There is a very clear reason why the coast guard and SaR organizations do not charge during crises, and as Canadians we should be a little better about this.
How much insurance will boat people have, for instance? Since it’s already risky due to overcrowding, and it’s an operation countries are trying to prevent, and since it’d then have no insurance or bond for rescues, should our response be to ignore them (any harder than it appears we did as a planet in this last case), and will that look any worse in comparison than it already does?
Historically the Resolution has been “it’s least-worst to humanity and removes a chilling effect of we do not recoup costs for rescues from the victims”, and it’s going to be difficult to successfully argue in the other direction without appearing cruel(er) to refugees. :-\
How much insurance will boat people have, for instance?
In the case of those dangerously overloaded boats full of illegal immigrants, I would think that the individual people shouldn’t be charged for rescue but the people who operate the boats should have the book thrown at them. They’re the ones who are putting those people in danger and so if they get hit with massive fines I’d be fine with that. The people on board as passengers weren’t responsible.
I wouldn’t want there to be charges for “normal” rescue operations, such as if you go out in an otherwise sound boat and through simple misadventure it ends up sinking. Nobody did anything wrong in a situation like that.
This is a common debate.
There is a very clear reason why the coast guard and SaR organizations do not charge during crises, and as Canadians we should be a little better about this.
How much insurance will boat people have, for instance? Since it’s already risky due to overcrowding, and it’s an operation countries are trying to prevent, and since it’d then have no insurance or bond for rescues, should our response be to ignore them (any harder than it appears we did as a planet in this last case), and will that look any worse in comparison than it already does?
Historically the Resolution has been “it’s least-worst to humanity and removes a chilling effect of we do not recoup costs for rescues from the victims”, and it’s going to be difficult to successfully argue in the other direction without appearing cruel(er) to refugees. :-\
In the case of those dangerously overloaded boats full of illegal immigrants, I would think that the individual people shouldn’t be charged for rescue but the people who operate the boats should have the book thrown at them. They’re the ones who are putting those people in danger and so if they get hit with massive fines I’d be fine with that. The people on board as passengers weren’t responsible.
I wouldn’t want there to be charges for “normal” rescue operations, such as if you go out in an otherwise sound boat and through simple misadventure it ends up sinking. Nobody did anything wrong in a situation like that.
This would be an excellent response if ordinary search and rescue efforts had been employed here.