Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 05/99) - Boating, whether it be for business or pleasure, is a way of life for many people in both the NWT and Nunavut.

When new boating safety requirements were put into effect on April 1 of this year -- operator competency requirements and age/horsepower restrictions -- under the Canadian Coast Guard's Small Vessel Regulations, Nunavut and the NWT were excluded from any new regulations until further consultations could be made with the communities.

According to Peter Garapick, supervisor of the Office of Boating Safety with the Canadian Coast Guard, there were several reasons why the federal government decided not to implement new regulations in the North.

"One thing we recognized was that our standard program that we had south of 60 was not very appropriate in the North," Garapick said. "So we developed something in complete partnership with the GNWT's Department of Transportation and that was called SBSAP.

"SBSAP (Small Boat Safety Awareness Program), was tailor-made for the Northern communities. It was based on community programs that taught general safety and introduced things that people had never seen before, like PFDs (personal floatation devices) and lifejackets and some of the safety gear that is required by law in other parts of Canada."

SBSAP has been in operation in the North since 1995. It was not previously available because factors such as cost, awareness or appropriateness made it difficult to implement.

"The problem of community remoteness and the recent split of the territories precluded us from implementing the new regulations in the North," Garapick said.

"We wanted to make people aware of general boating safety and ask what will work in their community first. The few things that we know in the coast guard is that you have to work with your client, you've got to work with the people who are there in the area and that is why SBSAP has been so successful.

"It ultimately brought in the PFD Loaner Program and what we did, recognizing the cost of these in the North, we bought them (the PFDs) and brought them into the communities in the North and loaned them out to people on a long-term basis so they would get used to the idea of working with floating jackets."

According to Safety and Public Affairs officer with the GNWT Department of Transportation Stephen Sherburn, the basis for funding for the PFD Loaner Program came out of the New Initiative Fund. This was established by the National Search and Rescue Secretariat to give agencies like the RCMP, the National Defence department and the Coast Guard funding to help with safety concerns across Canada.

"Basically, there is a pool of money for new initiatives on safety," Sherburn said. "All these agencies that deal with safety have the option of writing a proposal and it is either accepted or not and then it is budgeted.

"Not everybody in the North gets this (PFD Loaner Program). There is a criteria that we have to select communities based on historical drowning stats, remote geographical location and the availability of PFDs to the communities. If we have one community where there were more fatalities than anywhere else, then it gets a higher priority for the program.

"We then take it to the council or the band or whoever manages that community and explain the benefits of why they should have this program."

So far, five communities have taken part in the PFD Loaner Program and, according to Sherburn, the Office of Boating Safety is set to bring up the number of Northern communities with the program to 18 by the end of the summer.

Community Works foreman in Rae-Edzo Leon Lafferty feels the program has been very popular with local boaters, but acknowledges that they could use a few more PFDs.

"They don't use them much in the summer because they're too hot, but people use them in the fall," Lafferty said. "People use them all winter long when they go snowmobiling. We've had to turn people away because we ran out of them.

"I've noticed a lot of people are more safety conscious since the program started. Only the elders don't feel that they need them when they are out on the big lake. They say it's not rough enough."

Jacob Keanik, a Department of Sustainable Development officer in Nunavut, agrees that safety consciousness has increased since the program came into effect, but he, too, wishes that there were more PFDs available.

"Last year was the first time that we used it," Keanik said. "Everybody is using them now. We don't have enough. We could use a lot more.

"Every year I make an announcement on the radio to tell people that we have these devices and it appears that it is working. Very few people used them before the program came and now people that can afford them are buying them."