Despite hearing from over 40 concerned residents regarding the essential service that Vancouver lifeguards provide, city council voted against a motion Wednesday that sought to provide the funding needed to reverse lifeguard cuts at five city beaches, instead opting to pass the buck back to the Vancouver Park Board.
While ABC Coun. Mike Klassen recognized the concerns of those who spoke in support of the motion, he said the responsibility lies with the park board.
“If the park board is truly prioritizing these services, they would have properly funded this appropriately at their last meeting, where they had an emergency motion to discuss this topic,” Klassen said.
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Councillors in favour of the motion and many of those in attendance were surprised by the result of the vote.
“I feel like this motion was easy to support as it originally stood,” said Coun. Sean Orr.
“I don’t think $600,000 in the grand scheme of things, considered we’ve already taken out of our reserves for a number of other things, is a lot when lives are on the line.”
Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Tom Digby says they are already in the process of hiring lifeguards for this summer, but stressed the $600,000 needed will have to come from somewhere.
“We may have to cut whole services altogether,” Digby said.
“That might, in the end, be the only effective way to deal with this, rather than just diminishing all of our services across all the system.”
Regardless of where the funds do eventually come from, safety advocates stress the funding pales in comparison to the cost of losing just one life.
“Each fatal drowning in Canada has a cost of $623,226, which is more than the $600,000 they are looking at to reinstate the lifeguards,” said Lifesaving Society of B.C. executive director Lenea Grace.