According to the Canadian government, he has no business being there.
But 72-year-old Peter Smith is sailing the Northwest Passage anyway, in violation of COVID-19-related orders prohibiting most foreign yachts from entering Canadian waters.
But according to a Facebook post on Aug. 20, Bobby Klengenberg, a local observer with the Inuit Marine Monitoring Program, spotted Smith’s custom yacht, the Kiwi Roa, off the coast of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
Transport Canada confirmed the sighting and said the vessel was told “to depart Canadian waters and not make landfall” in an email to CBC News.
A spokesperson said the Canadian Coast Guard will “monitor the vessel’s transit out of the region.” If Smith is indeed found to have broken the law, they wrote, the agency “will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action,” including penalties of up to $5,000.
CBC News contacted Cambridge Bay’s mayor, its chief administrative officer and representatives of the local Hunters and Trappers Organization. None responded to requests for comment.
Bureaucracy ‘gone mad’: yachter
Smith is an accomplished boat builder and ocean racer from New Zealand. He has been living aboard the custom-built Kiwi Roa, described on his website as “the ultimate ocean-going home” for 26 years.
Reached by email, Smith said the story is one of bureaucracy “out of control and gone mad.”
“I suspect it is also motivated toward gaining political points in support of Canada’s claim to have control of the [Northwest Passage], the local Inuit and innocent yachtsman just being pawns in the game,” he wrote.
Smith aboard the Kiwi Roa. Reached by email, Smith said completing a transit of the Northwest Passage is ‘unfinished business’ after he failed a similar attempt in 2018. (PeterSmith.net.nz)
In a second email, Smith said the wording of the original Transport Canada ban was “ambiguous.”
The text of the ban does allow for foreign vessels to exercise the right of “innocent passage” in Canadian waters, which Smith says he is now relying on “as a last resort.”
But Canada’s official position is that the Northwest Passage counts as “internal waters,” meaning that right does not apply. That position is contested by the United States and several other countries.
“Canada has no legal right to apply Canadian law to a foreigner in [an] international waterway,” Smith wrote. “Half the world does not recognize Canada’s claims and this needs to be sorted out.”
I am much more at risk from the villages than they are from me.– Peter Smith, captain of the Kiwi Roa
Smith said he was initially communicating with Transport Canada after they first gave notice of the ban on May 14.
He said it wasn’t until six days after he left Nome, Alaska, on July 27 that they notified him the trip would not be allowed.
In response, he stopped reporting his location to authorities.
“I had tried to comply with Canadian requirements as a mark of respect to Canada,” he wrote. “As far as I am concerned, I was dictated to and not consulted.”
Since he was spotted, Smith said he has agreed with Transport Canada “to not stop at any place of habitation” and provide daily position reports — though only once a day, not twice as Transport Canada requested.
“I am a yacht, not a bloody cruise ship,” he wrote.
The Kiwi Roa at its launch in England in 1994. Smith estimated he is two to three weeks away from exiting the Lancaster Sound, at which point he will be back in international waters. (PeterSmith.net.nz)
Smith went on to say concerns about his spreading the coronavirus are overblown.
“I am 72 [years] old with a history of lung problems from my job as boat builder,” he wrote. “I am much more at risk from the villages than they are from me.”
“I respect the locals wish to be left alone. I am not a tourist.”
‘Record’ trip underway
Smith’s previous travels have taken him to Antarctica, South Africa, Greenland, and Newfoundland, among other places.
In his email, he said his final destination on this journey is Lisbon, Portugal, which he estimated is about eight weeks away.
They would need a swat team to make me [turn around.]– Peter Smith, captain of the Kiwi Roa
The trip via the Northwest Passage is more than 9,000 kilometres shorter than the alternative route via the Panama Canal, he said.
But Smith also said completing a transit of the Northwest Passage is “unfinished business” after he failed a similar attempt in 2018.
He claimed he is on track to set a record for the fastest transit of the Northwest Passage with no fuel stops, having sailed “90 per cent of the way.”
Smith estimated he is two to three weeks away from exiting the Lancaster Sound, at which point he will be back in international waters. He is adamant he will not be turned around.
“They would need a swat team to make me do that,” he wrote.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
