by-product of completing this program, which is fantastic, was that their vessels should be compliant with Transport Canada regulations. My question is the “should be.” How do we make that “they are, must be, will be” and that sort of gap? Are there things that you kind of think might not align? Is it a knowledge piece, an education piece, as we talked about earlier, to make sure that that “should” is an absolute verified “must”?
Before you answer that, I was going to start by saying it’s wonderful to see you here. I can’t imagine what your father and your grandfather would be feeling. It’s wonderful that, from the field, authentically, you are leading this project. It’s great.
Mr. Krgovich: Thank you. Yes, “should be.” We’ll get to that one.
With our program, we handle what we feel are all of the major safety-critical ones. I’m not an expert in the regulations with all of them. The main ones we cover. You need to have apparently two hose clamps on your exhaust. I’m sure there’s a safety thing there but we don’t get down to that level. We leave that for Transport Canada to go through that level.
So I think that’s why I say “should be.” There’s always an inspector out there, and he will go and perhaps see a boat with a decal and be able to find a deficiency. But it won’t be a major, safety-critical deficiency that they should find, unless things have changed.
That would be my “should be.” It would be one of those construction things. I’m not saying that, if it isn’t in there, it isn’t a safety issue, but it’s not a safety-critical one that we see.
Oh, sustainability, sorry. Our programs were sort of built on fishermen taking ownership of safety, and I still believe that that’s the way we need to look after ourselves on the water.
However, with our industry becoming very in flux, new people coming in and out, there’s a constant need to stay on top of things. We’re sustaining ourselves now when you’ve done the Safest Catch Program. They say, “Oh, we finished it, but I got a new crew this year. Can you come by and give me a hand again?” That’s keeping the phone ringing in that way. We always have to reapply for our funding and such, so we do that. So far so good. We managed to keep that portion of it.
Senator Ringuette: I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to say to you that I want to thank you, and my impression of the success of your program is that, sure there’s a portion of the content of the message, but I think that you’ve just proven to us that the messenger is also very important.
Mr. Krgovich: Thanks for saying that.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Ringuette. We have found, in our study — several senators have touched on it earlier — the increase in pleasure craft on both coasts, in the Great Lakes and everywhere else. It seems to be a major issue.
Coming from a fishing community in Newfoundland, like you, I know that most of the people who are in the industry in Newfoundland started when they were 10, 11 or 12 years of age and worked their way up with their fathers and grandfathers, whatever the case may be. So they learned the tricks of the trade as they went forward, whereas a lot of people on pleasure craft haven’t. I’m 45, 50 year of age. I can afford to buy a pleasure boat. Let’s go buy a pleasure boat and go to sea. It’s not that simple.
With regard to new licences to operate vessels, whether they are fishing vessels or whether pleasure craft, do you think there should be a recommendation that all of these new people who are coming into the system, especially pleasure craft but fishing boats also, that they have some type of course, some type of safety course? I know they do some courses, but yours seems to be more intense and down to the nuts and bolts of the operation. Do you think there should be a recommendation that they should have to participate in something like a Fish Safe program, along those lines?
Mr. Krgovich: I think, from the people we’ve talked to who have participated in our program, no one has said it’s been a waste of time.
Hearing that from them, and looking at it through the eyes of people who grew up on the water and still find something through the day that they could think about, I would think that anyone new to boating, if we’re talking about pleasure crafts and stuff, would benefit greatly.
The old saying that “you don’t know what you don’t know” is how they go at times. So if they brought some education and awareness around it, through a program like this, it could benefit them.
The Chair: I want to thank all our senators for their questions.
Thank you for your presence here this morning, and I certainly echo the comments of my fellow senators that it’s great to see someone who makes a living on the ocean come and talk to us about it, so thank you very much.
Mr. Krgovich: I appreciate it. Thanks very much.
(The committee adjourned.)