OTTAWA — The coast guard’s decision to move a vessel from the Canadian Coast Guard College in Sydney to Quebec is based on a complex statistical analysis, a government official said Wed-nesday.
But Michel Vermette, the coast guard’s director general of maritime services, declined to point to any particular change that prompted the decision.
Opposition politicians have pounced on the move of the Cap Perce, accusing the government of moving the 14-metre boat for political reasons, but Mr. Vermette said Wednesday that the decision was made by officials who don’t think about politics.
But he wasn’t prepared to explain why the lower north shore region of Quebec needs more coast guard presence "without going into the detailed analysis, which I’m not prepared to do at this point."
"If you want me to do that, I’ll pull out my statistical analysis and every other piece of information that we considered in coming to the recommendation, in coming to the conclusion, that we needed increased coverage on the lower north shore," he said.
"The fact is that we have fishing vessels in that area. We have marine traffic. We have cargo and ferries that are moving along that coast and we have determined that we need to have more search and rescue coverage there, just in case."
Mr. Vermette said the coast guard college will get along just fine without the Cap Perce, which was christened in 2005 as a training vessel for the school.
"There will be no impact on training of students at the college by this move," he said. "This was a vessel that we were using there for training purposes but we use a whole series of vessels for training purposes."
An Ottawa communications official with the Fisheries Department told The Chronicle Herald on Tuesday that the Cap Perce was the only training vessel at the college. All media inquiries to the college are handled out of Ottawa [emphasis added].
In fact, Mr. Vermette said Wednesday that the college has 30 training vessels, including two 13-metre vessels that are 30 years old.
Liberal and New Democrat MPs have accused the Tories of moving the ship for political advantage, as Cape Breton is Liberal-held and the Conservatives hope to make gains in Quebec. Mr. Hearn has been accused of moving two heavy icebreakers to Newfoundland from Dartmouth last year to help boost threatened Tory seats there...
