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A Canadian Search and Rescue helicopter takes off from St. John's March 12, 2009 to search for survivors of a helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland.

As the Conservative government praises modern technology as a means to consolidate search-and-rescue dispatch services, Newfoundlanders are crying out against the loss of homegrown help to co-ordinate rescues on their waters.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced this week that the St. John's search-and-rescue dispatch centre would be merged with operations in Halifax, just days after the new Conservative majority released its first budget. The department manages the operations of Canada's Coast Guard.

The closing is part of a ministry-wide effort to come up with $56-million in savings over the next three years. Quebec City's dispatch centre will also be consolidated with Halifax.

Clyde Jackman, Newfoundland and Labrador's Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, said he acknowledged the department's quest for fiscal restraint, but was baffled that the federal department would cut the service without seriously considering the local implications.

"I don't think they would fully understand the impact this would have on the people of this province," Mr. Jackman said. The office is responsible for nearly 30,000 kilometres of shoreline and 900,000 square kilometres of ocean. As it stands, the region it serves already has, proportionately, the country's highest volume of distress calls; Mr. Jackman said the work should be co-ordinated by those who know the region best.

"These people are master mariners on the ground, who know, intimately, the details of our coastline. … They've built up that intimate base of local knowledge, and I don't think any technology can displace that," he said.

St. John's East MP Jack Harris said this kind of knowledge is important when it comes to the safety of people at sea. "To assume that, because of technology, you can answer a phone somewhere else and talk to people, that that solves the problem, is a showing of naïveté that borders on disregard for the safety of the people involved."

Representatives from DFO said otherwise, releasing a statement from Minister Keith Ashfield that said the move is possible because "modern technology permits," and assures that it "will see no reduction in the excellent service all Canadians count on from the Canadian Coast Guard; our first priority is to the safety of Canadians."

A spokeswoman for the department said that the Coast Guard would work so that "all appropriate local knowledge is retained." She said the dispatch centre's closing will not happen overnight, and that the dozen or so jobs affected will be dealt with through "attrition and reallocation of resources."

The sea is an integral part of both Newfoundland's economy and its spirit, but sea-bound tragedies have dotted the island's history. St. John's Councillor Danny Breen knows this all too well: his brother Peter died in a helicopter crash in 2009, alongside 17 others, on their way to an oil rig from St. John's.

Mr. Breen said that improved search-and-rescue services might not have saved his brother due to the nature of the crash, but he called the dispatch centre closing "insulting."

"We have a reliance on people who are flying offshore, and people going out to fish, and add to the economy of the province - and the country - and they should be afforded the proper protection," Mr. Breen said. "I think it shows a lack of understanding of what the workers here go through."

Most of the $56-million in savings, the fisheries spokeswoman said, would come from modernizing the way the department deals with fisheries.

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