from "
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/05/17/nl-dfo-cuts-517.html"CBC News has also learned that there are plans to reduce the number of marine traffic centres in Newfoundland. Those centres monitor thousands of vessels offshore and provide vital communication to anyone in distress.
Sources tell CBC News that the traffic centres in St. John's and St. Anthony will be cut over the next three years"
Both stations broadcast marine weather and navigational warnings for the north-east coast on 2598 kHz and provide the only source of emergency communications through a series of remote radio staions along the north-east coast. Most fishing vessels do not have satelite receivers, and will be without any emergency communications during the daytime hours.
The emergency rescue center in St. John's has already been closed and, for the first while, medical distress calls were routed to a free service in Rome (designed to provide ships from third-world countries with medical advice.) A public outcry forced the government to backtrack on this.
This is how our neo-facist Harper government punishes Newfoundland for shutting them out in the last election. He leaves fishermen on the entire north-east coast without emergency communications (the west and south coast appear to have been spared, no doubt because of commercial and oil interests).
