Dozens of people rallied at the closed Kitsilano marine rescue station Wednesday to protest further cutbacks to Coast Guard services across Canada.
As part of a previously announced reorganization plan, the federal government is shuttering 10 of the Coast Guard’s 22 Marine Communications and Traffic Services centres, including locations in Vancouver, Tofino and Comox.
Those three will be merged at one MCTS centre in Victoria, a move union members warn will unnecessarily put lives at risk.
Chad Stroud, president of Unifor 212, said having multiple stations monitoring for distress calls simultaneously ensures none are missed.
“There’s a lot of traffic on the radio,” Stroud said. “We’re really concerned that with everything going on, and somebody yells those specific words – ‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!’ – we might not be able to hear it because we don’t have that redundancy of two people in two different centres listening.”
The Vancouver station, which has around 20 employees, officially closed Wednesday. Some of the staff will be transferred while others have been offered early retirement.
The union has railed against shutting down the MCTS centres, arguing the move increases the risk of accidents on the water – including for ships carrying oil and other dangerous cargo – and could mean slower response times.
The April 8 oil spill in English Bay already took more than 12 hours to fully contain in booms.
The Coast Guard has promised its new consolidated centres will have upgraded technology so they can be responsible for larger areas, however.
The closure of the Kitsilano rescue station remains a hot button topic in Vancouver two years after it was shut down, and both the federal NDP and Liberal parties have promised to reopen it if elected this year.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Nafeesa Karim
