The Canadian government paid a privately-owned wharf about $400,000 to moor the ship that brought hundreds of Tamil migrants to B.C. - costing about 30 times what it would to dock the vessel at a government facility.

But officials from the Canada Border Services Agency said they had no choice but to spend the money, saying both the ship - the M.V. Sun Sea - and the available government docks were tied up in red tape.

“There was an ongoing court process,” said CBSA spokesperson Bernee Bolton. “There was no second alternative.”

The M.V. Sun Sea carried 492 people to B.C.’s shores in 2010, nearly all of them ethnic Tamils fleeing a civil war in Sri Lanka. Six people have been criminally charged with human smuggling, while many on the boat have made refugee claims.

The rickety 57-metre boat was seized by the CBSA and has been kept for the past two years in the Nanaimo Shipyards.

“We had care and custody of the vessel. We had to do rounds on the vessel and prevent environmental spills,” said Nanaimo Shipyards president Ron van Wachem.

The first contract was signed in September 2011 for $216 per day, but that fee rose to $485 per day when the contract was renegotiated in September 2011, according to Public Works.

The government could not provide a breakdown of all costs.

The CBSA said moorage, gangway and security costs rang in at $218,908, while safety and security costs reached $130,720. It cost another $40,000 to tow the vessel from Nanaimo to a government dock in Vancouver.

Bolton said the costs all add up.

“Approximately $400,000 was spent on the safe, secure relocation of the vessel,” she said.

The M.V. Sun Sea is now at a Department of Fisheries and Oceans dock on Annacis Island in Metro Vancouver.

Bolton said it costs about $6,400 a year to keep the vessel.

She said the government wanted to move the M.V. Sun Sea earlier, but nearby navy base CFB Esquimalt told the agency it was too busy to help.

The other option, the Annacis Island dock, was already occupied by the first Tamil migrant ship, the Ocean Lady, which came in 2009.

The berth didn’t become available until the first Tamil ship to arrive in 2009, the Ocean Lady, was sold in April for $35,000.

The ships could not be scuttled to save money, Bolton said, because the CBSA must go to Federal Court to get the right to dispose of a ship after it has been seized.

That was only achieved with the Ocean Lady earlier this year, and has yet to happen with the M.V. Sun Sea, she said.

Bob Jackson of the government union the Public Service Alliance of Canada said the expenditure was irresponsible in a time of federal government cutbacks.

He said $400,000 could have prevented some of the cuts to the CBSA, or run the Kitsilano Coast Guard station for six months.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “That money could be much better spent on positions and jobs and programs that are being cut.”

Van Wachem said some of the costs could be offset if the government streamlined the rules around ship disposition.

“In the U.S. it becomes a ward of the government and maybe that’s a law we should look at here so the timeframe can be shortened,” he said.