A spill response boat secures a boom around the cargo ship MV Marathassa after a bunker fuel spill on Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, B.C., on April 9, 2015. One former maritime lawyer said if the U.S. Coast Guard ranked an eight or nine out of 10 worldwide, then Canada’s Coast Guard would rank a one or two.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
The Conservatives' so-called B.C. backup tour visited a Vancouver-area beach on Monday with plans to enhance coastal and marine safety along the West Coast. But instead the party faced questions about the federal government's controversial decision to close a regional Coast Guard base.
It's been two years since the government closed the Kitsilano Coast Guard base, which prompted complaints from local politicians, unions and other critics, including some who blamed the closing on the slow response to an oil spill in English Bay earlier this year. And it remains an issue in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, a hotly contested coastal riding where even the local Conservative incumbent acknowledges that voters have been bringing it up as he and his team have knocked on 7,000 doors.
"People care about marine response," John Weston, who was first elected in the riding in 2008, said during a news conference with former cabinet minister Stockwell Day and Industry Minister James Moore, who is not seeking re-election. While both the Liberals and the New Democrats have vowed, if elected, to reopen the base, which was located just west of downtown, the Conservatives have maintained that closing it was the right decision. According to Mr. Weston, since 2013, there have been 800 incidents in which marine responders acted within the required 30-minute response time.
"We have a successful story to respond to those concerned about the closure," he said.
The fate of the base has been an especially sensitive issue in a region where fears of a major spill were amplified earlier this year when thousands of litres of fuel leaked from a cargo ship in English Bay. B.C. Premier Christy Clark, the City of Vancouver, unions and others in the province have criticized both the response to the spill and the closing of the Coast Guard base.
Mr. Weston won the riding in 2011 with 46 per cent of the vote. However, he is thought to be facing a tough challenge this time from Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, a former popular two-term West Vancouver mayor who is running for the Liberals. Mr. Day and Mr. Moore have been touring British Columbia in Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's borrowed B.C. campaign bus.
Mr. Day has described the effort as a backup to Mr. Harper, who has to campaign across Canada. Mr. Moore said despite "dire warnings" from the opposition, the Conservatives effectively funded response services in the two years since the base closed.
The closing left a separate facility at Sea Island, in Richmond, about 31 kilometres away, as the closest in the region. Ottawa's response to the closing included a new inshore rescue boat station and new hovercraft stationed at Sea island.
"We have better response times now than ever before to any kind of distress calls that come in from our waterways," Mr. Moore told reporters.
He rejected a journalist's suggestion that closing the base was a mistake. "Certainly there were concerns that have been raised and we recognize that and addressed those concerns, and any of the services that have been provided by that one station have more than been replaced," Mr. Moore said.
But representatives of the Liberals and the NDP contacted Monday said they would reopen the base if elected Oct. 19.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau made the promise in April. The Liberal platform, released Monday, offers no further details, but a party official speaking on background said such a measure would occur in the first mandate of a Liberal government.
In a September visit to the same West Vancouver coastline where Monday's Tory event was held, Mr. Trudeau also outlined an oceans-protection plan that included formalizing a moratorium on crude-oil tanker traffic on B.C.'s north coast and reinstating $40-million cut from Ottawa's ocean-science and monitoring program.
New Democrat Fin Donnelly, seeking re-election in Port Moody-Coquitlam, said Monday his party would also reopen the station and that further details on the plan would be included in the soon-to-be-released party platform.
"We've heard loud and clear from people that they want that station reopened, so we'll do that," Mr. Donnelly said.
He said the Conservative promises made Monday are a mix of measures that should have already been enacted or that the NDP has been calling for. "This is too little; too late," he said.
Dave Clark, regional Pacific vice-president of the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees, which represents Coast Guard workers, said there has been relatively little discussion about the issue during the election campaign, so he was pleased to see the parties discussing the matter on Monday. Mr. Clark said if the Conservatives end up with a minority government, he hoped that the other parties would push the Tories to reopen the base.
"We will be pushing those parties to keep their word," Mr. Clark said of the Liberals and New Democrats.
Ian Bailey