Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Transportation Safety
Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 8 - Evidence for March 18, 1997
HALIFAX, Tuesday, March 18, 1997
The Subcommittee on Transportation Safety of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 3:02 p.m. to study the state of transportation safety and security in Canada.
Senator J. Michael Forrestall (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: We are pleased to start our hearings in Halifax today with the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission and to have the general manager, Mr. Peter Vuillemot, with us.
The transportation commission has been part of the fabric of transportation in all of its aspects in this part of Canada for many years. It comes to us with a background of trust in its work and knowledge of the field that they endeavour to cover for those of us here in Atlantic Canada.
Please proceed, Mr. Vuillemot.
Mr. Vuillemot, General Manager, Atlantic Provinces Transportation Committee: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and honourable members. It is a pleasure today to speak to you on this important subject. The submission of the APTC is before you. I will highlight the main points in my opening remarks, following which I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.
Transportation safety is an area in which the APTC has not had a direct involvement over the many years that we have been involved in transportation in Atlantic Canada. The technical aspects of vehicle safety, roadway design, et cetera, are best left to those with a greater knowledge and experience. The APTC has, however, been actively involved in the discussions concerning such things as the national highway system and regulatory renewal in Canada.
Transportation, as I am sure you are aware, is a critical element in the economy of the Atlantic region. Manufacturers and producers depend upon safe and efficient transportation services to market their goods on North American and global markets. The tourism industry depends on safe and reliable transportation to attract visitors from around the world to our beautiful region. As consumers, we depend on transportation to bring the goods that we use in our daily activities.
The APTC has been urging the federal government to contribute significantly to the necessary highway upgrading in Atlantic Canada. The National Highways Systems Study in 1992 identified the highway network in Atlantic Canada as the most in need of upgrading. Since that time, as I am sure you are aware, considerable construction has taken place; particularly to provide four-lane divided highways in the Maritimes. However, much more needs to be done.
The federal government has contributed to this work through a series of ad hoc fixed-duration agreements with the provinces. However, in each case, the federal funds involved were diverted from other programs. There was no new money. The APTC believes that a national highway system program should have been in place years ago, which would provide the necessary funding for the upgrading, construction and maintenance of Canada's national highway system. We in Canada, by times, are great talkers and debaters, however, there are certain times when we talk rather than act, and the APTC feels this case is one where the talking has gone on far too long. The APTC also feels that the federal government has the necessary fiscal capacity within its existing revenue base to contribute significantly to such a national highway program. No new user taxes are required.
Our second point deals primarily with deregulation and safety regulation in Canada. The APDC is a strong supporter of economic deregulation of transportation in Canada. The APTC is also supportive of the industry and the federal and provincial governments in their efforts to implement safety regulation and programs. However, it is important to note that uniformity of regulation and uniformity of enforcement are critical factors. The federal government has a responsibility to coordinate with the various jurisdictions to ensure that uniformity of safety regulation is achieved and implemented as soon as possible.
Uniformity is important for compliance; it is also important to ensure that safety regulations do not become barriers to international or interprovincial trade or the movement of persons. Uniformity of regulation also leads to greater uniformity of enforcement. These are the two main points that were covered in our submission.
I will now accept your questions.
Senator Roberge: Can you tell me how you are funded?
Mr. Vuillemot: Our funding comes from a combination of provincial government grants or financial assistance, plus services that we sell and products that we sell; mainly information products, booklets, pamphlets, publications, that sort of thing.
Senator Roberge: You are talking about uniformity of standards. Can you explain a little more, what are the barriers that you feel are preventing this uniformity of standards from being accomplished?
Mr. Vuillemot: Essentially, as you are aware in Canada, roads and highways are provincial jurisdiction, so you have ten provinces and two territories which make and enforce their own sets of regulations in all areas relating to motor vehicle transport. Sometimes, through happenstance I would say probably more than anything else, when you go from one jurisdiction to another the regulations are reasonably similar, but in other cases they are not. They can, in certain circumstances, become barriers to trade either by means of the regulation itself or by means of the way it is enforced.
Senator Roberge: Do you feel that the federal government should enforce uniform standards across the country?
Mr. Vuillemot: I am not sure how the federal government can enforce uniform standards. I think the federal government should take a leading role in trying to bring the parties together to achieve more uniformity of the standards that we do have. I do not think that the federal government is, and I do not think that the provinces wish the federal government to be in a position to actually enforce standards, but I do think they have a coordinating role to bring people together, to encourage them. Perhaps there are other steps which the federal government might take to encourage more uniformity in standards.
Senator Bacon: Do you feel that the federal government, to follow up with what my colleague just asked, should impose some safety measures to the provinces through the conference of ministers of transport?
Mr. Vuillemot: I am not sure that "impose" is the correct word.
Senator Bacon: It is a strong word.
Mr. Vuillemot: Yes, it is a strong word.
Senator Bacon: I am sure the provinces would feel that way.
Mr. Vuillemot: I think that perhaps there needs to be some leadership shown. I think that perhaps the federal government can set standards and then try to encourage the provincial jurisdictions to meet those standards without actually making them as a regulation, so to speak.
Senator Bacon: We were told that highways are the most important item and should be the most important item on the agenda as far as safety is concerned.
Mr. Vuillemot: Yes.
Senator Bacon: You feel that way too?
Mr. Vuillemot: In Atlantic Canada, in terms of our transportation needs within the North American marketplace, whether you go to the United States or the rest of Canada, highways are our most important infrastructure. They move most of our freight, both in terms of the quantity of it by weight and also by value. They are the most important. As well, in terms of tourism and personal travel, again, it is the highway system which handles most of the traffic.
Senator Bacon: If the federal takes a leadership role, do you think the provinces would accept that?
Mr. Vuillemot: Would accept leadership? That is a good question. Some of them might, all of them probably would not, and there may need to be some incentives. I am not sure that that incentive must be money, dollars. There are other ways.
Senator Bacon: What should it be?
Mr. Vuillemot: Perhaps it can be through taxation; perhaps it can be incentives through the business community through taxation, those types of things. I am not a financial expert, so I do not know the workings of how the government manages its money, probably not as well as I should I guess. The federal government can take a much stronger position in bringing the parties together and advocating the types of safety regulations that are not in place that need to be in place.
For example, in this country, when economic deregulation took place in 1988 essentially, there were a lot of organizations, including ours, that said, at the time, that if you economically deregulate the transportation sector you should concurrently have in place a safety code or safety system. Well, we are nine years from that and we still do not have a national safety code in place. Nobody has really taken the lead in trying to get that implemented?
Senator Bacon: Would you recommend our committee to send a message as far as the safety code is concerned?
Mr. Vuillemot: Yes.
Senator Adams: You had somebody here earlier, sometime in 1996, at the transport committee in the House of Commons.
Mr. Vuillemot: Yes.
Senator Adams: Are you worried about safety too or just concerned about building a highway? Why would they come here sometime in December?
Mr. Vuillemot: That particular committee was essentially concerned with trying to find options towards funding a national highway program, and that was primarily the purpose. We did appear before that committee, and did encourage them in their work. We did in fact carry almost the same message that we have carried today, that we think that within the current fiscal structure of the federal government there is the room, or the capability, to contribute significantly to a program and that the federal government must sit down with the provinces, all ten provinces and two territories, and come to an agreeable funding formula.
We understand that in 1994 there were discussions and that at that time the provinces as a group, and the territories, had essentially agreed on an acceptable formula. The federal government did not agree at that time. At that time you had ten provinces and two territories agreeing but not the federal government.
I have no idea what the formula was at the time.
Senator Adams: You do not have a 50-50 agreement on costs for either building the highway or maintenance on the Trans-Canada Highway, do you?
Mr. Vuillemot: What we are saying is that a long-term program must be put in place. First of all, the federal government must recognize that a national highway system is a national asset and a national means of moving the population and goods from one part of this country to the other, which it does not recognize yet. It regards highways as purely a provincial responsibility and takes no recognition of fact that they are a national asset. The federal government must also recognize that we must put in place a program that will provide an ongoing mechanism for funding and maintaining that national asset for many years down the road. Most other developed countries in the world have such programs.
Senator Adams: Do you have any statistics on highway accidents in Nova Scotia like you have in Ontario, with so many trailers and wheels falling off?
Mr. Vuillemot: I do not have that those statistics at hand; the statistics are around. If you are referring specifically, for example, to the commercial trucking industry and wheel-offs, there have been, I believe, two incidents in Atlantic Canada since last fall of wheels off; certainly not to the extent that they have occurred in other places. My view on that is that I think you should look at some of the regulations that are in place and the differences between the types of equipment that are allowed on our highways versus on the highways in the jurisdictions where they are occurring, and I think you will be able to see some indications of what might be the problem; and that is that some jurisdictions allow their equipment to carry more freight, heavier weights, and therefore the equipment is subject to more stress.
Senator Adams: The Ontario government has tough new regulations now. I think they were introduced a couple of weeks ago.
Mr. Vuillemot: That is correct. And, for example, that possibly is a regulation, a safety regulation which is put in one jurisdiction which may in fact become a barrier to trade, because trade flows from, let us say, Atlantic Canada, into that province and in fact through that province to other provinces. And now that is a regulation which is in effect there, which may or may not, depending on how it is enforced and what it actually means, and I have not seen the wording of it, be a barrier to trade.
Senator Adams: What happens when someone from Nova Scotia goes through Ontario and that truck is not fit for the highway in Ontario? How do you feel about someone from Nova Scotia being fined up to $50,000? It will not be worth shipping something to Ontario from Nova Scotia, especially food.
Mr. Vuillemot: Do not misunderstand me. First of all, I think that certainly there was a problem and the steps that Ontario has taken to address it, whether they have taken the right steps or the wrong steps only people will know, but they needed to take steps to address it. They may have gone too far. What we have now is regulations in one jurisdiction that do not exist in other jurisdictions, and trade in this country does not follow our political boundaries, it flows back and forth across the country and north and south.
Certainly if a vehicle from Atlantic Canada is in Ontario and has one of those incidents, it is not a safe vehicle, then he should be subject to whatever penalties they have in that jurisdiction, we have no problem with that. We would like to see perhaps regulations put in place before you get into these critical situations, which is why a national safety code nine years ago might have been a preventative measure that would have avoided the situation we are in today.
Senator Roberge: We all know that governments have no money. That is not a big secret and maybe that is why nothing has happened over the course of year as you are referring. In the past couple of years some money has been put into an infrastructure program and some of the provinces, and maybe Atlantic Canada, have benefited from it. I am just curious to know what you think about, because many countries are doing that, the privatization of highways. Do you have any opinion on that?
Mr. Vuillemot: You must really define what you mean by "privatization of highway." If you are contemplating privatization of a national highway system from coast to coast in this country, I think that is a ludicrous idea. If you are talking about the type of public-private partnerships which we are undertaking in this country to construct certain individual projects, in certain individual areas, I think that that is probably a useful alternative. My own view is that over the long run, or the total life of the asset, it probably will not make much difference to the total cost. What it does is enables us to put the asset in place much quicker.
Senator Roberge: And maintain it?
Mr. Vuillemot: I will reserve judgment on the maintaining part of it. Many of the schemes that have been talked about may be applicable for certain areas, perhaps in southern Quebec, southern Ontario and B.C., where you have huge volumes of traffic, but when you get on highways in Atlantic Canada or on the prairies and Northern Ontario, places like that, you will find that it is very difficult for the volume of traffic in those areas to carry those types of costs and you will not have a private operator that will be willing to work in those areas.
The Chairman: Having followed the progress of deregulation, economic and otherwise, can you say in the judgment of the council whether there has been any adverse effect on safety as a result, director or otherwise, of deregulation?
Mr. Vuillemot: I must say that our feeling is that there has not been a link between economic deregulation of the transportation sector and any changes in the level of safety over the same period of time. I am not in fact sure that we have a less safe system now than we did at the time of deregulation. There are, and have been over that time, many more safety regulations put in place by individual jurisdictions and by different jurisdictions, perhaps to the point where it is becoming difficult, due to the number of regulations and the complexities of the regulations, for vehicle operators to follow the regulations.
I would suggest that you get an executive of a trucking company or, more closely, a truck driver, and ask a truck driven what he must do and what he feels he can accomplish given the amount of regulations and the amount of paperwork he faces before he can drive his truck down the road, and if he in fact understands the regulations that he is trying to follow. I would suggest that it is very difficult.
The Chairman: Are you familiar with the practice in Ontario carried out by the highway police in that province?
Mr. Vuillemot: I am aware they have an inspection program. I am not familiar with it, no.
The Chairman: You are not familiar with it?
Mr. Vuillemot: No.
The Chairman: You have not looked at it sufficiently enough to develop an opinion as to whether or not it is something we perhaps should not do here in the Atlantic provinces, for example?
Mr. Vuillemot: In the Atlantic provinces, all the jurisdictions have inspection programs for vehicles. They do inspections at check stations and they have mobile inspectors that can stop and inspect a vehicle at any time. I do not know whether the intensity of it is different and whether the actual inspection they do is different from that in Ontario or not, but we do have inspection programs and inspectors here. We have vehicle safety inspections, and so on and so forth, where the vehicles must be certified a certain number of times a year.
The Chairman: Is that similar to the practice of car safety standards; you must have your car safety checked?
Mr. Vuillemot: Similar, except they are more rigorous for commercial vehicles.
The Chairman: But it is not vigorous presence on New Brunswick highways, for example.
Mr. Vuillemot: I think you would find that for some considerable time it has been the opinion of vehicle operators that New Brunswick is the province in which they face the stiffest inspections. No matter whether they are coming from Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland, they understand that when they get to New Brunswick, at the inspection stations or by the roving inspectors, they face a pretty strict regime.
The Chairman: Perhaps it is time we had some uniformity with that?
Mr. Vuillemot: There are some problems that way. Of course, the other thing is that there are a large number of vehicles on the road and whether they all get inspected or not, or what the percentage is, I cannot tell you, but I am sure it is not 100 per cent.
The Chairman: Coming back to this question of how you get on with funding of both new highway programs and maintenance programs, we have been toying with the idea of inviting the government to consider turning back to the system itself, transnational system, significant highways, somewhere between a cent and a half and two cents for renewal and maintenance, and an equal amount, perhaps slightly ahead, for new construction into the foreseeable future, taking it straight out of the tax and dividing it up. We have a discrepancy now in taxation from one province to the other that makes it a little difficult for operators and the provincial authorities to institute individual programs. Would you care to comment on that?
Mr. Vuillemot: Yes, I would like to comment on that. We think that that is probably a step in the right direction, in that the federal government takes out of the system now, I guess depending on the source you look at, anywhere between a little over $3 billion a year and up to $5 billion in taxes directly out of the system and that they return very little of that to the system for infrastructure, perhaps in the range of 5 to 10 per cent, depending on which figure you take as the figure being taken out. We certainly think there is some room there.
We also think that in transportation in recent years the federal government has withdrawn from a substantial number of other programs. They are withdrawing from financial responsibility in regards to airports, air navigation, seaports, a number of subsidy programs right across this country. They have created a substantial amount of fiscal room, if you like. Now, granted, some of that is going for deficit reduction, and so on, as it should be, but we think there is room in there for them to return a portion of it. Whether the amount should be a cent and a half or two cents, I cannot comment, but we think that there is room and that the federal government should return a portion to a long-term funding formula for a national highway system.
The Chairman: In terms of the rail beds in your area of concern, and perhaps west of Montreal and back, are they safe, are they relatively safe, or are they very safe?
Mr. Vuillemot: As to the rail beds, I cannot comment. The railways have been privatized in this country and the railways own their own structures. We have not had, I do not believe, in Atlantic Canada this winter to date any serious derailments. I am not aware of any this year. We have had from time to time. That would indicate to me, and all indications are from the companies that are operating, that their infrastructure is in good shape. The users of the service are not experiencing any problems with delays or that sort of thing, so that would indicate that the system in Atlantic Canada appears to be in reasonably good shape.
When you talk about safety, there is more to safety than just the condition of the infrastructure and the condition of the roadbed. There is the mechanical condition of the equipment that goes over it, there is the training of the employees and the regulatory system and whether the employees understand that system and follow that system. It is a whole mix of things. The infrastructure is only one component.
Senator Bacon: You seem to be satisfied with the regulations presently covering the transportation of dangerous goods. Is that because you have experienced safety problems before in Atlantic Canada?
Mr. Vuillemot: In terms of transportation of dangerous goods, no, we have not really experienced any safety problems with transportation of dangerous goods in Atlantic Canada. That is not to say we have not had incidents here and there. We generally have not experienced a problem with it. The regulations that were put in place by Transport Canada in the mid- to late 1980s, originally, and even to date, are very complex and difficult to interpret and understand. Transport Canada does have a good program to help shippers and carriers interpret and make sure they are working with them. There is currently a lot of activity to simplify those and to make them easier to understand and easier to follow, and that is a step in the right direction. Sometimes these regulations are written in such a language that they are difficult to understand and are overly complicated.
Senator Bacon: Would you recommend more changes, more regulations?
Mr. Vuillemot: I would never recommend more regulations. I would recommend that in those instances where there are problems, and where regulations are needed to resolve those problems, then regulations are required and should be put in place. In many instances I think regulations are perhaps put in place before the situation has had a chance to be resolved by the parties involved, and in those instances perhaps there is a tendency to go a little bit overboard.
Senator Roberge: Now that the railways have privatized, there are short-line operators now -- as well, there are short-line operators in this area -- have you made any analysis and studies on the safety and security concern about the short-line operators versus the way it was previously?
Mr. Vuillemot: Not in terms of safety, no, we have not.
Senator Roberge: You have no comments to make on that or any worries?
Mr. Vuillemot: We have had short-line operators operating for a number of years here and the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission was involved in that process and was fully supportive of that at the time, and our experience with them is that they have been good operators. They have provided a good service to their customers and we are not aware that there are coming from the employee groups in those organizations many concerns of safety.
Now, having said that, I do realize that in one particular operator's case there were some incidents in the last year. That is the operator in New Brunswick. However, I believe most of those issues were addressed by the employees and the management themselves; as well, the provincial government was involved.
Senator Roberge: You have talked to us mainly on a few items in your brief. We have talked about short-line, we have talked about different modes of transportation: Do you have any other concerns that you would like to raise with us?
Mr. Vuillemot: In terms of the safety area, as I said, the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission has not been involved directly in that area in the past and we do not foresee being directly involved. The operators and the developers and builders of the infrastructure on that are in a much better position than we are to analyze these things. Our main concern is that any regulations that are put in place should be uniform across the jurisdictions.
They should be uniform for a number of reasons. One is for an understanding of them so that the people that must live by them can understand them and know what is involved when they go from one part of this country or one part of this continent to another. It also helps enforcement of them if they are relatively uniform, and it also is a less costly system if they are uniform, for everybody concerned. It is less costly for the government to administer, it is less costly for the people that are trying to live with them and abide by them. For those reasons we are very much in favour of uniformity of regulation.
We also are concerned, because transportation is a service industry and the operators in that industry are trying to meet commitments to their customer, that there be some balance and that they have an adequate opportunity for input; that we do not put in place such a strict regime of regulations that it hinders our ability to trade or to move people or to compete with other parts of North America, or the world for that matter, as we are living now primarily in a global economy.
Senator Adams: You mentioned a couple of times that you would like to see more standardization. We meet some of the Transport Canada people in Ottawa, who I think mostly approve of a Canadian standard. It sounds like you are concerned mostly with cars and semi-tractor trailers. What standards are you looking for?
Mr. Vuillemot: There are a number of different levels of regulation of course. First of all, you have mechanical standards, which deal with the vehicle itself and the mechanics of the vehicle. You also can have standards for the way those vehicles are used and what is put on them in terms of weight and dimensions, et cetera, and how it is fastened and held on. You also can have standards for the operators, to make sure that they are all at a certain level of competency, for example. However, in regard to highway transport, highway transport is the responsibility of the provinces.
The federal government, and quite rightly so in my opinion, leaves most of the regulatory regime in regard to the operation and safety standards of vehicles to the provinces. However, we think the federal government does have a role to play in coordinating and suggesting appropriate levels of regulation or appropriate individual safety standards; for example, whether a vehicle can have 100,000 pounds of freight on it or not. That is just a number I pulled out of the air, it does not mean I think it should have. They can do things like that, and suggest standards; they can suggest standards for driving training, how that should be uniform across the country. They should set standards for equipment; whether they must have certain types of brakes or certain safety features built into the mechanics of the vehicle. They can set standards for that and then take steps to encourage the provinces to follow them.
What we have now, for example, in a lot of areas, particularly in the operational field -- and I can give you a quick example here. If you are hauling certain large loads in New Brunswick that are perhaps a little wider or a little longer than your standard vehicle length, you can only haul them in daytime hours. On the other hand, in Nova Scotia you can only haul those same loads during night-time hours. Now why do you have two jurisdictions side by side, essentially dealing with the same product, it can be same load, having a different view of it? Why is that?
For example, in Nova Scotia, a vehicle that is hauling an extra-long or an extra-wide load displays on the front a sign which has red and white stripes and the letter D on it, meaning dimensional load. When the vehicle does not have a load on it, it must take the sign off. In New Brunswick, the vehicle displays the sign whether or not it has a load on it. Those are the types of things I am referring to.
Senator Adams: The U.S. has better standards than Canada. In Canada, you can have up to 130,000 pounds of payload for those semi-trailers and in the States they allow only 80,000 pounds of payload. With respect to regulations for drivers, in the States they have a 10-hour limit on driving, whereas in Canada it is 13 hours. I think the fact that we have more traffic accidents on our highways is that we have bigger loads and the drivers drive for longer hours.
Mr. Vuillemot: I will not say that the standards are any better or any worse in Canada or in the U.S.; they have different standards for different things. In some states in the United States you are allowed to haul much more weight on the state highways than we are here in Canada. You are allowed to haul triple trailers in some states; you cannot in others. Again, it comes down to an individual jurisdictional thing.
In terms of the weight limits and how much you are allowed to put on and the hours of driving, I think those are probably much better answered by people who operate the vehicles. There was a study just released that was an international study done on driver fatigue, and I believe that one of the conclusions of that study was that there was not a lot to choose between the American hours of service and the Canadian ones, that that was not what influenced how tired a driver was in any case.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Vuillemot.
We are now very honoured to have with us Captain John Hughes. He is a sailor and brings to this table one of those rare histories in sailing that has stood both he and the community well.
Mr. John Hughes, Port Manager, Secunda Marine Services Limited: I would like to read a brief statement.
My position as Port Manager for Secunda Marine Services Limited is one I have only recently taken up, after a 20-year career as a seagoing officer, including service since 1985 as master on a variety of vessels under the Canadian, British, Bahamian and Barbadian flags. I have been asked to speak here today on behalf of Mr. Alfred Smithers, President of Secunda Marine.
I would first like to touch briefly on some of those issues which have been raised during previous sittings of this committee. First, with reference to reduction in the number of floating aids to navigation, we have no argument with this and in fact do not see this as an impediment to safe navigation, being more than compensated for by advancement in technology available to the modern navigator.
The same is true with respect to the phasing out of manned lighthouses. I know this was an issue with various organizations on the West Coast, but I think our conditions here differ somewhat.
We are also satisfied with the present system of Port State Control, and we support the effort that Transport Canada has made in enforcing this important memorandum, one designed to ensure a level playing field for international ship operators and to ensure the safety of all seafarers and the protection of the environment.
However, I think a comment made by Mr. Jim Murray of FedNav concerning the apparent lack of operational experience backing up some port state inspections carried out in Canada, and his answer to the problem being to provide better training and on-the-job experience for inspectors, leads me into a discussion of what I consider will be the biggest challenge facing the shipping industry in the decade ahead, namely, provision of experienced personnel in sufficient numbers to meet the demands of both government and industry.
The traditional route for a person entering the marine field has been to embark on a career at sea in the position of a cadet, and through a system incorporating experience provided by the shipowner, shore training provided by marine colleges, and examinations provided by the government, to advance to a senior position aboard ship as master or chief engineer. After some period in one of these senior positions, an individual might then, and only then, move laterally into government employment as a ship surveyor, examiner of masters and mates, a port state inspector, transportation safety board inspector, pollution officer, or into other facets of the industry as a marine pilot, cargo surveyor, instructor at a nautical college, insurance surveyor, marine superintendent, et cetera. This process would normally take some 15 years.
I think there would be no argument that there will continue to exist a need for Canada to provide the required expertise to monitor, inspect and pilot vessels entering Canadian waters to ensure the safety and security of shipping within our jurisdiction. The question we face as an industry is where will this pool of manpower come from.
As a diversified Canadian shipowner, we have endeavoured to man our vessels with Canadian officers in order to be able to meet our projected needs for manning in the future, regardless of the flag of the vessel. This is also due to the fact that under the present SCTW Convention, we can still not be assured of the quality of certificates of competency issued by other nations.
With the coming into being of SCTW-95, two things are likely to change. First, the cost of the Canadian officer will increase with the additional training requirements; second, the proposed "White List" of complying states as monitored by IMO will give greater assurance of quality. Coupled with the reduction in government funding for adult education as of September '96, this is likely to price the Canadian officer out of the world market when compared to officers from other developed countries where a system of tax relief has been implemented, whereby companies can reduce gross salaries without an officer taking a reduction in net pay, and when compared to officers from developing nations where salary expectations or requirements are lower.
These factors may combine in the near future to effectively close the last opportunities available for Canadians to obtain practical experience in the marine field at the higher levels, experience necessary in order to provide the future experts who will be responsible for the monitoring of safety in the shipping industry in Canada.
Mr. Chairman, that is just a brief statement that I prepared and I am happy to field any questions you may have.
Senator Roberge: You say you have no argument with respect to the phasing out of manned lighthouses. There is a substantial amount of flak about that on the West Coast. Maybe it is because they have more pleasure craft than here. Could you give us a reason why you are of this opinion?
Mr. Hughes: I do not have any on-hands experience on the West Coast, but I believe the nature of traffic out there is more of a coastal nature. The shipping on the east coast of Canada tends to be a little more broad ranging, in terms of the size of the ships and the experience of the officers. The geography of the coast is also slightly different. I believe that ships navigating on the East Coast of Canada are much less reliant on what I would call inshore aids to navigation and perhaps are more familiar with some of the more modern equipment that is available on ships today.
Senator Roberge: Would you go then as far as thinking that down the road, for example, that pilots might not be necessary in certain parts of the Eastern region of Canada, the St. Lawrence River or other parts like that because of new technology?
Mr. Hughes: No, I would not support that view. There is a slight difference in my experience. Pilotage is the provision of local knowledge and is provided normally to foreign ships or larger vessels that may not have particular experience in certain waters. Floating aids, or fixed aids, lighthouses, provide a service. They provide a weather service; they provide a position fixing service. As well, I think that advances in GPS, DGPS, VTS, this type of thing, along with the improvements in radar, have almost negated the role of the fixed light as an aid to navigation.
I think it would be fair to say, in my experience on this coast and worldwide, that they are really not put to the type of use that was intended when they were put into service some decades ago.
Senator Roberge: Should there be procedures to identify some ships, for example, which are not safe? Can you comment on the procedures and the safety in general?
Mr. Hughes: I think the procedures are in place to identify those ships which are coming into Canadian waters at the present time which are not safe. As I indicated, we are quite satisfied with the steps that the port state inspections have made in that regard. The SCTW has addressed a lot of the concerns with the levels of training and certification of the officers on these ships. What I see as the problem in the manning levels is the time delay between when individuals begin a career at sea and the amount of time that is required before they are of a calibre that they would become, themselves, for example, good port state inspectors. With the declining numbers of seafarers -- and this is not just a Canadian problem, this is very definitely a worldwide problem -- I foresee that we need to look at where we will get the experience in the next decade.
Senator Roberge: What would you recommend to this committee that we could take back and maybe make a committee recommendation down the road?
Mr. Hughes: I think it is a big issue; since I have been involved in the industry it has been a topic of discussion. One of two conclusions can be drawn from the state of affairs today: Canada will accept down the road that we will need to import expertise for monitoring functions within the country, and in that regard we would be competing with European countries, with other western countries in a depleting pool of experience. We must take some steps today to try to project what our needs may be and to perhaps look at how the Government of Canada could assist private industry in providing the requisite amount of space on ships for proper training.
The present training system incorporates the provincial government in terms of the schooling, in terms of the colleges; it incorporates the federal government in terms of Transport Canada with their examination systems. We rely on industry at the moment to provide the practical training. If any one of these three aspects is missing, then you will not have a product at the time in the form of an experienced seafarer.
Senator Roberge: What you are saying is that there are shortcomings right now, not only as far as costs are concerned but also that perhaps one of the levels, either the federal or the provincial, or even the individuals, the companies, is not taking its full load?
Mr. Hughes: No, I would say that the companies are taking as much load as they have available in terms of the number of ships. What concerns me, as I say, is that the number of berths on ships for officers in training are not what they were even 15 years ago. The federal government, or various branches of the government and pilotage organizations, the Transportation Safety Board, will not feel the effect of these reduced manning levels until at the top end of the spectrum. We in industry are seeing this now at even more junior levels of officer certification where we are having problems in some cases manning ships with suitably qualified people.
Senator Roberge: I understand that, but what practically are you recommending, or would like to recommend? Should the federal government, for example, institute a fund to make sure that we have the individuals who can help in the costing with the corporations to put more berths on the ships? What are you practically recommending?
Mr. Hughes: Yes. I am almost loath to make any particular recommendations, senator, at the moment. I think the big issue is yes, if we are to provide those three stages of training, two of them are beholding upon government in the present form we have -- as I say, at the provincial level, engaged in the schools, and the federal government is engaged in the examination of seafarers. Those are obviously issues that are perhaps more readily addressed. The bigger problem of how do we encourage industry to provide ships for which people can train on is perhaps more difficult. All I would really like to say is that the commercial climate for a shipowner at the moment makes it very difficult to provide Canadian flagged vessels in foreign trade in which we can offer that level of training.
Senator Bacon: We know that there have been some cutbacks in the Coast Guard. Do you think that that has affected their ability to continue to mark unsafe waters?
Mr. Hughes: I have not seen any results of that. We are in agreement with the reduction in the number of floating aids. With advances in other technology, operationally we do not have any problem with that.
Senator Bacon: You seem to be informed of the discussions we had out west about the AWOS. According to your experience, would you say that the information given by AWOS is accurate and reliable?
Mr. Hughes: In my experience, yes. In the last number of years and at the present time, in talking to the captains of our vessels, I have not had any reports of dissatisfaction with that service.
Senator Bacon: Is that the case during storms? We were told that when there are storms, it is difficult to be accurate.
Mr. Hughes: The types of vessels that we operate on this coast have a variety of systems available to them to receive weather information and to make their own forecasting. There is probably less reliance on this coast in terms of the services than there might be in other areas of the country.
Senator Bacon: Would you say that AWOS is as accurate as manned lighthouses?
Mr. Hughes: I would say that what they provide is adequate. I note in the comments that you are referring to it says that the manned lighthouse with the lighthouse keeper is able to better ascertain the sea conditions, for example, with a naked eye than instrumentation can. I would not dispute that, but I would say that if the mariner knows the source of the information that he is getting and uses that in conjunction with other systems that are available, he can still make a proper assessment of the weather on board. That has been our experience.
Senator Adams: You are concerned with safety around ports. My concern is with ships coming into Canada. We have regulations in Canada. How does the system work with a European ship or any other ship coming into Halifax or anywhere in Canada? You control from here up to the St. Lawrence, which is similar to Edmonton having a main tower for the air traffic controllers. When ships come into the 200-mile limit, how does the system work for the port manager?
Mr. Hughes: There is a system in place that Transport Canada operates. Someone from that branch would be better able to answer your question in detail. However, the system that exists, the reporting system for eastern Canada which allows the government to have information on vessels that will be transiting Canadian waters or arriving in Canadian ports ahead of time, what we rely on for control in terms of the quality of the ships that are coming in and as to whether they have any defects, that does not take place in the broad sense until after they have arrived and may be subject to a port state inspection.
Under the port state inspection, if a ship departs Europe or any other country that is a party to that convention and if, for example, there were a defect noted in that country before she sailed -- the shipowner may have been given a period of time to make a repair, for example -- that information would be available to the Canadian Coast Guard or Transport Canada. They would be aware of that problem before the ship arrived in Canadian waters.
Senator Adams: Canada spends over $200 million a year to rescue survivors from sinking ships or things such as that. If it happened that a ship was on fire or it had been damaged and came into Halifax, who would pay for that repair? How does that work in the Port of Halifax?
Mr. Hughes: Any ship that came into Halifax for repair, that is simply a commercial venture and the shipowner would be responsible financially for that repair.
In terms of safeguarding our environment and ensuring that the ship does not sink immediately upon leaving port, there are several systems in place. All Solace Convention ships or ships that are trading on foreign voyages for commercial reasons would have to be inspected by one of the classification societies. They would approve the repair and ensure that it was done to a known standard. If a ship arrived in a Canadian port that was damaged, Ship Safety, under the Port State Memorandum, would look at it to make sure that they were satisfied.
There is a vehicle to make sure that once a ship arrives at a Canadian port, it will not leave in a state that would make it a continuing hazard to our waters.
The broader problem that SCTW and the various other conventions address is trying to make sure that all the shipowners in the world, regardless of what flag state they belong to, meet a same or similar standard so that one could be reasonably assured, as a government, that a ship coming into your waters would be acceptably safe.
As far as the cost of search and rescue, that is a national issue.
Senator Adams: In the area around Halifax, the seas are very rough compared to the West. Some of the oil tankers coming through here come from Chile and go to Montreal. Would there be a registered time that they left Chile and arrived at the port in Montreal? Do you have anything to do with that or is it only the Coast Guard that is concerned about ship's safety when it comes into the 200-mile limit?
Mr. Hughes: As Port Manager for a commercial company, I would not have any concern in somebody else's business.
Senator Adams: I thought perhaps the port would have something to do with it; Transport Canada, just like airlines, when ships come into the 200-mile limit, would make sure that those ships are safe. If a ship spills oil out there, who is responsible? Is the company responsible or does the Government of Canada pay for clean up? My concern is how the system works. Do you, as manager of a port, know how the system works with cargo ships or oil ships coming into Halifax?
Mr. Hughes: In reference to the Port of Halifax, one of the officials from the Port Corporation could better answer that question.
In answer to your first query in terms of ships making passages that would take them through a 200-mile limit, there is no mandatory reporting system for vessels making passages between countries.
Senator Bacon: Do you have a special policy at Secunda Marine Services Ltd. on drug and alcohol abuse for your employees?
Mr. Hughes: We have a policy statement on substance abuse, yes. We prohibit it on board all our vessels. We have not run into that as a big problem. The company policy is not to permit it. If we do run into a case of substance abuse, through our Human Resources Department we would offer assistance in terms of dealing with the problem. However, to date, we have not run into that as being what I would consider a significant safety issue.
Senator Bacon: However, if you experienced it, you would take care of your people?
Mr. Hughes: Very definitely, yes.
Senator Roberge: Do you have mandatory testing?
Mr. Hughes: No, we have no testing.
Senator Roberge: Do you have any desire to do that eventually?
Mr. Hughes: Not unless it was legislated upon us.
Senator Roberge: In your brief you mentioned that you would like to have some sort of tax relief implemented by the federal government where the companies deduct from their gross salaries. I would like to come back to the corporation. I do not know how the system works. Do you have trainees?
You become a cadet. Then you go to another level and become Master Chief or whatever the different titles are. Are there individuals who are on your ships who have no specific job because they are on training to become a Master Chief, for example, or is everybody doing a job and getting paid for it?
Mr. Hughes: There are a limited number of individuals who would come out of one of the schools who would be looking for a short amount of time at sea in order that they might be able to go and do a bridge washman's certificate or perhaps obtain a cook's certificate. Sometimes there are individuals from a new entry sea program, which they have at one of the colleges in Nova Scotia. This is basically a precursor to becoming an unlicensed seaman on a ship. It is a short period of training as a deck hand or an unlicensed seafarer. We do have some of those individuals come aboard. They do not receive a salary from us for the short training period they are on board the ship. They would then go back to the school.
Senator Roberge: How short is the training?
Mr. Hughes: Anywhere from six weeks to six months. In quite a few cases with Secunda, these individuals will come abroad and if they work out satisfactorily, we would offer them employment almost immediately afterwards.
Senator Roberge: Is this something that is standard in the industry, not only with Secunda? Many corporations have training programs where they take people from school and hire them for six months to a year, which helps to offset the disappearance of qualified help. I am not saying that the federal government and the provincial government should not do their bit. But I am coming back to the corporation now. Can the corporation do more to help?
Mr. Hughes: I am sure there is always more that can be done, if it is done as a joint effort with an end result as the target.
Let me cite one case. We have a vessel presently on passage to a port in Africa. We placed two cadets on that vessel. They are not on salary, and they are there in addition to regular unlicensed crew. They are not in place of; they are in addition to. They are there simply for the training.
We try to accommodate as many cadets as we can. We do not have an unlimited number of spaces, obviously. As to whether that is a standard throughout the industry, traditionally it is the standard. There is probably less of it in Canada today than there has been in the past, simply because there are not as many ships under the Canadian flag at sea today.
The Chairman: The role of AWOS is quite different on the West Coast than it is on this coast because of its use by pilots and the need to know what is over the next mountain range. On the East Coast, there is certainly less need for it. There is the old adage: When you lost sight of one lighthouse, the next one came into sight. They were exactly for that purpose. We needed them on this coast because we had no other means.
If they try to put the AWOS system on Sable Island, I would be prepared to shoot somebody. That is one of the few places in the entire world where you would need lighthouses. You would not want to rely on an automated weather reporting system when flying out to Sable Island.
I am concerned about safety at sea. A lot of good work has been done in the last 10 or 15 years, although an awful lot more needs to be done. We need a new Maritime Act, particularly dealing with seamen and their lot in life. I still hear horror stories of mates spending three days to clean a tank and then three days to load, with only a couple of hours to sleep. It is one thing to go around the world and sleep in a hot bunk once in a while and never get out of your clothes, but that is dangerous.
How do we get around that? You have a mate who, at the end of 96 hours makes a judgmental error, then it is his fault. He was on deck loading and cleaning. If he leaves the deck and anything happens, he is called incompetent. There are all sorts of demands being made upon him. If he is conscientious, he follows; the work gets done, tanks get cleaned and cargoes are taken on and transported. But that man or woman is a menace and a danger.
I believe the Canadian market will grow. It cannot help but do so. Even if we do not expand anything we are doing now, it just naturally grows. As this happens, the fleet of Canadian ships that are on our coasts are going to need more and more people. How do we ensure against that system? You can say, let us have three deck officers and then put the chief on day work, and then he is not responsible for anything; he can leave if he wants to. Then you would have people who are fresh and have had some sleep to double check and monitor him. This is all for the sake of one additional person.
Crew costs are so high that sometimes safety is affected by the absence of not just the chief, but the boson or the pumpman. Usually someone is up and working not just 10, 12, 15 hours but four or five days at a time.
That is a safety problem. How do we approach it? How do we tend to resolve it? Where do we go to find the solutions?
Mr. Hughes: The problem that you are referring to, Mr. Chairman, is not one that is new. It certainly has been noticed.
The Chairman: It is as old as the days of sail.
Mr. Hughes: It has been well noted by most Masters through the years. There are federal regulations in place that do govern the hours of work. It would be more accurate to say the hours of rest are stipulated in a given period.
The Chairman: What are the rules for a Captain at Secunda?
Mr. Hughes: We follow Canadian regulations in terms of our Canadian ships.
The Chairman: What do the Canadian regulations tell you about hours of work? I do not know how long a man can work.
Mr. Hughes: It is laid down that you should have eight hours of rest in a 24-hour period. I am well aware in the practical sense that that is often very difficult to achieve in an operating environment that is remote from any support.
This is how we operate. If the concern is brought to our attention by the Captain of the vessel, who is the man in charge, we would take steps to address that. I can cite you a couple of examples where we have had ships that have gone into contractual agreements on charter to provide a given service during a 24-hour period continuously, whether it be ROV work, hydrographic or that type of thing. When we put a boat on that type of schedule, we provide an additional officer on deck to augment the normal complement of three.
It is perhaps an operational problem. Hours of work is perhaps one of the issues that could bear further discussion. As an operational problem, from this end I would not consider that to be a big issue in a well run company. For 99 per cent of the cases, the regulations that are in place today would cover it. But there are going to be exceptions to that norm.
The Chairman: Are there any areas in the act itself affecting safety that you feel perhaps could stand revisiting? If there are, could you cite one or two of them for us?
Mr. Hughes: I will be quite up front. I have not had a chance to become familiar with the new act that is coming out. So, it would be unfair to address the old act without referring to the new one, which I am not prepared to do today. I would like to defer that question.
The whole thrust of certification and standards for the human factor, if I can call it that, are definitely being dealt with. That would be the thrust where I would consider the safety problem to be.
The Chairman: Once the construction stage of the pipeline is finished, which will be a very busy couple of years, how much activity will be required of service vessels such as Secunda's basic fleet? Will they be active or will there not be a requirement?
Mr. Hughes: I certainly hope we will be active.
The Chairman: Not as active as you are at drilling or exploration periods, though, or will you be?
Mr. Hughes: In the actual pipe-laying operation, this is a commercial venture. The overall increase that we will see in activity on the Eastern Coast of Canada is definitely going to bring more activity in the offshore support industry. Commercially speaking, we hope to see an increase above what we have now.
The Chairman: Are the safety requirements any different in this kind of an operation than they are in the exploratory phase?
Mr. Hughes: No. They are not any different than they are in the exploratory phase. The safety requirements for the provision of offshore supply vessels on the coast is different than it would be for a coastal tanker or a coastal vessel of any kind. That is governed by provincial regulations through the Offshore Petroleum Board. They have requirements over and above what are required in terms of safety under the Canada Shipping Act. There are additional requirements for offshore support, yes.
The Chairman: Could you tell us how we stand vis-à-vis that great area of activity in the North Sea? We have not had the experience yet, but are we coming at it in pretty good shape vis-à-vis that as a standard? Are our crews trained; are our ships properly equipped? Is everything in place to make the operation out here safer than it was in the North Sea? It was pretty hairy, at least in the beginning.
Mr. Hughes: Great strides have been made since the late seventies, early eighties, even on this coast. We have the ships in place. We are very fortunate that we have managed to retain a lot of the crew that were trained in the heydays of the late seventies to the mid-eighties. There is no question that the pool of people to draw from has decreased. As you are aware, Mr. Chairman, there was a very large burst of activity during that period. Of course, with that activity came an increased level of knowledge and greater numbers of trained people. Once that activity tailed off, these people who got their training with Canadian companies on the East Coast of Canada gradually dispersed to either other areas of the world or into other professions, in some cases.
We have retained a core nucleus of those people because Secunda carried on operations throughout the whole period. For the level of activity that we are going to see, I do not have any safety concerns with the provision of experienced people.
As to how it compares with the North Sea, the North Sea now is a very safe working environment.
The Chairman: A quarter of a century later it better be safer.
Mr. Hughes: Admittedly, but they have come to a level that demonstrates good safety practices. Those are being practised even today with the operations we have on the East Coast at the present time. We tend to work towards, if I can use the term very loosely, a North Sea standard.
Senator Adams: There are some people who get seasick very easily on offshore oil rigs as opposed to the same person doing it on land. Is the same person able to operate rigs on the sea or do you have regulations?
Mr. Hughes: As a private company, we obviously do not make the regulations concerning that. However, there are regulations in place and some proposed to deal with that problem, similar to what took place during the heyday of the offshore oil 10 to 15 years ago. In broad terms, I could say they are treated by Transport Canada -- and again, I would defer to somebody from that department to be specific with you -- more as a vessel than a fixed platform, if we are talking about semi-submersible drilling rigs.
There is definitely a marine element of expertise beholden upon the operator to provide for the very reasons you cite.
Senator Adams: The reason I asked the question is I have seen riggers from Alberta go and work offshore in Greenland. However, up there the waves are not as bad as the East Coast. It would take some of them a couple of weeks to be able to live on the rigs in the sea. If someone is not familiar with the rigs in the sea, it takes a while to get used to it.
Senator Roberge: I want to come back to the eight hours of rest that you mentioned. There are ships with foreign flags. Do they have the same policy?
Mr. Hughes: Yes, they do.
The Chairman: When we were on the West Coast, we were told of the intricacy of Transport Canada and the Coast Guard and shipping on the West Coast. I would like to quote from a study done in 1992:
Despite scepticism about the value of any brief to government on this matter...
And the matter being changes to regulations and other laws as it affected marine activity:
...we did prepare a 60-page submission on our position and spelled out suggestions for many changes to the 114 sets of marine regulations in place at that time. We suggested that 24 regulations be revoked, several sets of regulations be amalgamated, four sets be replaced by standards, 20 regulations be modified, simplified or made into guidelines. It was suggested that the remainder of the regulations that were addressed be retained and be more consistently and fairly applied by the Ship's Safety Inspection Service.
That study was done in 1992. It is now 1997. Unfortunately, I do not have the whole study here, because it would be interesting to get your opinion on some portions of it.
We have an antiquated marine system. Much of it needs to be changed and brought up to date. Indeed, perhaps it would be easier to rewrite it. Are there any areas with respect to the operation of the Secunda fleet where you would like to see changes made? Are there regulations that are not necessary in this day and age? Have you had any experience as you come to settle into your new universe?
Mr. Hughes: If I were going to pick one area of concern as to how it affects the operation of a number of vessels as opposed to an individual vessel, one of the thorns in our side or one of the concerns that we would have is that as a commercial shipowner we have to comply with a number of different standards for different reasons. If we have a Canadian ship, we have to comply with the provisions of the Canada Shipping Act as the requirement of the flag states.
For commercial reasons, insurance and so on, we have to maintain that vessel to a standard that is surveyed by a classification society, which is a private company that does surveys that are internationally recognized and cover the same items to a detailed degree. They very closely parallel the requirements that would be embodied in the regulations pursuant to the Shipping Act.
We are actually working to two very similar standards, given that they have different ends. One is for commercial reasons; the other is that we are controlled by the government. They parallel one another very closely; however, there are a couple of areas where they digress. That does cause us some concern. Operationally, I do not think that to align these differences would mean a reduction in safety in any way, shape or form.
If you look at other flag states around the world that defer all their surveys to the classification societies, you do not find a reduction in standard. You find a more convenient set of standards. They are only working to deal with one set of surveys and one set of regulations. The periodicity of some things becomes a problem. With classification societies, every item of machinery on the vessel has to be thoroughly inspected every five years. There are instances where we have to do things on the same piece of machinery perhaps every four years, if it were a Canadian flag vessel. From our point of view, we end up doing a lot of duplication of services.
If we were to make a structural modification to a Canadian ship, we would submit the plans and the calculations would be done by the classification society. They would have to be done also by Transport Canada. So, we would have to get two approvals for the same item, which is an inconvenience and an additional expense. At the end of the day, it does not change the nature of the work that was done because the standards are the same.
Senator Roberge: You were saying that certain countries contract this out?
Mr. Hughes: Yes. There are many foreign fleets that do not have a system of government inspection of their vessels. They allow that to be done by class society surveyors.
Senator Roberge: Do any major countries do that, or is it only countries such as Liberia?
Mr. Hughes: That is a difficult question to answer. One has to be careful here. I do not like the term "flags of convenience". There are very reputable so-called flags of convenience, and the standards that they maintain are, in many cases, as high or higher than national standards in what I would loosely refer to as the western countries. I do not see that as being a big problem.
For us as shipowners, there is no question that it is easier if you do not have to answer to two bodies.
Senator Roberge: In the future, could Transport Canada privatize that portion?
Mr. Hughes: I do not think that we would like to see that. They provide a valuable service. One must bear in mind that there are many vessels under the Canadian flag that, because of their tonnage and the area that they trade in, are not required to have class surveys done. Therefore, there is a definite need in everybody's interest that we maintain ship inspection service.
For those areas where there is overlap, it would be advisable to more closely align the two sets of regulations or the inspection requirements between class and CSI or Ship Safety.
The Chairman: I would like to thank you, Mr. Hughes, for appearing before us today. It has been a pleasure to have you here.
The committee adjourned.