Oil Spill readiness falls far short of claims, according to draft report

Internal government audits of the Canadian Coast Guard’s capacity to monitor and respond to a marine oil spill found a system that was outdated, disorganized and in need of an overhaul.

But many of the substantial recommendations in the reports have languished, despite pressure on Ottawa to deal with concerns over a potential increase in oil tanker traffic off the B.C. coast.

A March 2012 draft report for the federal Fisheries Department, obtained by The Canadian Press under Access to Information, found a national oil spill response capacity that is substantially less than touted by federal ministers.

The authors had difficulty even finding out what the capacity was across the country because there is no national co-ordinator or national inventory, and records collected from region to region varied from paper to obsolete electronic documents.

About 83 per cent of the equipment is ready to use, but most of it is 25 years old or more and either obsolete or close to it.

The report says that as an organization, the Coast Guard has not even defined what it considers an appropriate level of response capacity to meet its mandate.

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