The equipment went out to public tender in November. The program was cancelled last March after council decided it could no longer afford it.

In August 1999, chief coroner Percy Kinney made a dramatic presentation to city council, unzipping a body bag, and pleading with council to launch an underwater rescue program, which they did that year.

His argument was that it was only a matter of time before someone drowned, who might have otherwise been saved had city emergency personnel had the right training and equipment.

Nothing has changed, said Kinney, even now that the city has sold off its dive rescue equipment at fire-sale prices after only purchasing it three years before.

"Whether it's going to be this year, or five years from now, or next month (someone drowns) I have no idea," said Kinney.

"The opportunities where that may have happened have already happened two or three times."

Kinney referred to incidents such as when Max Ward crashed his twin otter in Back Bay in 2000, among several other close calls on the water.

"We've just been lucky we didn't need to have underwater rescue services but we just as easily could have," said Kinney.

"We haven't lost anybody in a fatal fire in a few years but does that mean we don't need a fire department? Of course not."

Coun. Dave Ramsay was one of two councillors who voted against scrapping the program. Kevin O'Reilly was the other.

He said the will simply wasn't there to keep the program after several firefighters trained to do underwater rescues left town, and councillors figured it would cost another $30,000 to keep the program afloat.

"I always was a big champion of the fire department keeping that but we lost that debate last year and the dive rescue went by the wayside," said Ramsay.

The equipment was originally purchased for $30,000. The city's procurement manager, Clem Hand, said the $11,000 they got for the equipment was a good deal.

"We had actually checked with a vendor down South before we did the sale, just to check what the re-sale value would be... And we recovered just over 100 per cent of the cost they figured that this stuff was actually worth in present day value," said Hand.

Wayne Gzowzki, co-owner of Arctic Divers and a professional diver, said by selling the gear, the city has taken away its ability to resume the program if they ever find funding to resume it again.

"Why did the city sell all that gear for half price? Why not keep it?" asked Gzowski. "They've just taken that (rescue) capability away."