Vancouver city council has passed a motion, calling for a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss the pending closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base.
Mayor Gregor Robertson says there’s a good chance lives will be lost if operations are re-located to the base in Richmond.
“As elected officials, we must continue to advocate, push hard, make sure that other elected officials in the federal government side, in particular, who represent our city and the whole metro area that’s impacted by this are raising their voices of concern.”
The mayor is also asking the city’s fire department and police force to join in the push to keep Kits base open.
Gregor Robertson wants Chiefs Jim Chu and John McKearney to write the federal government to say it’s not the city’s job to rescue people on the water.
“Nor are we trained and responsible for those activities. I think this speaks to a huge concern that we have around the life safety, because if there is a gap here, and as some reports we’ve seen in recent state there will be lives lost because of this gap — that there’s a high-risk of loss of life. That’s a huge concern for us here in Vancouver.”
The base is slated to close next May as part of federal budget cuts.
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