On September 17th, protesters gathered outside the Canadian Coast Guard Sub-Centre in St. John’s to advocate for primary search and rescue services in Labrador.
The protest took place on the four year anniversary of the loss of two fishermen, Marc Russell and Joey Jenkins, who went missing aboard the Island Lady. The protest was organized by the Labrador Coalition for Search and Rescue with support from the FFAW.
“I just felt I couldn’t sit home another year and commemorate that anniversary without doing something,” said Jeanette Russell, Marc’s mother and founder of the Labrador Coalition, who has been an active voice in the four years following the incident.
I spoke with her on the issues facing Labradorians regarding access to search and rescue services.
The protest came just after the authority for the Canadian Coast Guard had transferred to the Department of National Defense on September 2nd.
“I felt it was time to send a message to the new department having authority for the CCG to let them know we’re not going away, the problem still exists, the Canadian Coast Guard has not done enough to increase the amount of resources available to Labradorians.”
Labrador has no primary rescue facilities, and only has five fast rescue vessels across its entirety.
This pales in comparison to the search and rescue services found in Newfoundland, consisting of seven lifeboat stations and three inshore rescue craft stations. Russell points out that these are often too far to assist in rescues in Labrador.
“When resources are needed for rescue services, it takes about seven to eight hours for air assets to reach the jurisdiction. That’s too long when we know, as mariners… we’re fully aware of how much time matters and how time sensitive rescue is,” said Russell.
The reason for this is the proximity of the primary search and rescue stations in Newfoundland to Labrador, with the nearest being in St. Anthony. The northern-most community is Nain, over 700km away from the nearest station.
“When you consider the North Coast of Labrador, especially given that the North Coast does not have a public transportation system, a road system, so they have to use waterways as a primary mode of transportation… the further removed you are from Newfoundland-based search and rescue stations, the more vulnerable you are,” said Russell.
But the reason for this major discrepancy between services in Newfoundland as opposed to essentially nothing in Labrador is sometimes argued as a financial one.
“That’s the question that I cannot tease out an answer for, it just doesn’t make sense. When you look at every other government service, federal government program, all programs are available in Labrador and some of them are based in Labrador. But when it comes to search and rescue, they just do not want to spend the money in Labrador,” said Russell.
In an interview with CBC’s Ian Hanomansing, Russell was asked why the federal government should be investing in Labrador given the federal government’s financial situation.
But when it comes to resource investments, such as the Churchill Falls project or the mining industry, money is not an issue.
“I know the petroleum board has recently approved exploration for offshore oil in Labrador. I can guarantee that if offshore oil went ahead tomorrow, they would hasten to put search and rescue resources in Labrador to protect that investment,” said Russell.
If the reason for the lack of search and rescues services isn’t a financial one, Russell asks whether discrimination is a factor given Labrador’s high population of indigenous peoples.
“When you look at such a large geographical area with a high population of Indigenous people, and that’s the area of the country you choose not to invest in public safety, to me it begs consideration of racial profiling and the denial of public services to the most vulnerable people.”
Whether it’s a matter of finances or of discrimination, it’s clear that the absence of these services puts Labradorians at risk.
