The Northern Adventure passenger and vehicle ferry met the requirements for certification when Transport Canada officials cleared it to sail in 2007 despite a list of 17 safety deficiencies and the vessel lacking an approved evacuation analysis.

"Transport Canada would not issue any certificate (short term or long term) unless the vessel met the regulatory requirements as per the Canada Shipping Act 2001," spokesperson Sau Sau Liu wrote in a Sept. 19 email responding to The Tyee's questions.

On March 31, 2007, Transport Canada gave the British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. vessel Northern Adventure a three-month certification, even though inspectors had serious concerns, The Tyee reported today after receiving 1,500 pages of records from the federal agency through an access to information request.

Inspectors' 17 worries at the time of certification included a shortage of life jackets, a damaged lifeboat lowering device, carpet and fire extinguishers that needed replacing, and an elevator and escalator that were to remain locked until provincial authorities inspected them and issued proper certificates.

There was also a problem where cabin doors could be jammed by open bathroom doors, and Transport Canada required the company to install stoppers to prevent it from happening.

Nor had Transport Canada received everything it needed to assess what would happen if the vessel, which BC Ferries bought in Greece to replace the sunken Queen of the North, needed to be evacuated.

Asked how common it is to issue short-term certificates, Transport Canada's Liu said they are issued "on occasions . . . on a case-by-case basis."

Liu said Transport Canada would not have issued a certificate for the vessel without having reviewed the life saving equipment plan for the vessel. "During the vessels’ initial certification (March 2007), an issue was noted with the ‘evacuation analysis’ submitted by BC Ferries to Transport Canada," she wrote. "For that reason, Transport Canada imposed a minimum safe manning level for BC Ferries to comply with until it was resolved. Subsequently, BC Ferries submitted a revised ‘evacuation analysis’ which satisfied Transport Canada requirements."

The documents released to The Tyee include an email from BC Ferries' Paul Madsen that says the company had been told the vessel could not be certified until inspectors had received and approved the evacuation plan, an evacuation analysis and observed evacuation drills aboard the vessel.

The email recognized the company would not meet the requirement before March 31, 2007, when it planned to put the vessel into service.

On March 20, 2007, inspector Al Rushwan had written to BC Ferries officials, "Please note that there has been no agreement in my part, that an SIC certificate will be issued to the vessel prior to receipt of the Evacuation Analysis or without a full emergency drill."

Other emails indicate BC Ferries submitted the evacuation analysis on April 25 that year, more than three weeks after Transport Canada certified Northern Adventure to sail. Inspector Rushwan's comments on those documents were censored in the records Transport Canada released.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.