Posted on September 18, 2023
Re: Where is Delta’s dredging money (Optimist, editorial, Sept. 7)
The villain in the failure to dredge Ladner Harbour, such that the lifeboat got stuck and houseboats grounded, is neither Delta, nor the provincial government.
The villain is an agency of the Crown, the Port of Vancouver whose responsibility it is to keep the main and secondary channels of the Fraser Estuary navigable and free of silt.
Imagine if you were a tenant paying rent that included your heat and light, but the bill for electricity went unpaid, so you were left in the dark and cold.
That is analogous to the situation in Ladner Harbour.
The Port used to keep these secondary channels clear, but stopped doing so.
The Port is a crown agency effectively owned by the federal government through Transport Canada. Keeping the Fraser River and its channels in good shape is therefore a federal responsibility. If the federal government is the owner then the buck stops in Ottawa, not Delta and not Victoria.
