Canada needs a real coast guard
• Dr. Robert A. Somerville is a coast guard volunteer rescue agent who acts as shore liaison with the Search and Rescue Coordination Centre at Victoria to coordinate the search and rescue operations of a fleet of boats, floats planes and the supporting communications network in the Campbell River area.
As a man who has participated in a number of rescue operations, he is acutely aware of the deficiency in search and rescue facilities on this coast, bombarding federal cabinet ministers and MPs in an unremitting campaign for establishment of what he calls "a real Canadian Coast Guard."
His most recent series of letters to Ottawa tell their own story.
December 10,1976
Otto Lang,
Minister of Transport, Ottawa, Ont. Dear Sir:
Once again the ministry of transport has failed to provide search and rescue policies and equipment for the West coast.
I am therefore calling for your immediate resignation since you are obviously incapable of coping with the situation and many will die because of it.
1 — The additional hovercraft you have authorized is the wrong type and I can only hope that a delegation to Ottawa will change your mind.
2 — One 65-foot cutter to Prince Rupert is fine, but one 65-foot cutter in Vancouver will only replace the Rider (a 95-foot cutter with only two of its four engines capable of operating).
3 — We need additional 65-foot cutters at Gibsons, Sidney, Sooke, Nanaimo, Campbell River, Bull Harbor, Gold River, Bella Bella, Sandspit and Masset — and you know it.
4 — The present cutters have only one radar and no VHF D.F. equipment.
5 — The present Coast Guard helicopters, with the exception of the S61 at Prince Rupert, are not being equipped with search and rescue gear.
6 — We still have nothing large enough to handle the West coast specifically for search and rescue.
7 — The East coast, which already has twice the equipment with only half the number of incidents to handle, again is getting more than the West coast, yet many of their vessels sit on potato peelings at the dock instead of responding to emergencies.
I again call for your immediate resignation.
* * *
December 10,1976 Barney Danson, Minister of Defence, Ottawa, Ont. Dear Sir:
Once again the ministry of defence has failed to provide search and rescue policies and equipment for the West coast.
1 — Comox 442 Squadron is still allowed to take up to two hours to respond on weekends.
2 — There still has been no mention of which ministry is responsible for marine air rescue.
3 — The cost to modify the Voyageurs and the time involved is almost the same as supplying new Labradors from Japan.
4 — The new helicopters must have Omega, S.A.S. and radar as well as the night sunlight to be effective.
5 — The DDH destroyers with their Sea King helicopters must be transferred to the West coast now for at least as long as it takes to obtain the new Labradors, if not indefinitely.
6 — The present aircraft at Comox should have marine VHF radios installed now.
7 — Para-rescue teams should have at least one month's rotation in the emergency ward of Victoria General Hospital.
8 — Additional ground-to-air
radios for the para-rescue men should be obtained.
By providing the East coast immediately with additional helicopters you have increased the serious imbalance between the East and West coasts and indicated your partiality accordingly.
I am taking immediate steps to expose all this to the public and will continue to do so until the service and equipment available on the West coast is in proportion to the number of incidents on both coasts.
I had expected much better from you.
December 10,1976 Treasury Board, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, Ont. Dear Sirs:
Your decision to reduce the necessary funds for West coast search and rescue from $61 million in one year to $40 million over three years is going to cost many lives in the coming years due to lack of proper facilities and manpower.
I am fully aware that you have been given the necessary information, yet you have decided to reduce the necessary funds, probably because the statistics are merely numbers, not lives, in your myopic field.
Although the ministers of defence and transport will bear the brunt of adverse publicity, the fault is really yours and yours alone for the lives that will be lost. •
Perhaps if I could include the pictures of those who have drowned and will be drowned, you would better understand the havoc wrought by your decisions.
January 1,1977
Hugh Anderson, MP for Comox-Alberni, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ont. Dear Hugh:
Will you please have the enclosed letter duplicated and given to every MP. It's our last hope for the West coast.
THEV V£ SUNK W RUBBER DUCK.
January 1,1977 To all members of the
House of Commons. Gentlemen:
In light of these statistics, I am making one last appeal to you and the general public whom you represent.
West coast: 3,472 incidents in 1976, an increase of 22 percent.
East coast: Unavailable (refused).
Victoria, B.C.: 2,335 marine
incidents. Halifax, N.S.: 831 marine incidents.
Fact: British Columbia has 11,508 vessels on register, Nova Scotia only 7,484.
Fact: The East coast already has twice the vessels and aircraft available for search and rescue compared to the West coast.
Fact: Although the West coast is to receive a second hovercraft, it is the wrong type and will merely replace the existing craft,
HARRY RANKIN
BC. Telephone is applying for another rate increase. This has become almost an annual event with this U.S. owned monopoly. Although providing the poorest service and charging the highest rates in the country, it claims that it needs still better returns to attract investors.
Rates for private residential phones in Vancouver would be increased by "approximately 15 percent." The present rate of $8.05 a month would go up to $9.25.
Service charges for residences would go up 25 percent (from $12 to $15 where a visit not required) and 50 percent (from $18 to $28) where a visit is required.
Rates are regulated by law, with the company limited to a profit rate of 9.5 to 10 percent. Allowable rates to achieve this profit previously were decided by the Canadian Transport Commission. Now this duty has been turned over to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, appointed by the federal government.
B.C. Telephone is owned by Anglo-Canadian Telephone Company, which in turn is owned by General Telephone and Electronics of New York.
The companies which own B.C. Telephone also own the companies which supply it with parts and equipment, Automatic Electric, Lenkurt Electric and Canadian (B.C.) Telephones and Supplies. This facilitates a cozy little arrangement whereby the parts companies charge B.C. Tel inflated rates for equipment and B.C. Tel can always show it needs rate increases to bring its profits up to the allowable limits.
Meanwhile, the supply companies send their huge profits direct to New York.
That this happens is common knowledge. Yet the government regulatory agency in the past
B.C. Tel always wants another rate increase
would not permit any public examination of the financial records of the companies which supply parts and equipment to B.C. Tel, an attitude which strengthened the impression that it was nothing more than a rubber stamp for the multinational telephone corporation.
The Anti-Inflation Board too, turns a blind eye to B.C. Tel rate increases, although they are far above the government's own so-called guidelines — one more proof that the purpose of the Anti-Inflation Board is to regulate wages, not to control prices or profits.
•
Public hearings will be held in Vancouver on B.C. Tel's application for a rate increase. Anyone and everyone, individual or organization, has the right to make a submission opposing the increase. I hope the CRTC will be inundated with demands for the right to oppose this unjust increase.
B.C. Tel rates are far higher than rates in the prairie cities where telephones are municipally or provincially owned. Yet these publicly-owned telephone systems .are able to show a good profit each year which goes into the public coffers and helps to offset tax increases.
When B.C. Tel, over a year ago, applied for and was granted a rate increase of 20 percent, it practically blackmailed the public with propaganda to the effect that it needed the increase to improve its service, to avoid laying off 1,500 employees.
And what did it do as soon as it
got its increase? It increased its dividends to shareholders (read General Telephone and Electronics of New York) by 20 percent.
If this isn't conning the public, I don't know what is.
Yet this is the sort of thing that is countenanced by the federal government and its regulatory agency.
Furthermore, as a result of the 20 percent increase in rates B.C. Tel profits for the last quarter of 1975 went up by 88 percent. Now it has the gall to apply for another rate increase!
•
A circular sent out by the CRTC (and delivered by B.C. Tel to all its customers) states the following:
"If you have a comment or matter which you feel the commission should take into account in reviewing this application, you can write directly to the commission. Send your comments so they will be received on or before February 15, 1977 to:
Guy Lefebvre,
Secretary-General CRTC,
100 Metcalfe Street,
OTTAWA, Ontario
K1A 0N2.
"Your comments should contain a clear and concise statement of the<relevant facts and the grounds upon which your support for, opposition to or proposed modification of the application is based; and you should state whether or not you wish to appear at a hearing on this matter."
Send your views to the CRTC in Ottawa and request the right to voice them in person before the commission when the hearings are held in Vancouver.
since major overhaul will be necessary.
Fact: Our existing 95-foot cutters are falling apart, one reduced to 10 knots.
Fact: Coast Guard marine rescue cutters are being established at Quebec City and St. John's, yet Prince Rupert which has more traffic is not even going to get the promised 65-foot cutter.
Fact: The East coast received the promised two helicopters and crews immediately; the West coast will have to wait two years at least.
Fact: Comox 442 Squadron received no additional crews and is still on up to two-hour response time at weekends.
Fact: The first million of the $40 million allocated for search and rescue has gone to new offices, a sauna and gymnasium in Ottawa!
I am asking the entire population on the West coast to write and protest. If the government will not listen to the people, then we must insist on a new government. * * *
January 5,1977 To all members of the
House of Commons. Gentlemen:
Here are some current statistics that are being ignored in favor of supplying the East coast with more facilities for search and rescue than the West coast.
West coast: 11,508 registered vessels; 248,841 licensed vessels. Total, 260,349 vessels.
East coast: 7,484 registered vessels (Nova Scotia); 66,649 licensed vessels (Nova Scotia, 34,483; Newfoundland, 7,181; Prince Edward Island, 5,409; New Brunswick, 19,576). Total, 74,133 vessels.
Please note the vast difference in votes available in B.C. worth saving.
It will require a real Coast Guard on the West coast.
R. SOMERVILLE, B.Sc, O.D. Coast Guard Volunteer Rescue Agent Campbell River, B.C.
* # * In a postscript Dr. Somerville adds:
By dividing its total budget by the number of lives saved, the" U.S. Coast Guard recently calculated that it cost $225,000 to save each life.
The budget for the coast guard organization on our West coast is around $3 million. Last year 275 lives were saved. At the U.S. figure of $225,000 for each life saved, the budget should be $62 million.
THE FISHERMAN — JANUARY 12, 1977/5