Written by Frank Peebles Citizen staff Tuesday, 16 June 2009
One Search and Rescue group in B.C. has halted all activities immediately, out of legal fear. Others are considering doing the same. Prince George's Search and Rescue group is going to continue for the time being, search manager Jeff Smedley said Tuesday, but they will consider the ultimatum Vernon SAR just issued the provincial government. The SAR group in Golden was named late last week in a law suit leveled by a Quebec man after he and his wife became lost in the Kootenay backcountry and were not immediately searched for. His wife died of exposure in the incident. They had not told loved ones where they were or when they were due back, and went skiing out of bounds in the Kicking Horse Resort area. Golden SAR has frozen all activities as a result. To this point, SAR volunteers across the province - more than 2,500 people - have been told by the provincial government that they are protected from legal action by two acts in provincial legislation, and by Provincial Emergency Program insurance. Many in the SAR field, including Smedley, said there are actually gaping holes in those assurances, and the Golden case punctuated that. PGSAR is one of those that took protective matters into their own hands a number of years ago, said Smedley. "Because there were things provincial government insurance didn't cover us for, and there were a lot of holes, we had to go out and buy our own third party liability coverage," he said. "It costs us $1,600 per year for that extra coverage, out of an operating budget of about $24,000 per year. So do you think Vanderhoof SAR, for example, with an operating budget of about $5,000 per year, can afford that? It costs $3,300 a year just to license your radios; not to buy them, that's just for permission to use them. So extra insurance is a little over the heads of groups like McBride, Mackenzie, Vanderhoof, and they have some excellent personnel, they are good search teams, and they are called upon all the time to go out and find people."
The Vernon SAR group is home to veteran volunteer Don Blakely, who is the coauthor of the B.C. Search and Rescue Strategic Plan adopted by the Provincial Emergency Program. He is also a lawyer who has, for more than a decade, been one of those leading the lobby of the provincial government to fix the legal holes they claim are a threat to the whole B.C. SAR movement - 85 groups, all of them not-for-profit societies and all of them run solely on trained volunteers.
On Tuesday the Vernon group told the provincial government in a public statement that they had 60 days to straighten it all out, or it would also halt its activities in protest, exposing one of the biggest and most popular backcountry recreation areas in B.C. to no emergency response if someone is lost. "We highlighted each of the issues that are coming home to roost today. We have repeatedly requested PEP to deal with these issues and from time to time they have mentioned they would, but they have never fallen through," Blakely told The Citizen moments before the ultimatum was issued. "Right now SAR volunteers are mad as hell and they aren't going to put up with it anymore, and the Golden SAR group legal battle is going on because of it." Blakely said the Good Samaritan Act and the Emergency Program Act are the ones the B.C. government claims to protect SAR volunteers, but he said there are alarming exclusions within those acts, they don't apply to societies or their directors, and what insurance is there through PEP only covers volunteers from the exact time a search file is officially opened to when it is officially closed and there are a multitude of SAR activities that go on for volunteers outside of those times. "If the province simply purchased proper comprehensive legal liability insurance for its 85 SAR groups it all becomes moot; they wouldn't have to fix up all the legislation," Blakely said. "These people in SAR have regular jobs, they are your friends and neighbours, but they take intensive training, risk their lives in dangerous terrain, and stress their lives in horrendous conditions to save the people of their communities. Is it too much to ask the provincial government that these people be properly taken care of with insurance coverage?"
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