Opening Statement to the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans
Managing the Coast Guard Fleet and Marine Navigational Services
(Chapter 4 - February 2007 Status Report of the Auditor General)
Ecosystems—Protection of Species at Risk
Ecosystems—Control of Aquatic Invasive Species
Canada's Oceans Management Strategy
(Chapter 1 - September 2005 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development)
21 April 2009
Sheila Fraser, FCA
Auditor General of Canada
Sheila Fraser
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to discuss audit findings from previous reports that were highlighted in a letter that we sent to your Committee in March. Joining me today are Neil Maxwell, Assistant Auditor General, and Kevin Potter, Principal from our Halifax office.
I also have the pleasure to introduce to the Committee Scott Vaughan, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Mr. Vaughan has been in our Office for a year now. He is an environmental economist whose many years of experience contribute to advancing environmental and sustainable development audit work in our Office.
Since I know the Committee has a particular interest in Coast Guard-related issues, let me begin with Chapter 4 of our February 2007 Status Report—Managing the Coast Guard Fleet and Marine Navigational Services. Afterwards, I would propose that the Commissioner provide you with a brief overview of the other audits identified in our letter to your Committee.
In the Report, we concluded that Fisheries and Oceans Canada, more particularly the Canadian Coast Guard, had not made satisfactory progress in implementing the 12 recommendations that remain its responsibility from two previous audits. These recommendations are in Chapter 31, Fleet Management, of our December 2000 Report, and in Chapter 2, Contributing to Safe and Efficient Marine Navigation, of our December 2002 Report.
Key findings from our February 2007 Report included:
- the Coast Guard was having limited success in developing a national approach to managing its operations;
- modernization of marine navigational services was proceeding slowly; and
- the fleet was aging, with reliability and rising operating costs continuing to be issues.
We identified three reasons for the Coast Guard’s lack of progress.
First, the Coast Guard accepted assigned duties even when there was no realistic way that it could successfully deliver on them. For example, the Coast Guard developed a plan to implement a special operating agency without having the resources needed to support its completion. Not surprisingly, we found that many elements of this plan were unfinished well after the expected completion date.
Second, the Coast Guard did not prioritize its actions. For example, the Coast Guard attempted to address all of our recommendations to improve management of its fleet at once. These initiatives stalled at various stages.
Finally, although the Coast Guard made commitments to resolve management problems and complete initiatives, both organizational and individual accountability for achieving results were lacking.
We made only one recommendation in our February 2007 Status Report. We did this because the Coast Guard, like any other organization, has limited resources and must focus its resources on the key issues it faces, including those issues raised by us in the past. Therefore, we recommended that the Coast Guard establish its priorities for improvement, setting clear, achievable goals for each priority. Sufficient and appropriate resources should be allocated to each priority. Finally, managers and organizational units should be accountable for achieving the expected results.
After we completed our audit, the Coast Guard responded by developing its first three-year business plan. The plan set out a long-term approach to address the challenges the Coast Guard faced, including those that we reported. It established priorities, allocated resources to these priorities, and identified accountable managers and organizational units.
Subsequently, the Coast Guard has released a new business plan covering the years 2008 to 2011. In addition, the Coast Guard has also recently released a 2008–09 mid-year review of the status of its business plan. We are pleased to see that the Coast Guard continues to monitor and publicly report its progress.
I encourage the Committee to review the Coast Guard’s business plan and mid-year review and inquire about its future plans to address the issues that we have raised.
Mr. Chairman, I would now like to turn it over to Mr. Vaughan.
Scott Vaughan
Thank you Sheila. Honourable Senators, our March 2008 Status Report that looked at ecosystems and covered species at risk and invasive aquatic species issues, both of which are closely linked. Our audits found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada had made unsatisfactory progress in responding to the recommendations we made in previous reports tabled in 2001 and 2002.
In Chapter 5—Protection of Species at Risk, we reported that Fisheries and Oceans Canada, as one of the three responsible organizations, had not produced a comprehensive inventory of species at risk under its jurisdiction and had not complied with specific deadlines established by the Species at Risk Act for producing recovery strategies for species at risk.
In Chapter 6—Control of Aquatic Invasive Species, we reported that Fisheries and Oceans Canada had failed to assess the economic and social risks posed by aquatic invaders, and therefore did not have the information it needed to set risk-based priorities and objectives for prevention, control, or eradication.
In addition, Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not have plans or mechanisms in place for early detection of, or rapid response to, aquatic invasive species and was therefore unprepared to prevent, control, or eradicate potential new aquatic invasive species.
Our report concluded that the federal government is not yet in a position to prevent, control, or eradicate invasive species that pose the greatest threat to Canada's aquatic ecosystems and economy.
Mr. Chairman, in your work on issues relating to the federal government’s new and evolving policy framework for managing Canada’s fisheries and oceans, you may wish to refer to some recent scientific evaluations, including that of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and GEO-4, the fourth Global Environment Outlook report of the United Nations Environment Programme. Although these reports have not been the subject of audits by our Office, there are some common themes, including increasing pressure on fish stocks worldwide, the combination of overfishing and environmental degradation, and the effects of climate change on our oceans. Although fisheries management, by definition, is open to uncertainties, the addition of climate change increases those uncertainties further.
In our September 2005 Report, Chapter 1—Canada’s Oceans Management Strategy, we reported that implementing the Oceans Act and subsequent oceans strategy had not been a government priority. Fisheries and Oceans Canada had not yet established arrangements to resolve increasing conflicts among users of the oceans over access to space and resources. In addition, only two marine protected areas had been designated at that time.
Your Committee may want to have Fisheries and Oceans Canada provide a status report on its response to the recommendations made in our 2005 Report. A key aspect of that response was a new oceans action plan. The Department should be in a position to report to your Committee on the results that have been achieved to date from that plan.
Finally, I would like to inform the Committee that we will be reporting on the protection of fish habitat in the Spring 2009 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.
Mr. Chairman, we would be pleased to answer your Committee’s questions.