May 13, 2004 Dive Team Delayed Without Hovercraft OTTAWA- "Yesterday in a diving accident at Porteau Cove another life was lost. This time another life was lost, possibly because the federal government never bothered to replace the Coast Guard search and rescue hovercraft that went out of service in 2002," said John Cummins, M.P. (Delta-South Richmond). If the government had seen fit to replace the old hovercraft when it should have, the Coast Guard's crack dive team would have been on the scene without delay. In this case the team was forced to drive though Vancouver traffic in a frantic attempt to get to the scene. Time is of the essence in a diving rescue; every second counts. That is why the dive team stationed at the Vancouver Airport Coast Guard base relies on a hovercraft to get to the scene of an accident within a very few minutes of a call being received. Without a means of getting on the scene immediately and having a platform from which to dive, the dive team ceases to be effective in a rescue and is turned into a recovery team. In 2001 and early 2002 the funds necessary to replace the retiring hovercraft were diverted to the Coast Guard's Quebec region to purchase another craft to be used in ice breaking on the St. Lawrence. The Pacific Region's request for a new machine was rejected. Late last year, the government decided to purchase a hovercraft that had been mothballed for about a decade after having had a lifetime of service as a passenger ferry in Europe. We are told the old passenger ferry has been partially converted to a search and rescue craft and will be delivered and become operational sometime this summer after going through sea trials. The only remaining operational Coast Guard hovercraft on the West Coast went out of service earlier this year and has yet to be repaired and brought back into service. "Saving lives in British Columbia's coastal waters is the primary business of the Coast Guard and its dive team. Unfortunately saving lives in B.C.'s coastal waters has not been a priority with senior Ministers in Ottawa for a very long time," said Cummins. Contact: John Cummins, M.P. |
