The queue in Ottawa is starting to look like the one at the mall.
It stretches out from Parliament Hill, with local and provincial politicians from across the Great White North lining up to hop on Santa’s lap and pitch him a Christmas wish list: a bridge, a water system, a highway interchange, a GI Joe with the kung fu grip ....
Not only is there a new federal government, but one elected on the promise of more capital spending.
Could that mean relief for B.C. Ferries and its customers?
Last week, B.C.’s minister of transportation and infrastucture, Todd Stone, made the pilgrimage to Ottawa, where he met Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi and Transportation Minister Marc Garneau.
There wasn’t much project-specific talk, Stone says, though he was told that Conservative promises — such as the one to build the McKenzie Interchange — would be honoured. “That was reassuring,” he said Monday.
The one area where they did get into detail was B.C. Ferries.
Stone raised one of the ongoing sore points, the disparity in federal support for B.C. Ferries, to which Ottawa contributes a little less than $30 million a year, and the smaller Atlantic ferry system, which gets $120 million or more.
Stone also asked Ottawa to forgo $50 million in duty it would be owed on three intermediate-sized ferries being built in Poland. In the past, the feds gave B.C. Ferries $119 million in duty relief for the three Coastal-class vessels and Northern Expedition, which were all built in Germany.
Stone also asked Garneau about crewing levels, which are set by Transport Canada. Comparable ferry systems sail with fewer crew, said Stone, who wants to know if numbers could be reduced without sacrificing safety.
Finally, there was the question of whether B.C. Ferries capital projects — new ships or upgrades to the terminals — are eligible for grants from the $14-billion New Canada Building Fund announced by the Conservatives more than two years ago. It seems nuts that such work wouldn’t be considered in the same way as roads and bridges, but the province has had mixed messages from the feds until now.
In fact, in March the ferry corporation did try applying for New Canada Building Fund money for two projects — an upgrade for the Langdale terminal and a replacement for the 42-year-old MV Nimpkish — but heard nothing in reply.
The matter is also being pushed by all six of Vancouver Island’s New Democrat MPs, who just signed a letter to Sohi. They argued that B.C. Ferries, which they said has budgeted $225 million for capital spending in 2016 alone, is part of the national transportation system, so should be allowed to ask for a slice of the pie.
Easing pressure on fares is crucial to coastal communities, the MPs argue. “These people are hanging on by a thread,” Victoria MP Murray Rankin said Monday.
Stone said he was encouraged by what he heard from Sohi, who left the impression that the rules would be clarified in B.C. Ferries’ favour.
That’s just the beginning of the Christmas wish list, though. Rankin figures Victoria’s greatest need is around housing, an area in which federal subsidies have been trending down for years.
And two weeks ago, Ottawa also got what Rankin said was an impressively well-prepared 13-member delegation — Mayor Lisa Helps, Coun. Margaret Lucas, reps from Tourism Victoria, Black Ball, the Victoria Clipper and more — seeking federal funding for a new Belleville Street ferry terminal project.
“It was like a full-court press,” Rankin said. He said it should help that the city, province and private sector are already plowing ahead with the two phases of the project — rebuilding the docks and improving access — and that the terminal request is fairly modest, as such things go.
The question is, how much room is there in Santa’s sack? The Liberals promised to increase infrastructure spending by $6 billion a year for 10 years, but that can disappear pretty quickly when the entire country has visions of sugar plums and sewage works dancing in its head.
“The problem this government has is to manage expectations,” Rankin says. Right now, expectations are high.
