Introduction

Background

1. Ferry service in Newfoundland and Labrador has a long history. It became a federal responsibility when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. This responsibility has passed through several organizations over seven decades and now rests with Marine Atlantic Inc. Most goods—from food and retail products to medical supplies and construction materials—arrive in Newfoundland by ferry. Tourism, a major industry in the province, depends on the ferry service, as do the province’s residents. Harsh weather and maintenance issues can disrupt what many Newfoundlanders see as a vital transportation link.

2. Marine Atlantic Inc. became a Crown corporation in 1986 as a result of the Marine Atlantic Inc. Acquisition Authorization Act. In 1995, the National Marine Policy narrowed the Corporation’s mandate to the operation of a ferry system. The Corporation reports to the Minister of Transport.

3. The ferry service between the Island of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia was granted special constitutional status under the Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada (Newfoundland Act). The Act guarantees that “Canada will maintain in accordance with the traffic offering a freight and passenger steamship service between North Sydney and Port aux Basques, which, on completion of a motor highway between Corner Brook and Port aux Basques, will include suitable provision for the carriage of motor vehicles.”

4. The Corporation’s constitutional route consists of the year-round ferry service between North Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Port aux Basques, Newfoundland and Labrador. The Corporation also operates a seasonal service, from June to September, between North Sydney and Argentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. This seasonal route is not required by the Newfoundland Act (Exhibit 1).

5. The Corporation has about 1,300 employees. It provides about 1,700 sailings annually to over 300,000 passengers and 90,000 commercial vehicles.

6. Serving both the travelling public and commercial customers, the Corporation has a fleet of four ice-capable vessels (Exhibit 2) and owns terminals in North Sydney, Port aux Basques, and Argentia.

7. The Corporation depends financially on the Government of Canada because revenues from its ferry service do not cover all of its operating costs (Exhibit 3). It can acquire capital assets, such as new vessels, only through an appropriation^{Definition i} by Parliament.

8. In our 2009 audit, we found two significant deficiencies in the Corporation’s systems and practices:

• unresolved strategic challenges, such as aging ferries and shore-based assets, which required long-term funding support from the government; and
• inadequate operational planning and capital asset management.

9. Our 2009 audit also identified other areas for improvement. For example, we noted that the Corporation had not developed an environmental management system after we raised this issue in our 2004 audit. We also noted that the Corporation had not yet put a system in place to automate staff scheduling.

Focus of the audit

10. Our objective for this audit was to determine whether the systems and practices we selected for examination at Marine Atlantic Inc. were providing it with reasonable assurance that its assets were safeguarded and controlled, its resources were managed economically and efficiently, and its operations were carried out effectively as required by section 138 of the Financial Administration Act.

11. In addition, section 139 of the Financial Administration Act requires that we state an opinion, with respect to the criteria established, on whether there was reasonable assurance that there were no significant deficiencies in the systems and practices examined. A significant deficiency is reported when the systems and practices examined did not meet the criteria established, resulting in a finding that the Corporation could be prevented from having reasonable assurance that its assets are safeguarded and controlled, its resources are managed economically and efficiently, and its operations are carried out effectively.

12. Based on our assessment of risks, we selected systems and practices in the following areas:

• corporate management practices, and
• management of safety and ferry operations.

The selected systems and practices, and the criteria used to assess them, are found in the exhibits throughout the report.

13. More details about the audit objective, scope, approach, and sources of criteria are in About the Audit at the end of this report.

Findings, Recommendations, and Responses

Overall message

14. Overall, we found that Marine Atlantic Inc. had good practices in place to oversee the running of the Corporation and to manage its operations.

15. Nonetheless, we were concerned that the Corporation was not able to make long-term strategic decisions because of circumstances outside its control—specifically, delays by the government in approving the Corporation’s full five-year corporate plans. We reported this issue in our 2009 special examination, and we found it to be a significant deficiency in the current audit.

16. This is important because the Corporation relies on the government’s approval and funding to maintain and replace its fleet of vessels. If the government does not approve the Corporation’s long-term fleet-renewal strategy, the Corporation can address only the fleet’s short-term needs. This lack of long-term strategic direction affects the Corporation’s core operations. It will become more problematic as time goes on, because repairing and maintaining aging vessels will eventually cost more than replacing them. The Corporation has also stated that it takes a minimum of four years to acquire a new vessel.

17. We also found that the Corporation did not have a clear understanding of the formula used to assess cost recovery for its non-constitutional services, including its seasonal service route to Argentia. This weakness matters because if the Corporation and the government do not have a common understanding of the cost-recovery formula, the calculation could misrepresent whether the Corporation had achieved its cost-recovery target.

18. Finally, we found that the Corporation did not have an environmental management plan. Implementing a plan that sets out the Corporation’s environmental objectives would allow the Corporation to monitor its performance and operate in an environmentally responsible manner—a key point of its mission statement.

Corporate management practices

19. The Corporation is governed by a board of 5 to 10 directors, including a Chairperson and a President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The Chairperson and the President and CEO are appointed by the Governor in Council^{Definition ii}. The other directors are appointed by the Minister of Transport, with the approval of the Governor in Council.

20. The Board of Directors was supported by an Audit and Risk Committee; a Safety, Corporate Governance and Accountability Committee; and a Human Resources and Pension Management Committee.

21. The Corporation used a balanced scorecard methodology, a system that uses strategic performance indicators and targets to measure progress. The balanced scorecard methodology is also intended to

• clearly communicate an organization’s vision, mission, and strategy to employees and other stakeholders;
• align day-to-day work with a vision and a strategy; and
• provide a framework for prioritizing programs, projects, services, products, and resources.

There was a significant deficiency in corporate governance, and some corporate management practices needed improvement

22. We found that except for a significant deficiency in corporate governance, the Corporation had good corporate management practices, with improvement needed in some areas. The significant deficiency occurred because without timely approval of corporate plans, which was outside the Corporation’s control, the Board could not provide strategic direction supported by the Government of Canada. The Corporation also needed to improve performance measurement, monitoring, and reporting; and risk mitigation, monitoring, and reporting.

23. Our analysis supporting this finding discusses the following topics:

• Corporate governance
• Strategic planning, performance measurement, and performance monitoring and reporting
• Corporate risk management

24. Our recommendations in this area of examination appear at paragraphs 33, 39, 42, 45, and 50.

25. Analysis. We found a significant deficiency in providing strategic direction, which was outside the Corporation’s control (Exhibit 4).

26. Significant deficiency—Providing strategic direction. As in our 2009 special examination, we found that the Corporation was unable to obtain timely government approval of its corporate plans, which included its proposed fleet-renewal strategy. Although the Corporation had submitted its corporate plans to the Minister of Transport through the Department of Transport for the full five years, and although the plans had been approved by the Governor in Council, the approval covered only part of the plans’ five-year planning periods:

• The 2016–17 to 2020–21 corporate plan was approved in May 2016 for the partial period of 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017.
• The 2017–18 to 2021–22 corporate plan was approved in December 2017 for the partial period of 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2020.
• The 2018–19 to 2022–23 corporate plan was not yet approved by 22 November 2018.

27. The Minister’s letter of expectations, received by the Corporation’s Chairperson in July 2017, recognized that the delay in approving the 2017–18 to 2021–22 corporate plan was outside the Corporation’s control.

28. Implementing a plan for a fleet-renewal strategy depends on the government’s approval and significant government funding. We found that the Corporation had attempted to define a long-term strategic direction and had been working with the government since 2013 to secure funding for its long-term fleet-renewal strategy. In the 2015–16 fiscal year, the government approved funding to buy two vessels, the MV Blue Puttees and the MV Highlanders. After buying the vessels, the Corporation discussed its proposed fleet-renewal strategy with the government. While some progress was made, more work was needed to ensure that the fleet would continue to address the needs of the Corporation.

29. In an effort to clearly describe the issue to the government, the Corporation also submitted its long-term fleet-renewal strategy as an addendum to its 2016–17 to 2020–21 corporate plan. In the proposal, the Corporation asked for funds to replace both the Corporation-owned MV Leif Ericson, which was approaching the end of its useful life, and the leased MV Atlantic Vision, which was expensive to operate and not ideally suited to the Corporation’s requirements.

30. The government did not provide the Corporation with the funds it asked for. However, in Budget 2018, it approved the refurbishment of the MV Leif Ericson and approved an extension of the MV Atlantic Vision’s lease to November 2019. Although the Corporation had secured the lease extension, it had no guarantee that the vessel would be available for charter afterwards. The Corporation had also stated that it would take a minimum of four years to procure a new vessel.

31. Although the approved refurbishment and lease extension met the Corporation’s short-term needs for its fleet, the government did not communicate a long-term funding plan for the Corporation.

32. This significant deficiency matters because it hampered the Corporation’s ability to make multi-year funding commitments, which would allow the Corporation to carry out its proposed fleet-renewal strategy. That would help ensure that it would have stable operations and reliable service in the future.

33. Recommendation. The Corporation should continue to engage with relevant government officials to help ensure the timely approval of its corporate plans and to resolve the Corporation’s long-term fleet-renewal strategy, along with funding requirements to support ongoing fleet renewal.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. The Corporation will continue to engage with relevant government officials to help ensure the timely approval of its corporate plans and the resolution of the Corporation’s fleet-renewal strategy, along with funding requirements to support ongoing fleet renewal.

34. Analysis. We found weaknesses in performance measurement and performance monitoring and reporting (Exhibit 5).

35. Weaknesses—Performance measurement. Although the Corporation established key performance indicators to support achieving strategic objectives, they were not sufficient. The Corporation omitted some key performance indicators set by the Minister, and its performance indicators for its strategic objective to “protect people, property and the environment” were incomplete.

36. The Minister’s letter of expectations included nine key performance indicators and targets, which the Minister expected the Corporation to achieve by the end of the 2018–19 fiscal year. These targets were the same as those set by the previous Minister in 2014.

37. However, the Corporation reported on the key performance indicators in its corporate plan, but it omitted three of them from its balanced scorecard—most notably, the cost recovery of non-constitutional services (the Argentia route, drop trailer services^{Definition iii}, and on-board services) and the following:

• “sailings returned to published schedule and passengers/traffic rebooked following a mechanical breakdown or weather delay,” and
• “passengers are very likely to recommend Marine Atlantic’s service to others.”

38. This weakness matters because monitoring key performance indicators would allow the Corporation to take timely action should it be at risk of not achieving the Minister’s targets.

39. Recommendation. The Corporation should use its balanced scorecard to monitor all key performance indicators and targets set by the Minister.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. The Corporation will incorporate all performance indicators and targets set by the Minister in its balanced scorecard by the end of the fourth quarter of the 2018–19 fiscal year.

40. Weakness—Environmental protection. The Corporation did not have an environmental management plan that set out specific environmental objectives, activities, timelines, and resource requirements to achieve them. Nor did it have performance indicators related to environmental protection for its key strategic objective to “protect people, property and the environment.” The Corporation’s mission statement is “to provide a safe, environmentally responsible and quality ferry service between the Island of Newfoundland and the Province of Nova Scotia in a reliable, courteous and cost-effective manner.”

41. This weakness matters because without specific key performance indicators for environmental protection, the Corporation cannot demonstrate whether it is achieving its strategic objective to “protect people, property and the environment.”

42. Recommendation. The Corporation should develop an environmental management plan that states the Corporation’s objectives for environmental protection and the activities, timelines, and related resource requirements needed to achieve them. The Corporation should also develop key performance indicators to monitor progress against its strategic objective to protect the environment.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. The Corporation will develop, enhance, and monitor key performance indicators for environmental protection during the 2018–19 fiscal year. This will augment its participation in an industry-accepted marine environmental certification program.

The Corporation will also establish a formal environmental management plan that clearly documents the current and future plans in the area of environmental protection, as well as the timelines and resources required to execute it, by the second quarter in 2020.

43. Weakness—Performance monitoring and reporting. The Minister set a target of 100% for the cost recovery of non-constitutional services, using all expenses, including capital costs. However, the letter of expectations did not say how expenses were expected to be allocated or what constitutes capital costs. The Corporation used incremental expenses to calculate the cost recovery of the seasonal Argentia service.

44. This weakness matters because without a clear understanding of the cost-recovery formula for non-constitutional services, the Corporation might not be accurately reporting progress against the Minister’s target. For example, calculating cost recovery against incremental expenses would result in recovering a higher percentage of costs incurred than if the calculation were based on all expenses.

45. Recommendation. The Corporation should ensure that it has a common understanding with the government on how to calculate cost recovery for non-constitutional services.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. The Corporation reports on the cost-recovery targets in its corporate plans. The Corporation will continue its consultation with the Department of Transport to finalize the revised approach to the cost-recovery calculation for the non-constitutional services. This will be completed prior to the end of the 2018–19 fiscal year.

46. Analysis. We found that the Corporation had good risk identification and assessment practices. However, we found weaknesses in risk mitigation and in risk monitoring and reporting (Exhibit 6).

47. Weaknesses—Risk mitigation, and risk monitoring and reporting. The Corporation developed and maintained a risk register to monitor and report on risks. The risk register described the 12 top risks facing the Corporation and identified mitigation measures, which it assigned to individuals or groups. However, we found that the mitigation measures for some of the risks were not specific and lacked timelines, which would have allowed the Corporation to better assess their implementation.

48. For example, the Corporation had identified a significant risk to its ability to “increase efficiency of operations.” We found that the description of the mitigation measure for this risk was too general. It did not communicate specifically what was required. As a result, the Corporation was not effectively measuring the risk it had identified, so it did not know if it was mitigating the risk or not.

49. These weaknesses matter because the Corporation needs to ensure that it has effective measures to mitigate risks that threaten its service to the public or cause other types of losses, such as environmental damage. The Corporation also needs to put in place specific actions and timelines for risk responses, so that management and the Board can monitor them comprehensively.

50. Recommendation. The Corporation should define its risk mitigation measures and ensure that related actions are specific, time-bound, and measurable and that implementation of these measures is monitored and reported.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. Risk reporting to the Board of Directors will be updated to include mitigations, deadlines, and progress towards established timelines by the end of the second quarter in the 2019–20 fiscal year. The next priority for the Corporation will be the development of divisional-level risk registers. This initiative will commence in the 2018–19 fiscal year and is expected to be completed by the end of the 2019–20 fiscal year.

Management of safety and ferry operations

51. Safely transporting passengers, vehicles, and goods across open waters depends on having the right crew with the right training on each sailing and a deeply ingrained safety culture. Even in normal conditions, a marine incident can cause serious injury, loss of life, or damage to property or the environment. The Cabot Strait, where the Corporation operates its vessels, is subject to extreme and unpredictable weather, including ice conditions.

52. The marine industry is heavily regulated to ensure the safe operation of vessels at sea. The Corporation must comply with many acts and regulations, and has adopted the International Safety Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention (ISM Code) as its safety management system.

53. During the period covered by the audit, the Corporation used two third-party software systems: one to manage its employee training and to allocate resources to individual ferries, the other for incident reporting. In 2016, the Corporation began a multi-year process to select and implement an enterprise resource planning system that would result in the replacement of both software systems.

The Corporation had good systems and practices for managing safety and ferry operations, but some improvements were needed

54. We found that the Corporation had a good safety management system to manage its ferry operations. However, we found that it needed to improve its training management, incident tracking processes, and crew scheduling, and the information systems used to support them.

55. Our analysis supporting this finding discusses the following topics:

• Management of safety
• Management of ferry operations

56. Our recommendations in this area of examination appear at paragraphs 62, 68, and 73.

57. Analysis. We found weaknesses in the management of crew and shore-based employee training, and incident and exception reporting and investigation (Exhibit 7).

58. Weakness—Crew and shore-based employee training. The Corporation’s training requirements for its crew and shore-based employees were based on both regulatory requirements and the Corporation’s internal requirements. While the Corporation’s training matrices accurately reflected its training requirements, we found that its training reports were sometimes incomplete.

59. We tested a sample of 30 crew and shore-based employees to determine whether employee training requirements had been met as noted in the training matrices. We found that 23 of the 30 employees sampled did not meet the requirements of the training matrices or were missing data in the Corporation’s human resources system, which the Corporation used to track employee training.

60. The missing training was not a regulatory requirement but rather a requirement of the Corporation, to avoid scheduling or other operational issues. The training matrices required more training than the regulations did, to aid in crew scheduling.

61. This weakness matters because monitoring training is critical to ensuring that crew and shore-based employees have acquired, maintained, and developed the skills and competencies needed to carry out their work.

62. Recommendation. The Corporation should improve its monitoring of compliance with its internal training requirements.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. The Corporation will review the current training policies and monitoring processes in the 2018–19 fiscal year with a goal to realizing improvements by the fourth quarter of that year.

Addressing the challenges associated with the timeliness and accuracy of the training tracking system and related reporting has been identified as a key deliverable in the scope of the Corporation’s enterprise resource planning project. The Corporation is confident that the project will effectively meet its training management needs and address the identified limitations and information gaps once fully deployed. The first phase of this multi-year project will be implemented in 2019. The learning management module will be implemented in the 2020–21 fiscal year and is expected to yield the greatest benefits in the training area.

63. Weaknesses—Incident and exception reporting and investigation. The applicable occupational health and safety regulations require that employees report to the employer every accident or hazardous occurrence in the course of work that has caused or is likely to cause an injury. They also require that every accident, occupational disease, and other hazardous occurrence be investigated without delay by a qualified person appointed by the Corporation.

64. We found that, of the 971 safety incidents reported by the Corporation in 2017, only 1 was considered serious (according to the Corporation’s standards, this means injury involving serious bodily harm or requiring medical aid, environmental contamination, damage to equipment or property estimated greater than $50,000, serious incident procedure or policy violation, or fatality).

65. Management had updated its classification system for incident reporting in recent years to provide the Corporation with more reliable statistics. For example:

• The term “non-occupational” was introduced as an incident type in 2015, to distinguish it from an “occupational” incident.
• The term “proactive” was introduced in 2017 to promote a safety culture where employees identify hazards in the workplace before an incident can occur. Previously, “proactive” incidents were included under the “near-miss” incident type, which described an incident that could have caused a potential loss, but was prevented only by chance.

As these new classifications were not included in the tracking system glossary, some employees used the previous classifications. This led to inconsistencies in reporting, particularly with the non-occupational versus occupational classifications.

66. We also found that, during the period covered by the audit, 50% of 640 safety incident reports were not closed within 30 days after the incident, as required by the Corporation’s policy. In a sample of 30 reports, we also noted 4 reports that showed no evidence of corrective action having been taken before the incident report was closed in the system, as required by the Corporation’s processes.

67. These weaknesses matter because improperly classifying incidents increases the risk of providing unreliable information to senior management and the Board for decision making. Moreover, delays in closing incident reports, especially without documenting corrective action where needed, puts the Corporation at risk of not maintaining its safe work practices or communicating the resulting experience throughout the Corporation.

68. Recommendation. The Corporation should consistently apply its incident reporting policies and procedures for classifying and documenting corrective actions in a timely way. The Corporation should ensure that its tracking system guidance is updated to reflect its revised classification system.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. In October 2017, the Corporation rolled out a half-day incident reporting training session designed to educate employees on its current methods of incident management. The training is ongoing and to date, over 80% of employees have received this training.

The Corporation established an Incident Management Review Committee in July 2018 to pursue improvements in the current processes and procedures in incident management.

In addition, the Corporation is working with ferry industry authorities to develop new injury reporting definitions and guidelines. Upon completion, these will be communicated to employees and incorporated into the classification system.

69. Analysis. We found a weakness in crew scheduling (Exhibit 8).

70. Weakness—Crew and vessel scheduling. In our 2009 special examination, we recommended that the Corporation put automated systems in place to improve staff scheduling and to help assign crew to individual ferries. However, we found that the Corporation’s current system did not have the flexibility to fully address several factors that must be considered in the scheduling process, such as employee position, leave requests, leaves of absence, medical restrictions and accommodations, and seniority and “bumping” provisions in collective agreements (where employees with greater seniority can take the job of those with lesser seniority).

71. As a result, much of the process was still manual and not well documented, and the automated system was used only to store the completed schedules, rather than for the scheduling itself.

72. This weakness matters because manual scheduling is inefficient and depends on the knowledge and experience of a few employees.

73. Recommendation. The Corporation should ensure that the enterprise resource planning solution under development meets its scheduling needs and effectively addresses the limitations and information gaps in its current systems.

The Corporation’s response. Agreed. The Corporation’s scheduling and information requirements were fully documented and considered as a key deliverable during the selection of its new enterprise resource planning solution.

The Corporation is confident that the solution and processes will be deployed to meet the relevant regulatory, collective agreement, and information requirements. The first phase of this multi-year project will be implemented in 2019.

Conclusion

74. In our opinion, based on the criteria established, there was a significant deficiency in the Corporation’s strategic direction setting, but there was reasonable assurance that there were no significant deficiencies in the other systems and practices that we examined. We concluded that except for this significant deficiency, the Corporation maintained its systems and practices during the period covered by the audit in a manner that provided the reasonable assurance required under section 138 of the Financial Administration Act.