Vancouver’s marine safety mess

It’s a video nearly every local saw. In early May, a Sea-Doo rider collided head-on with a breaching grey whale just off the coast of Stanley Park. The harrowing incident went viral, making headlines not only locally but also in national and international news outlets. 

The shocking collision, public reaction, and reputational harm motivated multiple park board commissioners to take action. A splashy effort to ban motorized personal watercrafts, like Sea-Doos, from Burrard Inlet was ultimately sunk by the park board, while a less dramatic plan to review marine safety measures was narrowly passed at the same meeting. 

But, even more than the debate about the use of one specific kind of vessel, the issue brought to light the cumbersome jurisdictional complexities of regulating ocean activities, the pitfalls of attempting to make policy based on a single event, and hope that the incident can spark positive change.

Green Party Commissioner Tom Digby grabbed his own headlines with an attempt to prohibit or significantly restrict Sea-Doos and similar watercrafts from Burrard Inlet and marine facilities managed by the park board. 

“The guy who hit the whale is someone who's very experienced, who still was not able to read the signals that they should be slowing down,” Digby told Vancity Lookout, referring to a City News interview with the anonymous rider, who apologized for the collision.  

“That really provoked a lot of people … so we're getting on it tonight at the park board,” Digby said ahead of the vote, adding that people as far away as Toronto and Halifax had brought up the incident with him.

Over 9,000 people signed a petition in favour of Digby’s motion, with over 300 people also writing to the park board in support of the proposed restrictions.  

However, Digby’s motion proved widely unpopular at the board, with ABC and independent commissioners criticizing it for being too harsh, not including any data on the frequency of similar incidents in Burrard Inlet, and a lack of park board jurisdiction for a ban. 

In response to questions from other commissioners, Digby admitted he only knew of the one incident of a whale being struck by a Sea-Doo in Burrard Inlet.

ABC commissioners Marie-Claire Howard and Angela Haer criticized Digby for “picking on the little guys” rather than focusing attention on threats to whales from tankers and ferries, while Jas Virdi pointed out that the board has no control over riders launching in Burrard Inlet from surrounding municipalities. 

Personal watercrafts like Sea-Doos are already banned in the busy port area between the Lions Gate and Iron Workers Memorial bridges, according to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. 

Digby cast the proposed ban as something that was decades in the making, rather than based solely on one incident, citing advocacy against unsafe watercraft operation around UBC by the Wreck Beach Preservation Society since the early 2000s. 

Whether due to a genuine miscalculation or political theatrics, Digby’s proposed response seemed totally disconnected from the views of his fellow commissioners. 

“I’d be shocked if others didn’t support this,” Digby said during closing arguments. “Prepare to be shocked,” replied Commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky.

Digby ultimately cast the only vote in favour, with all other commissioners voting against the motion.

The proposed ban would have had a significant impact on local companies that rent Sea-Doos. 

Jessica Watson, co-founder of Vancouver Water Adventures, a popular rental and tour company that operates out of a marina on Granville Island, told Vancity Lookout that Digby’s motion “would have a significant impact on our business, our staff, and the broader tourism industry,” including the more than 60 seasonal staff members Watson’s company employs. 

“If a ban of this nature were implemented, it would result in a substantial reduction in our operations and affect the employment of a significant portion of our seasonal workforce,” Watson said in a written statement ahead of the vote. 

Watson emphasized that the rider who hit the whale was not affiliated in any way with her company, and provided details on Vancouver Water Adventures’ safety programs. Those include instructing guests and guides to maintain appropriate distances from marine mammals, like whales, mandatory safety training, and geo-fencing technology, which remotely reduces Sea-Doo speed near swimming beaches, shorelines, and other areas.

“We support meaningful measures that protect marine wildlife, encourage responsible boating practices, strengthen education and training, and support strong enforcement against reckless vessel operation,” Watson said, adding that the recent incident was “deeply upsetting and heartbreaking to witness.”

Watson did not respond to follow up questions, including how frequent incidents with their Sea-Doos are. 

Human-caused threats to marine mammals are cumulative and overlapping, and protecting these animals is more complicated than a response targeting one incident, according to Beatrice Frank. 

Frank is the executive director of the Georgia Strait Alliance, an advocacy group focused on protecting endangered species in the Salish Sea region, which includes Burrard Inlet, the Georgia and Juan de Fuca straits, and Puget Sound in Washington State.

“People now look at just the impact caused by this person colliding with the whale, but the problem is a little bit bigger,” Frank said, calling the Sea-Doo incident a “cherry on top” of all the other human marine activities affecting whales. 

Aside from collisions, Frank explained the biggest human-caused threats to whales are pollution and the cumulative effect of noise from ships, boats, and other watercrafts. 

The Salish Sea is becoming noisier and harder to use as a hunting ground, Frank said, especially for endangered Southern Resident killer whales, or orcas, which rely on vocalization for hunting and feeding. 

“There have been multiple instances in which Southern Resident [orcas] have been seen really, really skinny, or have lost their babies,” due to bad nutrition, Frank said.

Jackie Hildering with the Marine Education and Research Society hopes this highly publicized incident will motivate further action to protect whales, especially in more remote areas.

“We are grateful for the concern and awareness this incident has generated and now we hope that action extends to the coast of British Columbia, not just Vancouver,” Hildering 

told Vancity Lookout. “So many areas on this vast coast do not have the thousands of human eyes [like there are in Vancouver] and do have more whales that most certainly need protection.”

“Having a person who is reckless on the water doesn't make it easier,” Frank said of the man who hit the whale. 

Wading into the topic of marine safety and governance uncovers an issue that is both mundane and insidious – a patchwork system of various and overlapping jurisdictions, with multiple government agencies in charge of different rules, operations, and enforcement, which complicates reform and obscures accountability. It’s a challenge we previously encountered in our reporting on the proposed dredging project in Burrard Inlet.

“The whale strike is not an isolated incident; it's actually an escalation of the problems that we experience around Vancouver,” Comm. Bastyovanszky told Vancity Lookout. He says the whale strike is one example of unclear marine regulation and deficient infrastructure, which also manifests locally in poorly-marked watercraft exclusion zones around Vancouver’s beaches, a lack of accountability for derelict boats, and complicated regulations around allowable proximity to whales.

“The overlapping jurisdictions are causing these increased dangers to wildlife, to recreational swimmers, and to beach goers,” in Vancouver, Bastyovanszky said. 

Agencies responsible for various aspects of marine safety, regulation, and enforcement around Vancouver include the federal government’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Transport Canada, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, the provincial government, and the Vancouver Police Department’s Marine Unit.

“This is my everyday life, in which I don't know who I should be talking to,” Frank with the Georgia Strait Alliance said. 

Vancity Lookout got a taste for this complication in attempting to track down data and information on the impact of motorized personal watercrafts on public safety and the environment in Burrard Inlet. In hopes of having four questions answered, we were referred back and forth between four different government agencies, with only the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority responding by publication time. 

One question about the ecological impact of these watercrafts on near-shore waters was referred from Transport Canada to Metro Vancouver to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, none of whom could provide an answer. 

By time of publication, Transport Canada had not responded to Vancity Lookout’s questions on the frequency or general trend of incidents involving motorized personal watercrafts in Burrard Inlet, or if there were concerns with the training procedures of third-party rental companies. 

At the same meeting where Digby’s Sea-Doo ban was rejected, Bastyovanszky was able to secure support, in a narrow 4-3 vote outside party lines, to ask these numerous agencies to review and improve safety measures for swimmers, recreational marine vessels, and wildlife. 

Bastyovanszky’s successful motion directs Digby, as park board chair, to advocate to the various agencies for eight different specific improvements to safety measures around Vancouver’s shoreline and in the ocean more generally, as well as to formally share the park board’s willingness for these agencies to use park board areas to post public marine safety information. 

Digby, Virdi, and Howard voted against the idea, with Digby calling Bastyovanszky’s motion a “chaotic mess” that wouldn’t get results. 

However, other commissioners supported the idea, with Scott Jensen saying it takes what is hopefully an isolated incident with the Sea-Doo and whale collision and moves forward on ways to protect both animals and people in nearby waters.  

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