OTTAWA – The Honourable Herb Dhaliwal, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today announced that Sea Island Coast Guard base divers will begin responding, as available, to marine emergencies off the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

"I am pleased today to announce that seven Sea Island search and rescue (SAR) specialists are now qualified to conduct open water diving," said Mr. Dhaliwal. "This diving resource, unique to the Sea Island base, will add to the SAR program in the Lower Mainland."

The initiation of these diving services at Sea Island was announced by Mr. Dhaliwal on July 19^th, 2001. Although rescue diving has been found to be effective in only rare and exceptional circumstances, the decision to establish diving services at Sea Island was based on several unique factors. The Sea Island base already houses highly trained divers, the appropriate diving equipment and enjoys strong public support for the service.

The Canadian Coast Guard will continue to seek and train personnel in order to ensure that diving services are an integral part of its search and rescue activities provided at Sea Island Base.

The Canadian Coast Guard is only one of several emergency response agencies operating in British Columbia. A workshop for local Vancouver emergency response agencies has been organized by the Coast Guard for next month. The goal of the meeting will be to improve the co-ordination and effectiveness of diving response capacity in the lower mainland.