There's cowardice. There's contempt. And then there's Stephen Harper.

There’s not a whole lot that’s printable to say about breaking news this afternoon that the federal Conservatives have, without notice, closed the Kitsilano coast guard base.

Yes, they had announced its looming closure. Yes, they had said repeatedly — and recently — that they would not revoke the decision.

But they also said just a month ago that the base was to close this spring. No precise date had been set.

So to suddenly announce that the gates were being bolted today, without so much as brief advance warning to the crew, to the hundreds of boaters on the water (even in mid-February), or to the thousands of maritime workers who labour on and near the waters of Vancouver daily — well, that’s some kind of contempt for the public.

And some kind of cowardice.

There’s already a widespread, cynical buzz about the closure being scheduled as the provincial budget was being tabled. The idea, I guess, like the tradition of handing out bad-news announcements on Friday afternoons, was to get it over with while everyone was busy looking elsewhere.

Everybody sees life differently. I understand that people of good will can make political decisions that look like total garbage to me. I get that our values, our compasses and our experience steer us in different directions.

But I don’t get, and refuse to accept, that any government elected to serve the people of Canada would get away with something like this — a giant, defiant, bare-knuckled middle finger to the public that pays for its marine safety system to be run as just that, a system that will keep them as safe as reasonably possible.

I also don’t get where all the real politicians have gone, the ones willing to make decisions and announce them and stand by them when people disagree — the ones willing to fall on their swords because they think they’re doing something defensible, not something to sneak in and do in the middle of the night while people are asleep. And then refuse to take calls about.

I don’t get what happened to the elected officials with … what’s that word we used to use in newsrooms … sack. Yeah, that’s it. Sack.

Let’s remember that the base is being closed to save a reputed $700,000 a year. Its rescue function will now — today, tomorrow, who knows? — be filled by a temporary rescue boat stationed at Stanley Park from May to September, and by search-and-rescue staff at the Richmond hovercraft base that is, on a good day, 30 minutes from English Bay and the inner harbour here. It’s an impossible plan. It won’t work. It will come to grief. Anyone who sails knows that.

The coast guard union will be joined by other supporters at 5 p.m. today for a vigil at Kits base, and I guess a protest, outside the base gates.

I’m hoping anyone who can make it will take a moment to set aside their anger at Ottawa and extend a hand of thanks to any of the crew present.

They’ve done a remarkable job, under enormous personal stress, to keep us safe on the water. I think they know where this decision will lead.

I can’t imagine being them today.

I’ve come to know a number of the Kits workers personally over the past 20 years. I interviewed them for years as a maritime reporter, tagged along with them on exercises, listened to them testify at hearings and inquests, held the phone patiently on the odd late night when one of them would call to unload their grief over crazy management decisions.

I watched as some of them refused any personal credit for rescues that required them to risk their own lives to save somebody else’s.

I watched them offer a hand or a hug or a fistful of money to the families of people killed in marine disasters.

They lived, at some cellular level, the motto of the Canadian coast guard: Safety first, service always.

I wish every single one of them well.

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