Editor:
On Friday, July 10 we were on the 3:15 p.m. sailing to Langdale and saw a vehicle with an Alaska plate on the ferry. To be fair, this vehicle may have had a legitimate reason for being on the ferry and to the best of my knowledge none of the occupants left the vehicle during the crossing.
However, I tried to report this vehicle to the appropriate authorities:
I spoke to the ferry’s purser, who said contact the RCMP.
On returning to Sechelt I went directly to the RCMP station and found it closed as we had arrived shortly after 4 p.m.
I called the RCMP at the locally listed phone number, 604-885-2266, which turned out to be a non-emergency phone number affiliate to the 911 call centre phone service, and was on hold for too long.
On Saturday morning I tried the non-emergency phone number again and got through to an operator very quickly. The operator informed me that I had to call Canada Border Services Agency and had to go online to find the phone number as the operator didn’t have that number readily available.
I promptly called CBSA at 1-888-502-9060 and after listening to a long preamble I was informed to call Monday to Friday 9 to 9 Eastern Standard Time.
Monday morning I called the CBSA phone number again and once again was on hold for too long to be bothered.
So here is my concern. The government of Canada and our provincial government have invested heavily in trying to bring the recent COVID-19 pandemic under control. Also the residents of B.C. and the Sunshine Coast have all done their part to help control this virus. However when it comes to trying to provide “tip information” to the appropriate authorities, it was a convoluted process that only operated Monday to Friday during office hours.
It seems to me that this virus we are struggling to contain doesn’t abide by the normal work week and office hours. There needs to be a better way to report out-of-country travellers 24/7.
Leigh Seeton, Sechelt
