Vanguard Magazine

IntervIew I 16 JUNE/JULY 2017 www.vanguardcanada.com and they will continue to serve for some time to come. That said, we do have a plan to see that part of the fleet renewed. You know that has to happen eventually. You can't keep a ship running forever. As we look out over the next, let's say, 10 to 15 years, we know that the ice breakers will have to be replaced. We want to take some of the other old ships, even the ones that aren't ice breakers, we want to get them replaced. As we do that, a couple of things are going to happen. One is the current fleet will have to go into a rotational cycle to keep ships, pardon the expression, in ship-shape. We call it vessel life extension. You take a ship out for several months. You put major work into that ship, and you can extend its life for a period that, in round numbers, we might say 10 years. We'll have ships going through vessel life extension, and that's going to mean our total available number of ice breakers for specific years will be lower than we want it to be. We have a plan, that we're currently part way through, to bring in some temporary capacity, interim capac- ity it's usually referred to, where we will likely lease some ships or possibly buy some ships that will fill in gaps until we can get into the cycle of building the ice breakers that we need going forward. We don't want to buy a bunch of one-off ships. We don't want a patchwork of 15 different ice breakers. We want classes of ships. This is modern fleet management where you have a good size class of ships all built to the same specs, all with the same engines, all with the same equipment, so your maintenance costs are lower, your engineering costs are lower, your spare parts costs are lower. That's the direction we're going in, but we realize that may need some interim capacity along the way. In the end, we try to have a fleet that is affordable for Canadians and effective effective for Canadians. Q: What are your most pressing needs now with regards to procurement? We know you talked about the ice breakers. Do you have any other pressing needs? Well, we have ships under construction at Vancouver Shipyard. We really are anxious to see the whole shipbuilding project get to the point of just a regular case, where ships are coming out of the yard with a nice steady clip that allows us to manage the maintenance needs that I talked about; that allows us to execute a medium and longer-term plan. I would say that on the shipbuilding side, is where our thinking is at. Under the Oceans Protection Plan there are several investments that are key as well. We want to get right on them. There's re- placement of old equipment. We want our people to respond with the best available oil-response equipment. That's going to be a big piece this year. We've got radar sights to deliver under Oceans Protection Plan. That's a very high priority for us obviously be- cause it gives eyes and ears along the coast that really contribute to prevention of incidents. Then the other piece that's moving along very, very nicely is the lifeboat piece. Minister LeBlanc was just speaking about that recently in public. We're optimistic and anxious to get those ships into service. We are getting ready to bring the polar class ice breaker into service in the early 2020's, and we'll be putting a couple of heavier duty helicopters into service – Polar ready helicopters. Then we have a project underway to build a helicopter simulator at the Ot- tawa Airport. That project is coming along nicely. When it's done, we're going to have really terrific training facility that will be used by ourselves and Transport Canada. We'll be able to make simula- tor time available to other partners as well. Our helicopter fleet, our helicopter situation, is in very good shape, and it's going to be in very good shape for the near future. Q: With the last federal budget, how's that going to impact what you're looking to get done for the Coast Guard? The Coast Guard at its heart and soul is a response organization. We always, always, always prioritize the safety of life at sea. Search and rescue will always be the thing that we drop everything to get done, but in second place, and it's a close second, we are an en- vironmental organization at our core. People that join the Coast Guard love our coastline. They love our oceans. They particularly love our arctic, and they love the fact that the word "guard" in our name refers as much to the Canadian environment as it does to anything else. The Oceans Protection Plan investments into the Coast Guard are very much focused on protecting that environment for Ca- nadians. It gives us a long list of to-do items, but they're excit- ing. They include things like strengthening our partnerships with coastal and aboriginal communities, Indigenous communities, because the people who live near the water are passionate about it, knowledgeable about it, and they're always ready to protect it. The Oceans Protection Plan gives us some flexibility to build those partnerships. It gives us funding to make sure that we've got the best equip- ment that we can get our hands on right now. It gives us money to increase our capability to tow vessels that get into trouble, by de- ploying very modern emergency tow kits onto our big ships, but also by bringing some tow capacity into the fleet that we don't currently have by releasing some big, robust emergency tow-ca- pable vessels. We're in the process of doing that. It gives us money to create what you might think of as being SWAT teams for the environment. We call them Primary Environmental Response. These teams are going to be highly trained, quickly deployed. They'll get into any situation, and they'll get it under control, as- sert the commanding control of the Coast Guard, and the ability to bring people together very quickly to respond. There's money there for radar coverage that will increase our eyes and ears on the water, which goes right to prevention. That's east coast and west coast. It gives us training dollars so we can get "We are open for business. We're definitely open to build partnerships with communities."

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