Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Random—Burin—St. George's.
The Liberal Party has argued for the last year against cuts to vital search and rescue operations in St. John's and Quebec and has argued that such cuts would endanger lives. In spite of this warning, the government recently announced the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in Vancouver, B.C.
This comes on top of the closure of major marine communications stations in British Columbia in Vancouver, Comox and Tofino, leaving only Victoria and Prince Rupert to regulate traffic and give early warning to the longest coastline and some of the most treacherous waters in Canada.
The irony, obviously lost on the government, is that it is spending millions of dollars to celebrate 50 years of the Canadian Coast Guard while cutting $79 million in resources, eliminating up to 763 positions and stretching Coast Guard regions from five to three, leaving fewer rescuers to cover more ground when responding to emergencies.
I do not know how that makes sense. I do not know how one can celebrate a Coast Guard and then go and gut it and cut it.
Indeed, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is quoted as saying, “Our government is proud of the Canadian Coast Guard, and of the men and women who provide critical services to Canadians every day”. Then he cut those critical services. It makes no sense to me.
My colleague will speak to the issues facing search and rescue in the Atlantic. I would like to direct my attention to my province of British Columbia and what the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in Vancouver would mean.
First and foremost, this is an irresponsible, short-sighted and reckless endangerment of life. Combined with the cutting of marine communications in British Columbia, this decision will sever vital marine links that serve British Columbia.
In spite of protestations from the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages that this decision to close the Kitsilano base was made with broad consultation, it was not. There was no consultation with the B.C. Coast Guard itself. There was no consultation with the province. There was no consultation with the City of Vancouver. There was no consultation with the auxiliary coast guard resources, nor was there any consultation with the communities that are going to be affected by this closure. This was a decision made in Ottawa by the Department of National Defence, with no understanding of the needs of the people on our coast.
This in fact prompted the British Columbia government to formally protest the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard station and to ask the Conservative government to reverse its decision. B.C. justice minister Shirley Bond said, “Protecting public safety must be a guiding principle for all budget exercises”.
In a motion last week, the City of Vancouver's city council expressed its opposition to the closures and urged the federal government to reverse them, saying “The closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard search and rescue station is another marine safety service for Vancouver being eliminated by the federal government, along with the recently announced closure of the Coast Guard communications centre in Vancouver and the B.C. command centre for emergency oil spills”.
The idea of emergency oil spills needs to be taken into consideration.
The City of Vancouver council continued, “Any response to increased risk to marine public safety due to federal cutbacks may be borne by the City's first responders, such as the VPD's marine unit”.
Financial costs are going to be downloaded to the city, which does not have the ability to put in the proper resources or to have the finances to do it. Not only that, it was never even given the courtesy of a discussion beforehand.
It is interesting to note, however, that the Vancouver police boats cannot respond to an on-sea incident, only ones that affect and are linked to the shore. Even if the city were rolling in money and wanted to put forward VPD boats, it could not do it because it has no authority over that area.
Even Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative fisheries and environment minister, John Fraser, opposes this move.
Here are the facts. The Port of Vancouver is the busiest port in Canada. It costs approximately $900,000 a year to run the Kitsilano station. By comparison, the federal government could operate the Kitsilano Coast Guard station for over 130 years for the cost of just one F-35 fighter jet.
I want members to also know that the Kitsilano Coast Guard station serves five million people who come through the port each year. It responds to over 350 emergency calls annually.
It serves a large area that spreads up Salmon Arm, up the Burrard Inlet, through the areas of False Creek. This is an area that is not only a port that has cargo ships and cruise ships come through it regularly. It is also an area where there are fisheries and fishery vessels. I have one of the largest fisheries in False Creek. People go up to the salmon run. Last Sunday people drove by and hooted their horns in support of the Coast Guard station in Kitsilano. That is where they turn to when they are in distress.
It also serves oil tankers that will go through the harbour. In fact, there has been a decision by the Department of Transport to double the number of tankers going through the port of Vancouver, which is an accident waiting to happen. This is what we are talking about when we are talking about the port of Vancouver.
The response time from the Kits Coast Guard station to anything going on in the port is six minutes. Kits is strategically located and it can get to Richmond where the government is moving the Coast Guard station, but it can also get up to the northern areas where there is Salmon Arm and the Burrard Inlet, which is even further to get to from Sea Island in Richmond. We are talking about an additional 30 minutes to an hour if we continue to use the Sea Island station.
This is not about central calls. This is not about coordination. It is about an actual boat, or a hovercraft, or plane going out to the problem or a firebird that is there to deal with an issue.
I was there about 15 years ago when the Coast Guard station, which was a wooden station, caught on fire because of a boat that went out of control and blew up right next to the harbour. The fire spread rapidly. This whole area is populated by people who live all along that coastal area along Kits and moving up that area. If we had to wait for something to come from Sea Island, members have no idea how much of the Lower Mainland in Kitsilano area would have been devastated with the loss of lives.
I want people to understand the nature of what they are dealing with here. I would like members to go to Vancouver. I would like the parliamentary secretary and the minister to go to the Kits Coast Guard station, travel up Burrard Inlet and see what the distance is. A hovercraft could not do it.
This is putting people's lives in danger.
Perhaps the government will eventually realize that it has made a mistake after someone dies. If we look at listeriosis and Walkerton, it is obvious the government has to wait for that to happen before it does anything. Why must it always take a tragedy for the government to back down and realize it made a mistake.
In this area there are paddlers, kayakers, sailors, powerboats, personal watercrafts, cruise ships, cargo vessels and float planes all competing for the same space. There will be emergencies and instead of waiting for six minutes, they will be waiting for an hour.
I want to close by quoting retired Coast Guard David Howell, who worked in Kitsilano station for 37 years. He said it best when he said:
You got the Heritage Minister telling me that safety is not affected and I got 30,000 SAR calls under my belt and I am telling you that it is, now you choose which one you want to believe but I will tell you one thing, and you can take it to the bank, safety is being affected. It will end up costing lives, there is no doubt in my mind what so ever and I don't have a penny to earn no matter if that station opens or closes...Incompetent to the level that I believe it is border line criminal I mean this is so foolish as to make me almost...I get a knot in my stomach and almost want to throw up...its ridiculous.