Commanders at rescue bases will be given more flexibility to adjust their hours of operation to better match with incident times, and the government will spend up to $16.2 million in improvements to the country's satellite search systems, said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
The air force could stand to improve its response times to calls by slightly adjusting its hours of operation, Auditor General Michael Ferguson reported in his annual report earlier this week.
Currently, the military promises to get aircraft going within 30 minutes between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday to Friday, and within two hours outside of that window.
Instead of instituting a wholesale revision, MacKay said he's "encouraging" local commanders to adjust their hours to reflect seasonal events, such as the opening of fishing season — something the auditor says is already taking place informally.
In fact, the national search-and-rescue manual already gives commanders that authority, "to realign SAR standby periods" so that they coincide with the periods of greatest SAR activity, particularly during the summer months.
The new satellite project, known as the medium earth orbit search and rescue system, is still on the drawing board and has not developed a prototype, associate defence minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay conceded.
Findlay and MacKay couldn't say when the new eyes in the sky would be available, but enthusiastically noted the project is expected to cut beacon location time to five minutes from the current one hour.
MacKay also promised to review the whole system every four years to identify changing needs.
"Let's not forget for context, the auditor general did say the existing provision of search-and-rescue is adequate. Adequate is not good enough; we need excellent," MacKay said.
"That will require further investments. That will require the improvements we have announced today. It will require investments in equipment."
But MacKay — who insists today's announcement was in the works long before the auditor general's report —didn't address Ferguson's key complaint that the air force is strapped for pilots and crews and desperately needs new aircraft.
Findlay said the procurement of new aircraft, which was initially started in 2002, is on track with a call for tenders by the end of this year.
The government also plans to set up a website to register rescue beacons and ordered the air force to report the status of each of their aircraft to rescue centres daily, in order for co-ordinators to have a better real-time list of what's available.
The government was eager to showcase $2 million in infrastructure upgrades and renovations to the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax.
The auditor general warned that the case management system on which that centre and two others across the country rely upon is near the breaking point and has crashed in the past.
Rear Admiral Dave Gardam, rescue commander for the Atlantic region, agreed it needed to replaced, but in the meantime they make due.
"If the ... system goes down, we can still do it by phone," Gardam said in Halifax.
"We can still do it by all the integrated systems in the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre. If it went down right now, we'd be managing every SAR case without an issue."
Ferguson's report also recommended the federal government invest more in rescue prevention and training, noting that the $8 million annual budget has not increased in 20 years.
One of those groups, the national association representing ground search-and-rescue volunteers, says it has been struggling to stay afloat, subsisting on revolving grants, rather than sustained funding.
MacKay sidestepped the question of whether the government will support the organization with the $400,000 it says it needs. He said it will work with all stakeholders throughout the review, and suggested during question period the matter was more of provincial responsibility.
Outside the legislature in St. John's, N.L., Newfoundland Premier Kathy Dunderdale said the federal changes don't go far enough, and her faith in the search-and-rescue system has not been restored.
"It's not good enough," Dunderdale said.
"You know, the auditor general has identified very clearly a number of areas where we could have immediate action and that is truly what we need. We need something around task times, we need something around scheduling. There needs to be an immediate improvement to communications and we need a plan for replacing aging vessels and aircraft, and having enough capacity in human resources so that people have up-to-date training."
The federal Liberals described the measures announced Thursday as "hollow."
"Yet again, we have a Conservative announcement that is nothing more than window dressing,” said MP Lawrence MacAulay, the party's coast guard critic.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
Author: Murray Brewster
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