March 27th 2018 - Study on Maritime Search and Rescue activities, including current challenges and opportunities - Haisla Nation Council

Senator Poirier: Thank you, Mr. Amos, for being here. I have a couple of questions.

As a follow-up from my colleague Senator McInnis, in one of the questions I think I understood that you had four full-time employees at this point.

Mr. Amos: Yes.

Senator Poirier: I imagine you have a team of volunteer people who are with your search and rescue team, auxiliary also; am I right?

Mr. Amos: We don’t really have a search and rescue auxiliary team. All we have is the equipment, which is not very much equipment yet. But the Coast Guard has promised to outfit our vessels, the two bigger ones, with the properly lighting and proper stuff to pull people out of the water with, all sorts of equipment. It’s a pretty big list and they’re still trying to get that to us. So when something does happen, we will be prepared for call-outs.

I’m also second-in-command in our volunteer fire department, and we have a pretty big contingent there. We have about 22 people in the volunteers. They were all out scouring the beaches when that happened, when people heard the man screaming in the water. It was pitch-black out.

Senator Poirier: When you say you just have the four employees, you do have people in the community, when you get a call that there’s something out there from the Coast Guard, who accompany you or help you? It’s not just the four of you that go out, right?

Mr. Amos: It’s not just the four of us. I don’t know if you know when the Queen of the North sank over there by Hartley Bay, they had a lot of community members take their boats out by themselves. That's what happened that night, too. We had a couple of community members take open herring skiffs and start scouring the beaches and different places. People help.

Senator Poirier: These people who helped, the volunteers who come in and help, they’re not people who have had any type of training with the Coast Guard, if I understand correctly.

Mr. Amos: That’s right.

Senator Poirier: Is there training offered right now through the Coast Guard for volunteers, if they would want to take it, in your community?

Mr. Amos: They’ve promised that they want to start a Coast Guard auxiliary team right in our community, with the constable that wants to be part of that, to do some land and sea exercises and training for us. So, yes, the training is coming. It’s just a matter of time and money.

Senator Poirier: When you go out, with the four employees that you have on team right now, are you using your own private equipment and boats? Or does your organization have that and it’s supplied by either the Coast Guard or by an organization that finances it?

Mr. Amos: We’ve got most of our own equipment, survival suits and stuff like that. But we don’t have the immersion suits. That was part of the list that the Coast Guard in Bamfield said they would supply us with, along with the training.

Senator Poirier: What you do have now, was that financed and supplied by the Coast Guard, or was that something you had to purchase yourselves?

Mr. Amos: That’s what our department purchased for us.

Senator Poirier: And your finances come from where?

Mr. Amos: We have a capacity fund here when we go get training. We have money for supplies and gear, because it’s mostly cold here, so we need the proper nice Mustang gear, the floater gear. That’s bought by our department. We have another department. I’m sorry; I can’t remember what it was.

Then, through some of the programs that we do run, some of the money is supplied through that, because we never started out as a search and rescue but we’re heading that way. It’s just another jacket that we’ll be wearing, or whatever that saying is. That stuff will be provided by the Coast Guard.

Senator Poirier: Do you have to, on occasion, do your own fundraising to get equipment?

Mr. Amos: My boss, Mike Jacobs, is the one that really takes care of all that. I’m just the low guy on the totem pole out here, with a little bit of training. It comes through the department.

Senator Poirier: Thank you for all that you do. There are a lot of coastlines along the B.C. coast, as there is along the Atlantic Coast, where I’m from. We really need people like you guys out there. Sometimes when the distance is far, you’re the ones that can respond for us. Thank you for all that you do, and continue the good work.

Mr. Amos: Thank you.

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