It’s official: the federal government will reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard base, which was shuttered in 2013 by former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in a cost-cutting measure.
But Hunter Tootoo, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and Canadian Coast Guard, didn’t say when the base will be in operation, whether the original 12 staff and three vessels will be returned or how much it will cost to open its doors.
“I can assure you that it will be staffed at the levels to be able to maintain the high standard that all our search and rescue stations have across the country,” he told reporters outside the base, near the Burrard Bridge, where he was joined by Premier Christy Clark, Mayor Gregor Robertson and Jody Thomas, Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard.
Tootoo pointed out the base has been abandoned for three years, has “mould issues” and needs to be assessed before moving staff back in. The only timeline he could give to reopen the facility was “as soon as possible.”
The former Harper government closed the base in February 2013 to save an estimated $700,000 in annual costs. The alternative solution to emergency response was for local mariners to rely on the Sea Island Coast Guard base, near the Vancouver International Airport, a rescue boat based at Deadman Island, near Stanley Park, and five Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue units.
The mayor, the premier, NDP MLAs and Liberal MPs, some of whom attended the December 16 news conference, were heavily critical of the government’s move to close the base, saying it would endanger lives. At the time, the base's crew was responding to up to 300 calls per year, with 75 to 100 considered “life-at-risk” calls. Two-thirds of those calls occurred in the winter months.
Thomas told the Courier in an interview after the news conference that no lives were lost in Vancouver waters since the closure. The number of rescues remained steady, she added.
“Having a full-time professional crew here is always a good thing,” she said. “There were not lives lost but there was a strain put on other first responders in this city [firefighters, police and auxiliary coast guard]. The volume absolutely was a challenge.”
In his remarks, the mayor reminded reporters about the oil spill in April 2015 in English Bay, where the Marathassa bulk grain carrier spilled more than 3,000 litres of bunker oil.The mayor was critical of the Coast Guard’s response at the time of the spill and reiterated that criticism at the news conference.
“Not having resources here on this site, just a stone’s throw from where the oil was spilled in the harbour, certainly made a difference and made things worse,” Robertson said.
After the spill, Thomas repeatedly told reporters that an operational Coast Guard base at Kitsilano would have not made a difference in the Coast Guard’s response to the spill. She was asked about her position at this most recent news conference, to which she responded that a review of the incident noted the master of the Marathassa failed to report the spill and it wasn’t obvious where the oil originated.
“I’m not going to debate it endlessly,” Thomas said. “We did a full report, we did a full disclosure of what went on. What matters today is that we’re reopening this base.”
The Vancouver Police Department’s marine unit continued to operate during the closure of the base. The unit is not trained in search and rescue and has no paramedic ability. Const. Rob Turner of the marine unit, who attended the news conference, said it was welcome news the base would again be in operation. The unit’s mandate on the water is to enforce maritime laws and Criminal Code offences.
“But the reality is the safety of ocean-going mariners is everyone’s responsibility,” Turner said. “If we’re on the water and the search and rescue operation is in our area of operation, we were attending anyway. We may have ended up first on scene more often with the closure of this base because there was a bit more of a time delay bringing assets over from Sea Island. It will certainly take off some of the pressure in being first on scene or incident command in the first instance.”
