Volunteers bail out government
When governments shirk their responsibilities, frustrated citizens too often step in to get the work done. It will happen again in a couple of weeks, when volunteers clean up derelict boats in Cadboro Bay. How long do we have to wait for governments to figure out a way to hack through the masses of overlapping laws so we can rid ourselves of this blight on our coastlines?
On May 13, a volunteer crew plans to deal with 10 or more derelicts that litter the Oak Bay side of the bay. Some boats have apparently been removed already by their owners, as the count a few weeks ago was 16.
Abandoned vessels and wrecks fall under overlapping federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictions, depending on the tide lines. While those levels of government promise action that never seems to happen, volunteers from groups including Cadboro Bay and Oak Bay residents associations, Royal Victoria Yacht Club and the Veins of Life Watershed Society will put their backs into the work. They shouldn’t have to. The issue is complex, but it’s not new. Derelict boats have plagued Canada’s coastlines for generations. The jurisdictional quagmire is well understood. Experts are plentiful. All we seem to lack is the will, particularly at the federal level.
One suspects that if Ottawa were a coastal city, and MPs could see the wrecks from their kitchen windows, the problem would have been solved decades ago.
Certainly, the current crop of parliamentarians have done nothing concrete. They voted unanimously Oct. 26 on a Liberal motion to give the federal government six months to address derelict boats, but the deadline passed last Wednesday with no money or legislation in sight.
Nanaimo-Ladysmith NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson, who, like most coastal politicians, is closer to the problem than many of her colleagues, tabled a bill to create a vessel-turn-in program.
She also thinks that vessel registration should be taken over by the provinces, pointing to car registration, “and we don’t have old abandoned cars lying around like we used to.”
But cars aren’t boats. Turning registration over to the provinces is likely to add to the fragmentation of regulations that already exists.
As it stands, commercial craft must be registered, but pleasure-craft owners have the choice of registering or licensing their boats, which are different processes. Regardless of which they use, when they are on the ocean, they must follow regulations set by the federal government and policed by the Canadian Coast Guard.
Bringing the provinces into that system to deal with the problem of derelict boats is likely to cause more confusion without cleaning up our shorelines.
Still, it is frustrating that officials seem to have so much trouble tracking down the owners of all those troublesome hulks, when almost all of them should have been either registered or licensed.
One suggestion that deserves serious scrutiny is a recycling fee on all new boats, which would go into a fund to clean up those that are abandoned at the end of their lives. Legislation would have to make it clear that some agency — the coast guard is a popular choice — has the responsibility of putting that fund to use by retrieving and recycling derelict boats.
Even if that fund isn’t created, someone has to take charge of cleanup efforts. When possible, the owner must be tracked and made to pay, but the first priority is to get the vessel off the beach or out of the water.
As the regulator of shipping and navigable waters, the federal government must take the lead. Leaving it to volunteers is not acceptable.