Editor: Re: “Coast guard cuts should worry mariners,” (letters, The Times, May 8).
I noticed that The Times recently published a letter which contained some inaccuracies about the an outage at MCTS Prince Rupert. The safety of mariners is the top priority of the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG), and the government is investing in marine communications infrastructure to deliver world-class services in Canadian waters.
On April 21, between 2:34 a.m. and 3:10 a.m., MCTS Prince Rupert was unable to transmit or receive radio calls. Outages occur from time to time, and are not unique to the new system being installed at MCTS centres across the country. To address these sporadic occurrences, CCG has the established protocols and procedures in place to maintain communications with mariners.
During this short outage at MCTS Prince Rupert, the centre phoned the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria to instruct all Coast Guard ships and bases in the area to monitor Emergency Channel 16 for a potential distress call. As per CCG’s standard operating procedure, the marine community was notified of the outage via a Notice to Shipping.
Within half an hour, a technician was onsite, and at 3:10 a.m., had resolved the issue. Testing of the system continued, and it was confirmed to be fully operational by 3:30 a.m.
Jody Thomas,
Commissioner,
Canadian Coast Guard
