4.1°C Fog Patches 
Whistler and Pemberton search and rescue teams were huddling this week to decide whether to continue their activities in the face of a legal conundrum that they say may expose all volunteer searchers in British Columbia to personal liability arising from those teams’ efforts to serve the public.
The leaders of both Whistler Search and Rescue (WSAR) and Pemberton Search and Rescue (PSAR) were to meet with their volunteer searchers on Tuesday evening (June 16) to present what they know about the situation surrounding a pair of lawsuits brought last month against Golden Search and Rescue and others.
Pemberton SAR’s membership decided to continue providing service while investigating the situation surrounding liability, president and search manager Dave Steers said on Wednesday (June 17).
The suits, brought May 8 by Quebec resident Gilles Blackburn in connection with the death of his wife, Marie-Josée Fortin, in the backcountry near Golden in February, name Golden RCMP, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort and Golden Search and Rescue as defendants. They seek monetary damages for those groups’ alleged failure to initiate a search after the pair went missing.
The lawsuits have raised issues surrounding third-party liability of those working with volunteer search and rescue societies. Officials with the Provincial Emergency Program (PEP) this week told CBC News that volunteer search and rescue teams in Golden, Kimberley and Fernie had all suspended service this week, though after checking with its insurance policy, the Kimberley group had voted to restore service, CBC News reported.
Brad Sills, search manager and WSAR Society board member, on Tuesday said that as he understands it, PEP liability insurance would cover individual searchers if they were to take part in a PEP-initiated search, but the activities of societies acting as a team would not be covered, exposing members of those societies — and especially their directors — to personal liability in the event of a lawsuit.
In addition to reviewing the situation with individual members, WSAR members need clarification from the B.C. Solicitor General’s office on the situation, Sills said.
“The sole purpose of a search and rescue society is to perform search and rescue, so when someone activates a search-and-rescue group, their actions can’t be construed as anything but acting on behalf of the Crown,” Sills said. “We’re acting on behalf of the Crown, we’re engaged by the Crown, and yet when something arises, the Crown says, ‘Well, we’re not covering you.’ It makes no sense whatsoever.”
Sills said he’s been involved with search and rescue for 34 years and all that time, has been under the impression that the provincial government covered the society and its members with sufficient third-party liability insurance. He said it was a shock to learn that in the matter of the Blackburn lawsuit, WSAR’s counterpart in Golden apparently was not.
Steve Bachop, PEP director of management services, on Tuesday said PEP officials have long encouraged search and rescue societies — through the B.C. Search and Rescue Association (BCSARA) — to purchase liability insurance that’s adequate to cover them in the event of a finding of liability against them.
PEP officials place a high value on the work of B.C.’s search and rescue teams, he said. While individual searchers are covered, “BCSARA has been recommending that each society have third-party liability coverage for their societies,” Bachop said.
Steers said that at the Tuesday meeting, he and other directors presented the facts as they know them and let individual members decide whether to continue going out on calls.
“Membership decided that we would continue to offer service. We are obviously going to continue to investigate just what our liability protection is,” Steers said on Wednesday.
Another meeting involving representatives of the two local societies as well as those from Squamish, the North Shore and Lions Bay was planned on Wednesday night.
On Tuesday, Steers acknowledged that it may take a bit of time for the Province to respond to the concerns being raised by the 80-or-so societies across B.C.
“We’re going to allow each member to decide whether they are comfortable with providing the service or not, because we’re a volunteer organization. We’re not he army,” Steers said.
“The first thing we want (the government) to do is to clarify the liability situation. I think this has just sort of exploded on them and they’re scrambling to come up with the answers that everybody wants.”
Sills said he thinks new B.C. Solicitor General Kash Heed’s first act should be to provide competent legal representation to Golden SAR in the Blackburn suit. Heed should then act quickly to sort out the liability issue to the satisfaction of SAR societies, he said.
“We all love doing search-and-rescue work, we all love acting for our communities, but we also love our houses, our businesses, our children’s future, our employees, and there’s no way in the world that we’re going to put them at risk financially,” Sills said.
Said Steers, “If you’re exposed to losing everything you have in a lawsuit, how are you going to get people to go out and do that? Existing members might be exposed and you’re not going to attract any new members.”
Sills estimated that about one-third of the search and rescue societies in B.C. have some sort of private, third-party liability insurance. However, in the case of WSAR’s coverage, that policy was never intended as the society’s primary coverage.
“Our understanding was that we purchased that insurance as sort of a third line of defence — for, say, our fundraising activities. Say we have a dinner and someone gets food poisoning or some crazy thing like that. We never thought this would be our primary defence for the work that we do,” Sills said.
Bachop said that in those instances, he urges the societies to review their policies and ensure that they’re adequate to cover them should a lawsuit such as the one brought against Golden SAR arise.
“They have to make sure that they have coverage that’s adequate to do the job,” he said.
