PART II

The Ethics of Belief (1877)

William K. Clifford

Originally published in Contemporary Review, 1877. Reprinted in Lectures and Essays (1879). Presently in print in TheEthics of Belief and Other Essays (Prometheus Books, 1999).

I. THE DUTY OF INQUIRY

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not over well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and and refitted, even though this should put him at great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.

We will now examine the second reason we believed there should have been an open public inquiry into the sinking of the Queen of the North: BC Ferries’ accident investigation process, set up to conform with the original intent of the ISM, had devolved over the years to being viewed by the workforce as an exercise in assigning blame. The safety officer of the company at the time of the sinking of the Queen of the Northdisclosed in a sworn affidavit that when he attempted to structure the questions and evidence for the BC Ferries’ Divisional Inquiry to conform to ISM protocol, he was thwarted. He finally resigned from BC Ferries, as have other safety officers and ISM managers throughout the years.

How could anyone rely upon results from an internal inquiry to have validity when interference in the integrity of the process was evident from the outset? These were serious matters, not to be tampered with when dealing with the loss of a ship and two passengers, the many impacts upon the other passengers and the crew and the damage to the reputation of the BC Ferries organization.

The BC Ferry & Marine Workers’ Union at the time had no option but to respect the rights of their members to due process and to protect them from prejudice and persecution when they believed that systemic and organizational failures, including human factors, lay at the heart of the disaster.  The union and its members needed to see management acknowledge responsibility as a shipowner and as an employer. The citizens of British Columbia, the travelling public and the families of the victims deserved no less. When the union and members of the official opposition called for an inquiry, the governments, the regulators and the public should have demanded it. Perhaps, if that had taken place, the organization itself, which includes the Board of Directors, would have had to be accountable and share responsibility for the ultimate incident that transpired on the night of March 22, 2006 along with the regulators at Transport Canada and WCB, as well as the external auditors. If a public inquiry had been held, all the evidence would have been required to be made available and put into context. The most invaluable outcome would have been that lessons would have been learned from the disaster, employees and surviving passengers would have been monitored into the future, their experience documented for posterity and the potential for a similar disaster taking place in the future would most likely have been limited substantially. Without this open, honest review of the organization itself, future incidents, as with past ones, are guaranteed to happen.

 

Clearly, the government of British Columbia needed to take a leadership role and assign an independent commission of inquiry to conduct a full, timely and impartial hearing and make recommendations that were binding. Clearly, the maritime community, the public and those directly involved deserved some answers to relevant questions at the time of the incident. Clearly, the victims of the sinking and their families have not been served by the BC Ferries’ process.

 

The Hon. Mr. Justice Sheen, in his final report arising from the accident investigation into the capsizing of the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987 — the very the basis for the International Safety Management System Code – stated succinctly regarding that ship’s company management:

 

At first sight, the faults which led to this disaster were the aforesaid errors of omission on the part of the Master, the Chief Officer and the assistant bosun, and also the failure by Captain Kirby to issue and enforce clear orders. But a full investigation into the circumstances of the disaster leads inexorably to the conclusion that the underlying or cardinal faults lay higher up in the Company. The Board of Directors did not appreciate their responsibility for the safe management of their ships. They did not apply their minds to the question: What orders should be given for the safety of our ships? The directors did not have any proper comprehension of what their duties were. There appears to have been a lack of thought about the way in which the  HERALD ought to have been organized for the Dover/Zeebrugge run. All concerned in management, from the members of the Board of Directors down to the junior superintendents, were guilty of fault in that all must be regarded as sharing responsibility for the failure of management. From top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness …The failure on the part of the shore management to give proper and clear directions was a contributory cause of the disaster.

 What did BC Ferries and the union do following the sinking of the Queen of the North? The company contracted former Auditor General George Morfitt to conduct a safety management system review. Mr. Morfitt released his report outlining scores of concerns, and the union and the company agreed to partner once again for improved safety at BC Ferries. The result was the SailSafe program, which involved hiring international experts on safety management systems implementation, on human factors training and on organizational change models — with the ultimate goal of including every single employee in the organization to bring about culture change and a reinvigorated and more robust safety management system.

We believe SailSafe is working hard to make the changes necessary to make BC Ferries a safer operation. It will take many years and an enormous investment in dollars and employee involvement. We wish those involved continued success. Sadly, deficiencies still exist. Total involvement remains to be achieved — particularly at the most senior levels of the organization, where all managers need to be personally involved in all aspects of overseeing safety at BC Ferries if the ISM implementation is to be successful. This includes, most especially, the president and CEO and the board of directors who are the shipowners themselves and the Human Resources arm of the organization which is responsible for hiring, training and the crewing of sufficient, efficient, competent personnel for all the operations at BC Ferries, ship and shore. The SailSafe initiative, or more properly, the safety management system implementation under ISM, should continue at BC Ferries in perpetuity, regardless of cost or politics if the ferry operator is to obtain the world-class safety excellence to which it aspires.

To date, questions remain unanswered and concerns go unaddressed regarding the Queen of the North. Important pieces of information are still missing and some memories and evidence of the incident have been lost forever. Investigations conducted by the Transportation Safety Board are often, as in this case, lengthy processes. They are also not open processes. Witnesses are sworn in and evidence that is given by those witnesses is privileged and confidential by virtue of the TSB Act. The only part of the TSB investigation process that is made public is the Board’s analysis, findings and recommendations. Their mandate is a narrow one and their recommendations are not binding. A public inquiry, like the one called following the fatalities at Departure Bay Ferry Terminal in 1992 would have served the public interest and the interests of the ferry operator itself. Longstanding matters pertaining to the failures of the body corporate and the faltering safety management system would have received the attention they should receive in a publicly funded agency of the government.

 The board of directors of BC Ferries, the government of British Columbia and the provincial and federal Ministries of Transportation and Safety should have acted expeditiously in the interests of public safety. Launching a public inquiry would have most certainly resulted in findings that would have brought a transparent timely, productive and just closure to this incident.

 The Queen of the North had numerous outstanding safety concerns that had been brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities, including the absence of an emergency evacuation plan, the habit of keeping water tight doors open at certain times during the voyage, a relaxed attitude toward safety protocols and procedures, and a quartermaster on the wheel the night of the sinking who lacked sufficient training, experience and confidence to fulfil her duties. These concerns alone raise questions about the seaworthiness and safety of the vessel. The shipowner, BC Ferries, was responsible to ensure that their ship was seaworthy in all respects for the purposes of her intended voyage prior to setting sail, including seeing to it that she was crewed with sufficient, efficient and qualified crew.

 What happened in the aftermath and why had more to do with politics and a general lack of understanding of sufficient centralized responsibility for the safe management of the ships than with anything else. The public interest and the interests of mariners seeking answers in this case, and seeking safer ships as a result, may never be satisfied. Ironically the top executives of BC Ferries appear to have been rewarded for their conduct following the sinking rather than being held responsible for ensuring the safety of passengers, crew, the ship and the environment in all respects before the disaster.

The memories of those involved have been diminished by time, influence and suggestion and some of the factual evidence that could have assisted the inquiry may be long gone. Time will pass, and the Queen of the North becomes just another name on the long list of incidents at BC Ferries. The Queen of the North is still down on the bottom of Wright Sound and with her lies the truth.

Next, Part III…the other Northern vessel that ran aground. Could lessons have been learned from that incident that could have prevented the loss of the Queen of the North and the lives of two of her passengers?