North Shore Rescue is suing a Victoria-based non-profit they say is soliciting donations over the phone purporting to benefit North Shore Rescue, although the group responsible says they’ve done nothing wrong.
Last month, the team called out the Search and Rescue Society of British Columbia after receiving a number of emails from local supporters irritated by “aggressive” fundraising calls - something NSR does not do.
SARBC was founded in 1983 but is not a member of the B.C. Search and Rescue Association, the group that represents all 80 of the province’s accredited search and rescue teams, the claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday states.
“The defendant employees and/or contractors of the defendant have made telephone calls to potential sources of donations throughout the province including Metro Vancouver, the North Shore and areas in which NSR has established goodwill through its community service,” the claim states. “NSR has received complaints from members of the public who reside in Metro Vancouver, complaining about the manner in which an ‘aggressive’ telephone solicitation had occurred, resulting in them wrongfully believing that these calls were made and/or authorized by NSR.”
Those calls were coming from SARBC or by agents authorized by them, the claim adds, and neither North Shore Rescue nor any other bona fide search and rescue team under BCSARA uses cold calls.
The group’s fundraising calls have hurt North Shore Rescue’s good name and its ability to raise funds locally, the claim adds.
North Shore Rescue is asking the courts to award damages in light of the loss of goodwill the team has experienced as a result of an “aggressive and unauthorized telephone solicitation campaign,” and a total accounting of all funds donated to SARBC by “misrepresenting” themselves as North Shore Rescue. As well, it is seeking an injunction that would force SARBC to halt any fundraising that purports to benefit NSR or any other bona fide search and rescue team, and an order for SARBC to stop calling to themselves a SAR team.
Team leader Mike Danks said his team opted to file the lawsuit after SARBC failed to respond to a letter demanding answers about their fundraising activities and their rescue credentials.
“This has been a problem for 10 to 15 years. People are so frustrated to hear that they’ve been donating to this group, thinking that it was going to the local rescue teams in the province, when in fact it was going to this society that we don’t really know what they do,” he said.
Danks said he just wants the phone solicitation to stop.
“It’s very misleading to the public. We’re losing support because of it, because of the aggressive nature of these calls and how it happens so frequently now,” he said.
Anyone who has received a cold call claiming to support North Shore Rescue should email the team at [email protected], Danks added.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
SARBC vice-president Glen Redden said his group was in the process of responding to North Shore Rescue’s letter when they learned through the media that they were being sued.
“I’m dumbfounded that this has happened. Really, this should have been a phone call and it’s escalated like this,” he said. “Unfortunately, it really seems like this whole thing … is an attempt to get rid of our society, the Search and Rescue Society of British Columbia.
Redden provided the North Shore News with a script used by the group’s call centre dated 2012 that does not make mention of North Shore Rescue.
“We will defend ourselves because we haven’t done anything wrong. We looked over all those calls. They clearly said we are the Search and Rescue Society of British Columbia. There was no misrepresentation,” he said.
While they are not a government recognized rescue team, SARBC does consider themselves a “court of appeal” for families of people who have gotten lost and formal search efforts have been called off.
“We do provide benefit to the families of British Columbia when the search is finished. They call us and we look into it and see what we can do. And if we can do something to help, we will.
Between July 2015 and July 2016, they had 22 such calls, Redden said.
In SARBC’s federal tax form filed as a charitable organization for the fiscal year ending in February 2016, the group reported $166,578 in received donations and $132,046 in expenses for charitable programs, or 69 per cent overall. Fundraising accounted for 23 per cent of the group’s expenditures and administration eight per cent.
