While this annual report describes many of the individual activities and services of the MSC and our people during 2002-2003, one announcement merits special mention because of its significance for the future of the MSC and the services we provide to Canadians.
On March 13, 2003, the Minister of the Environment, the Honourable David Anderson announced an investment of approximately $75 million over the next five years and $5 million annually thereafter to modernize the MSC. This plan will allow the MSC to improve the quality of our forecasts and service to Canadians in all regions.
The transition plan is the culmination of extensive work within the MSC. In recent years, we have met the need for government-wide budget restraint and yet also responded to the need to invest in new technology, replace obsolete and aging systems and ensure that skilled staff are in place to provide a range of services to Canadians. It has been a challenging time, one that encouraged us to take a strategic look at our operations and draw on the results of a national survey of Canadians.
This investment, combined with approximately $11 million of internal reallocation over the same five-year period and approximately $2 million annually thereafter, will drive the transition effort.
We will consolidate our forecast operations into five Storm Prediction Centres (SPC) to optimize efficiency. The SPCs will be located in Vancouver, Edmonton (with a component in Winnipeg), Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. We will consolidate our aviation weather services into the offices at Edmonton (to serve Western Canada) and Montreal (to serve Eastern Canada).
High altitude station on top of Petit mont Sainte-Anne, Madeleine Mines
In addition, there will be five new National Labs (NL) co-located with the SPCs. This co-location will enable more effective transfer of knowledge between our scientific research and forecast operations functions. Each NL will have a specific focus:
Outreach is a key component of the MSC's activities. Our MSC transition project includes a significant investment in outreach capacity across the country and the establishment of three National Service Offices (NSO). Each NSO will have a specific focus: Gander for marine services, Rimouski for media services and Kelowna for road weather and weather-sensitive sector services. Additional outreach capacity will be available in Regina, to support the needs of Canada's agricultural community.
We expect to see a significant turnover in staff over the next five years as many of our employees reach retirement age. As a knowledge-based organization, it is critical that the MSC develops and maintains new capacity to meet current and future needs. We will use some of our transition funds for recruitment and training, primarily among our technical and scientific communities.
Transition funds will be used to address some of the key concerns expressed by Canadians in the recent national survey. For example, we will address the interest in safer winter roads by working with Transport Canada and provincial and territorial governments in setting up road weather observational networks, including establishing and maintaining common national standards and protocols. We will improve our seasonal and extended range forecasts, targeted specifically at weather-sensitive and public sector activities. We will increase our attention to the development and provision of information needed to improve the understanding of societal vulnerabilities to severe weather and associated community responses.
Our ability to produce high-quality products and services is strongly dependent on the quality and quantity of the data that we can acquire. The fifth component of the transition project is focused on the MSC's monitoring capacity, through investments in rationalizing and modernizing the MSC's monitoring systems and through the establishment of Life Cycle Management approaches to facilitate the on-going maintenance and repair of operational field equipment. Our initiatives in these areas will also include enhanced quality assurance and data access systems for the storage of key data that our products and services use and the enhancement and continued operation of the AMDAR system that will provide new and enhanced measurement of the upper atmosphere, thereby enabling improvements in the quality of forecasts and warnings.
The MSC's transition effort will have significant impact on our operations, beginning in the 2003-2004 fiscal year. We will use future annual reports to highlight our progress in implementing these changes.
The Green LaneTM,
Environment Canada's World Wide Web Site.