On a sunny Sunday on the last long weekend of summer, a pc28mom set out for Centre Island for a birthday picnic with friends.
Still recovering from a badly broken upper left arm — the result of a skiing accident — she carried a king-sized picnic blanket and a birthday gift in a tote bag in the crook of her right elbow.
Brooke — whose last name the Star has agreed not to publish because she has been traumatized by the incident and has asked for privacy to recover — took a taxi branded Art & Water from a slip near the foot of Bathurst and Queen’s Quay. A few minutes later, she was the last of three people to disembark at Centre Island.
What happened next has been blamed on captain error, but has also renewed longstanding safety concerns among water taxi captains with the docking facilities on Centre Island. As Toronto’s aging ferry fleet becomes increasingly unreliable, water taxi services have been picking up the slack, transporting nearly half a million passengers a summer, according to one industry estimate, at docks ill-designed to handle that kind of volume.
The problem is particularly acute at Centre Island, where water taxis must slip through a narrowed channel, into a small inlet with a fixed dock that does not, like the boats, float up and down with water levels. At times, the distance between dock and deck is two feet or more.
“Centre Island’s a real pinch point. Always has been. There’s not enough docking spots for the number of boats,” said Luc Côté, a former water taxi operator in Toronto.
On the day of the incident, Brooke was having trouble navigating the gap, using a set of white plastic steps screwed into the bow of the taxi. Intended to breach the gap between the fixed dock and the boat, the steps were far short of being flush with the dock — about two feet, she estimated.
She had one foot on the dock and the other on the boat when, without warning, the captain reversed the boat away from the dock.
Brooke fell into the water, the tote bag on her right arm dragging her down. She was unable to swim due to her previous injury, and in the confusion, couldn’t free her right arm from the tote bag.
“I was panicking and trying to use my legs to keep myself up, but I kept going under,” said Brooke.
“And then I see the boat coming back towards me again and I start screaming again, because the boat is inches from my face.”
Witness William Dietrich said he heard the screaming and ran over to the dock to use his legs to keep the boat from hitting the dock. Another man on the boat did the same, he said.
“It looked like there was a dangerous amount of momentum coming from the boat and she could’ve been hurt,” said Dietrich. “This is was what prompted me to head over there.”
After several minutes — Brooke can’t remember how many — she was pulled onto the boat, then the dock by by-standers.
“I was in complete shock and coughing, of course, because I had drunk so much of that water, sopping wet, trying to avoid tears.”
Art & Water taxi operator Matthew Slaman disputes the severity of the incident based on what he said the captain and another witness told him after the fact.
“At no point was the passenger in danger of being crushed between the boat and the dock,” Slaman said.
Slaman is also known as Mat Vales, executive director of the Art & Water Cultural Group, a federally registered charity, which has received funding from the federal and provincial governments and the City of Toronto.
While the Art & Water-branded taxis operate from the charity’s dock near Bathurst Street and Queen’s Quay, and share a name similar to the charity, Slaman told the Star the two organizations are financially separate. Slaman said the charity group “wrapped” the taxis in Art & Water signage as a “public arts mural project.”
Slaman said the taxis are operated by a company he founded in 2014 called A Pirate’s Life Inc. That company has been doing business under the name Art & Water since 2021, according to provincially registered corporate documents.
He said the captain had several years of marine experience, including one season of operating a water taxi, but has “parted ways” with the company because of the incident.
“He thought all passengers had completed disembarkation,” Slaman said. “However, another passenger stood up in front of the driver, blocking their view — at that moment, the driver made a mistake in reversing the boat away from the dock, resulting in a person in the water.”
Slaman said the captain put the boat into forward gear to approach the passenger, and then shifted into neutral.
“The laws of inertia and waves propelled the vessel slowly forward toward the person in the water to recover them,” he said.
Slaman and other water taxi operators and captains agree the water taxi docking area on Centre Island beside the city ferry dock is problematic.
The site has a maximum capacity of eight water taxis and the area is congested on weekends, with taxis trying to slip through the passage without hitting one another or the ferry.
“Everyone is hustling and bustling in there, boats are tight to one another,” said Nick Trewern, an eight-year veteran of the industry, and co-owner of Tiki Taxi, with nine boats in the harbour.
“There’s been many incidents over the past couple of years of boats hitting each other in that area. It’s very congested and you’re dealing with the ferries as well.”
Captains say another issue is the Centre Island water taxi dock itself, which is fixed, not floating – which Slaman agrees is a problem.
The water levels in Lake Ontario change throughout the summer.
A floating dock rises and falls with changing lake levels, the same way boats do, which keeps the distance between a floating dock and the decks of water taxis manageable.
In a letter to former pc28mayor John Tory in 2022 that outlined the importance of the water taxi industry, .
The city does not license or regulate water taxi operations or train or certify water taxi boat captains, said city spokesperson Nitish Bissonauth.
Companies are issued permission to dock on seven sites on the pc28islands. The city issued permits for five operators and 54 boats this year.
Water taxi companies are responsible for finding their own berths on the city side of the harbour. Transport Canada issues the water taxi captain licences.
“The (island) water taxi docking areas are safe, designated sites with stable, fixed structures used by tens of thousands of people each year. These docks are regularly inspected and are meant to provide easy access for passengers to embark and disembark water taxis,” according to Bissonauth.
“In this case, the city was not made aware of the incident from the water taxi operator. While there (are) no firm reporting requirements, the City will reach out to the operator to better understand what has happened as safety is a top priority for all involved.”
Commercial boat operators must pass a . Transport Canada also conducts annual inspections of boats carrying more than 12 passengers — which most water taxis do, said Trewern. Serious accidents must be reported to Transport Canada, according to spokesperson Hicham Ayoun. Serious accidents include loss of life, persons missing overboard, severe bodily injuries and temporary asphyxiation.
Brooke said she was so disoriented after the incident that she didn’t recognize a friend, headed to the same picnic, who appeared on the dock to help, and turned down offers to be brought to a hospital emergency department.
Disorientation is consistent with symptoms of non-fatal drowning, according to Stephanie Bakalar, a spokesperson with .
Bakalar and her organization were not involved in this incident.
Being submerged in cold water without warning can induce a gasp reflex, which may cause a person to aspirate water; remaining in cold water can also impair basic motor skills in as little as three minutes, Bakalar said.
It can also result in shock, which can impact a person’s ability to make decisions.
Bakalar said the Lifesaving Society recommends that people who have been involuntarily submerged in water seek emergency medical help.
Brooke said the incident has been deeply traumatizing. She suffered nightmares and panic attacks following the incident. She has had to resume physiotherapy for her broken arm.
She said she has not decided on whether to pursue legal action.
“I am keeping my options open,” she said.
“People say: ‘You’re alive, you should be grateful,’” said Brooke. “That’s true. But I could have died twice. I could have drowned. And he backed the vessel into me — he could have crushed me.”
