Veteran Vancouver Island MP James Lunney's criticism of a government decision is extremely rare in a government famous for its ironclad control over ministers and caucus.
However, the New Democratic Party still criticized Lunney, noting that the MP was blaming "bureaucrats" and "authorities" rather than Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government for the cuts.
Lunney also is failing to acknowledge that he voted for the budget that brought in the cuts, said New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart.
"He should be clear it's this government that proposed these cuts. It's not some faceless bureaucrat," Stewart said.
In his statement Lunney criticized the planned amalgamation of five former marine communications centres on the West Coast into two, one in Sidney and the other in Prince Rupert.
The other three, in Vancouver, Comox and Tofino, will close.
The cuts "would leave just two centres monitoring 27,000 kilometres of B.C. coast from Sidney on Vancouver Island and Prince Rupert in the north coast," Lunney said in a statement.
"By contrast, Atlantic Canada, even after reorganization, will retain five MCTS (Marine Communications and Traffic Services) centres covering 11,400 kilometres of coastline.
"Something all coastal B.C. residents understand but Ottawa seems prone to overlook is our off-shore geological fault line; minor quakes happen regularly, geologists tell us a major one is a certainty.
"In 2004, Seattle monitoring shut down after a quake, our centres took over monitoring all traffic. It could just as easily be Sidney shut down."
He also questioned the wisdom of closing the Kitsilano search-and-rescue station, which the government says isn't endangering the public because the Sea Island base in Richmond has powerful hovercraft capable of search-and rescue in the area.
"Experience with hovercraft on coastal B.C. would tell us they are extremely well-suited to the mud flats and shallow water off Sea Island serving the airport vicinity," Lunney, the MP for Nanaimo-Alberni, said in his statement.
"Whether the new hovercraft will have a better service record than its predecessors remains to be seen. However, experience to date would indicate such craft are high maintenance; meaning for much of the year, only one of two craft is likely to be available.
"It's not reasonable to expect hovercraft to be able to cover the highly utilized English Bay area in addition to its Richmond/airport mandate. Kitsilano is heavily utilized in the summer, high traffic season. Winter months may be less active, but any call out has much greater intrinsic risk."
Lunney, who has refused Postmedia requests for interviews, said he is expressing his concerns to "responsible authorities in Ottawa." Last week he said the closures were the decision of bureaucrats.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Peter O'Neil
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