Click to enlarge
In March 2003, the Government of Canada announced increased funding to revitalize and transform the MSC. The funding received — approximately $74 million (M) over five years and $5M per year thereafter — was intended to help the MSC to be able to continually upgrade its infrastructure, advance its science and improve its services. This modernization process was directed toward ensuring that the MSC provides the best and most useful weather information and services possible to safeguard the health and safety, security, prosperity and quality of life of Canadians. The funding was intended to allow the MSC, which has been providing weather services to Canadians since 1871, to transition to a modern, sustainable organization that continues to provide quality services to Canadians. This investment was to be combined with approximately $11M in internal reallocation over the same five-year period and approximately $2M annually thereafter to drive the Transition Project effort.
Essentially, the Transition Project funding was intended to a) modernize Environment Canada’s weather forecast operations; b) increase its capacity for outreach to citizens and clients; c) recruit and train staff; d) improve targeted products and services; and e) strengthen its capacity to monitor the environment.
The MSC has been Canada’s weather service for over 130 years. The mandate of the MSC is to enhance public safety and informed decision making by issuing weather warnings; forecasting weather, ice and wave conditions; supporting critical weather-sensitive government services; monitoring atmospheric conditions and predicting the state of the climate; monitoring water levels; and providing scientific research for service improvement and policy advice. To meet this mandate, the MSC provides weather and hydrometric services, with a $336.7M technological infrastructure that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.6
MSC, previously known as the Atmospheric Environment Service, or AES, faced resource challenges over the 12-year period leading up to the Transition Project. The government-wide program review in the mid 1990s resulted in, for the Atmospheric Environment Service, a 30–40% cut to the budget, closure of offices and a reduction in staff complement. In addition, a 1997 Alternative Service Delivery Study identified an ongoing annual shortfall in capital and operating expenses. In December 1999, the MSC was created as a departmental service organization (DSO) within Environment Canada, replacing the Atmospheric Environment Service; however, only limited one-time funding for Program Integrity priorities was allocated. For the next several years, while the MSC made plans to “live within its means” (an exercise cast as Focusing for the Future), project and funding approval for the modernization of MSC continued to be sought. These efforts resulted in a Ministerial announcement of the Transition Project in March 2003.
The MSC Transition Project has five components. All five were intended to contribute to one of the Transition Project’s overall goals: a more sustainable organization and infrastructure. Many of these elements complemented, reinforced or accelerated existing A-Base activities.
A mix of new investment and internal reallocation was intended to be used to consolidate the MSC’s existing 14 regional locations into five Storm Prediction Centres — Dartmouth (Nova Scotia), Montreal (Quebec), Toronto (Ontario), Edmonton (Alberta) and Vancouver (British Columbia), with a component of the Edmonton Storm Prediction Centre located in Winnipeg (Manitoba). Aviation weather services were to be consolidated into the Edmonton Storm Prediction Centre and the Montreal Storm Prediction Centre, to ensure service levels were maintained at a lower cost and, eventually, to allow for service improvements.
The establishment of focused National Research Laboratories collocated with each of the five Storm Prediction Centres was intended to enhance the transfer of scientific knowledge to forecast production operations and thus strengthen linkages between science, forecast production and service to the public. The scientific research of the laboratories was intended to benefit not only forecasters across MSC, but also research organizations within and outside of Canada.
The intent of the increased use of automation and establishment of national standards was to increase the efficiency of routine weather forecast production and to help maintain overall production effectiveness. The restructuring of forecast offices and the automation of routine tasks were intended to allow more concerted attention to the forecasting of severe weather, thus improving warnings of high-impact events that affect all Canadians, levels of government and emergency measures organizations.
A mix of new investment and internal reallocation was to be used to establish three National Service Offices (NSO) in Gander (Newfoundland and Labrador), Rimouski (Quebec) and Kelowna (British Columbia), plus a smaller National Services Unit in Regina (Saskatchewan). Staff from these offices was to work with other national and regional MSC staff to better understand Canadians’ needs, to help in meeting those needs, and to enhance public understanding and use of MSC’s services by working with regional and national stakeholders and with the five National Research Laboratories and Storm Prediction Centres. The offices were also to support the MSC’s outreach activities.
The rationale for the National Service Offices was to help MSC to understand and target the specialized needs and relationships of economic sectors. The outreach network was also intended to result in better understanding and use of MSC’s products and services by all users — the general public, the media, emergency measures organizations, and so on — and thus help improve Canadians’ ability to make informed decisions to protect themselves and their property and to maximize the economic benefits of weather and climate information.
A mix of new investment and internal reallocation was intended to restore and develop key skill sets across the country to address pending demographic gaps in technical and scientific areas of expertise. One of the fundamental objectives of the restructuring of operations was to ensure that sufficient resources continued to be available for the recruitment and training of both scientific and technical staff, as well as for the ongoing training and development of existing staff. This investment was intended to ensure that the MSC had the people with the necessary skills for the subsequent years, that Canadians would continue to be provided with high-quality products and services, and that the MSC was able to maintain effective staff succession as the demographic profile of the MSC’s human resource base underwent a fundamental changeover.
The new investment funds were intended to allow the MSC to respond to some of the key needs expressed by Canadians through MSC’s 2002 national survey, including safer winter roads, improved seasonal and extended-range forecasts, and development and provision of information needed to improve the understanding of societal vulnerabilities to severe weather and associated community responses. These product and service enhancements were to benefit a wide range of users in both the private and public sectors. The rationale was that this component would assist the public, governments and emergency measure organizations to better prepare for and adapt to high-impact weather events.
The new investment was also intended to be used to invigorate the MSC’s environmental monitoring capacity through the rationalization and modernization of the MSC’s monitoring systems; the establishment of life-cycle management approaches; enhanced quality assurance and data access systems; and the enhancement and continued operation of the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay (AMDAR) system (a commercial aircraft-borne weather sensor system).
The monitoring system was considered to be the foundation of all MSC’s products and services, and critical to the quality and improvement of all operations. Data quality control and access improvements were expected to ensure reliable, high-quality weather, climate and water quantity data, which would contribute to provincial, national and global data-sharing networks and feed scientific research in Canada and internationally.
Figure 1 is a visual representation of the MSC Transition Project that identifies the linkages between activities and intended outcomes.
Figure 1: Logic Model for the MSC Transition7
When the Transition Project started in 2003, it was managed through the line structure of the MSC and was part of the Weather and Environmental Prediction Business Line. In 2004, Environment Canada began a transformation from a line-based organization to a results-based management structure. This transformation integrated common departmental functions under a new board structure and pooled and allocated departmental resources on a priority basis. The MSC Transition Project was kept as a separate Outcome Project which reported to the Weather and Environmental Services (WES) Board.8
Table 1 contains planned resource allocations for the Transition Project.9 Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) funds and funds that were to be reallocated from existing A-Base funds are included in this table.
Table 1: Planned Resource Allocations by Transition Project Component10
SUMMARY OF INITIATIVES (Million dollars) |
5-YEAR INVESTMENT |
ON-GOING (POST 5-YEAR) INVESTMENT |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TBS Funding |
Internal Re-allocation |
Total |
TBS Funding |
Internal Re-allocation |
Total |
|
| A. CONSOLIDATION AND MODERNIZATION OF THE MSC’S FORECAST OPERATIONS | 13.068 | 2.500 | 15.568 | 0.000 | 0.500 | 0.500 |
| B. CREATION OF NATIONAL SERVICE OFFICES AND OUTREACH CAPACITY | 12.000 | 8.750 | 20.750 | 2.400 | 1.750 | 4.150 |
| C. RESTORING AND DEVELOPING KEY SKILL SETS | 11.660 | 0.000 | 11.660 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| D. INTRODUCING PRODUCT AND SERVICE ENHANCEMENTS AND INNOVATION | 11.600 | 0.000 | 11.600 | 2.100 | 0.000 | 2.100 |
| E. INVIGORATING THE MSC’S MONITORING CAPACITY | 25.472 | 0.000 | 25.472 | 0.500 | 0.000 | 0.500 |
| TOTAL INVESTMENT STRATEGY | 73.800 | 11.250 | 85.050 | 5.000 | 2.250 | 7.250 |
A further breakdown of resource allocations by components is provided in Annex A.
5 This section is based on the following Environment Canada sources:
6 The Meteorological Service of Canada Annual Report 2003–2004.
7 This logic model was developed for the Evaluation Framework for the Meteorological Service of Canada Transition, April 2005. The dollar amounts listed in the logic model under inputs refer to Treasury Board funding.
8 As of November 7, 2007, the Outcome Project number changed to 2B3G – MSC transition. Previously it was 2B2e – Focusing for the Future (MSC Transition).
9 Program staff indicated that in FY 2005–2006 a decision was made to re-profile $500,000 within MSC to FY 2008–2009.
10 Evaluation Framework for the Meteorological Service of Canada Transition, April 2005.