{"id":640121,"date":"2026-05-01T05:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640121\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T05:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:34:21","slug":"peter-gabriel-wades-in-on-lifeguard-debate-at-vancouvers-beaches-bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640121\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Gabriel wades in on lifeguard debate at Vancouver\u2019s beaches – BC"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One of music\u2019s most successful artists is wading into the debate over lifeguards at Vancouver beaches.<\/p>\n

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Peter Gabriel, originally part of Genesis, might never have reached the \u201cBig Time\u201d in 1986 if it had not been for a Vancouver lifeguard three years earlier.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post, Gabriel said that he was in Vancouver in 1983, opening for David Bowie, when he went windsurfing at Spanish Banks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wind got too strong for me so I folded up the sail as I\u2019ve been taught to do and swam toward the shore,\u201d Gabriel wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, I got caught up in the rip tide and ended up going out a lot faster than I could swim back in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gabriel said he took off his orange vest and started waving it and the lifeguards on the beach swam out and saved him.<\/p>\n

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He said he was able to do the show that night with Bowie at BC Place.<\/p>\n

Gabriel added that he is alarmed that some of the lifeguards may be removed as the Vancouver Park Board is considering cutting the number of lifeguards on duty by half, meaning they would be removed from Trout Lake, Sunset Beach, Third Beach and Spanish Banks.<\/p>\n

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A former lifeguard told Global News that lifeguards do more than just watch the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have multiple things that occur, anything from pedophiles that lifeguards catch, to the education numerous times a day to help people be safe,\u201d Andrea Nicholson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren that get stuck on the sandbar with the tide coming in around them, making sure that we pull them off that in time, just being aware and doing the 360 constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gabriel said he is an \u201centhusiastic supporter from the U.K.\u201d of keeping the lifeguards at Vancouver\u2019s beaches.<\/p>\n

Global News reached out to the Vancouver Park Board but did not hear back by deadline.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size One of music\u2019s most successful artists is wading into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,10793,55,238916],"class_list":["post-640121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-peter-gabriel","tag-vancouver","tag-vancouver-lifeguards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}