Dear Editor:
Re: City says Chief Skugaid has to ship out, The Record, April 12.
As indicated in your recent report, I was reserving comment on the series of events that transpired immediately prior to my initial response to same. I have taken counsel, and had time to mull and muse and now feel compelled to retort/rebutt, for the record.
The "boarding party" that attended my vessel (ostensibly to inspect it) was nothing more than a city-sanctioned and orchestrated "home invasion," invoking the Shipping Act in much the same way as the War Measures Act has been invoked. This city-sponsored "fishing expedition" was in defiance and contempt of my charter rights (protection against unreasonable search and seizure, etc.) I hope to engage a sympathetic barrister on a pro-bono basis, to launch a challenge under the Charter. Too often, such broad and discretionary powers are invoked, by various agencies, as "fact-finding rec-onnoiters" . This was a glaring example of same. There simply must be accountability for this highhanded and extra-legal intrusion.
As to the hyperbolic fabrications in the print-propaganda package (on the findings of the in camera council session,) they are wild exaggerations and worst-case scenaria of the most speculative nature, the most absurd and laughable being the notion that the vessel "might capsize."
The vessel is 84 tonnes, with seven feet below the waterline; it has packed upwards of 40 tonnes of fish in it's two main hatches (for one hundred years) in the Bering Sea, in waves up to 50 feet high . It's ludicrous to even insinuate that a tonne or two of fishing gear, tools and building supplies, stacked atop the main hatches, could cause this vessel to "turn turtle."
I'd be obliged, as well, if the "unelected officials" (who seem to be "spoon-feeding" the elected officials) would refrain from repeating the big "Larco Lie" i.e.: that the Chief Skugaid was "illegally moored at Westminster Pier for two years," etc.
Until Larco went to Port Metro Vancouver in the fall of 2012, they did not have a water-lot lease of any sort of description; they then tailor-made one to dislodge the vessel (effective Oct. 1) and that was what the Supreme Court judge was forced to rule on.
One cannot help but wonder, given the exponential (and usurious!) water-lot lease fees presented to the many "small-fry" in the Fraser estuary, how Larco managed to obtain a water-lot lease on approx. 1/8 of a mile of prime deep-water shoreline for only $600 a year.
It appears that, formerly, it was a "David versus Goliath" situation; now it seems it's "David versus all the Philistines." That is to say, the modernists and forward thinkers who have lost sight of the value and history of both the Port of New Westminster and the oldest work-boat, perhaps in all of Canada, currently tied to the dock in said port. Shame, shame on them all!
I was preparing (as was widely reported) a good faith offer to the board of the Fraser River Discovery Centre - a monthly moorage fee of approx. $800 (in keeping with the rates here in the river) and including a hold harmless waiver (exempting them from any/all liability.)
I would've happily paid the premium for a rider on the marine insurance policy. All of this was pre-empted by this behind-closed-doors unilateral edict. This issue is one that should have been dealt with at an open meeting, with intervenors and the public invited to attend and comment.
I plan to soldier on and continue to appeal to the well-wishing citizenry of New Westminster and vicinity in assisting me with this ongoing conundrum.
I request that your readers log on to www.chiefskugaid.org, to see how they can sign an online and/or print-petition.
There's also a request for donations to a "war-chest" or legal defense fund, too.
David Cobb, owner, MFV "Chief Skugaid," New Westminster
