A plan by B.C. Ferries to cut sailings on many minor routes is unfortunate and premature, B.C.’s transportation minister says.
Claire Trevena is calling on the company to put a hold on the cuts to 11 routes — including to her home on Quadra Island — as it negotiates with the provincial and federal governments.
“We are at the table with them and are working with them and are working with the federal government to see if they are eligible for the [federal] wage subsidy.
“I think it’s very unfortunate and premature to be making these cuts when we are all working on rebuilding our economy and our communities,” Trevena said. “I know that this is going to have a huge impact on the people living and working in coastal communities.”
B.C. Ferries is targeting the most underutilized sailings on the 11 routes — Salt Spring/Vesuvius–Crofton, Earls Cove–Saltery Bay, Snug Cove–Horseshoe Bay, Powell River–Comox, Powell River–Texada, Nanaimo–Gabriola, Denman and Hornby islands, Campbell River–Quadra Island, Quadra–Cortes, and Skidegate–Alliford Bay on Haida Gwaii. The ferry corporation has not indicated when it intends to make the cuts.
But B.C. Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said in a statement Monday the company needs to cut to “safeguard the core of the ferry system.”
“The impacts COVID-19 have had on the ferry system have been profound and we are revising our business plan so we can emerge from this crisis a strong and resilient company that continues to serve the needs of coastal communities,” she wrote. “We are forecasting a sustained downturn in passenger and vehicle traffic for the next two to three years, and for the coming year, forecast demand is lower than for any other period in B.C. Ferries’ history.”
B.C. Ferries has said the cuts are necessary to stop losses caused by traffic reductions of up to 80 per cent during the pandemic. The corporation said it is losing about $900,000 a day, down from a peak of $1.5 million a day in losses that has occurred at various times since the pandemic began in mid-March.
“We are working to better match capacity to demand and are eliminating the majority of sailings that are discretionary and above what our contract with the province requires, as daily demand doesn’t warrant their continuation,” Marshall said.
B.C. Ferries cut sailings on its major routes during the pandemic, including temporarily shutting down the Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay route, and has appealed to the federal government for financial aid. Premier John Horgan has said he’s raised with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the need of federal aid for operational expenses for ferries, TransLink and B.C. Transit.
The proposed cuts are reminiscent of those made by B.C. Ferries in 2014 under the Liberal government. The service reductions were sharply decried as unacceptable by the then Opposition NDP and then transportation critic Trevena, who encouraged government to boost funding to the system.
Trevena has stopped short of offering a provincial bailout for B.C. Ferries. “It’s premature,” she said. “We are working with B.C. Ferries to try and find a way through this.”
Trevena said the B.C. government has not reduced its almost $200-million annual subsidy to B.C. Ferries. She said she expects the ferry corporation to act in the public interest. But B.C. Ferries retains autonomy.
“We can tell them that, but under the Coastal Ferry Act they have the ability to make certain decisions and certain scheduling decisions,” said Trevena. “I am the minister, I can’t tell B.C. Ferries what to do.”
Premier Horgan has pinned the blame on cuts for the autonomy that B.C. Ferries was given when it was rolled out of the Ministry of Transportation and into a private corporation by a Liberal government almost 20 years ago. The corporation operates with a level of independence from government, though the province remains its sole shareholder and has a contract for service.
“They answer to a board of directors and the province is the singular shareholder, but the relationship sometimes is inconsistent with the best public outcome versus the best outcome for the ferry corporation,” Horgan said Wednesday. “That’s been a constant tussle since we were sworn in as a government.”
But the NDP government has also chosen to not move B.C. Ferries back into government during its first three years in office as a way of gaining more direct control of the service.
“There is a real need to make sure that marine highway, and I still call it a marine highway, does still work for people living and working in our coastal communities,” Trevena said.
Finance Minister Carole James has said such a move would require government to put hundreds of millions of dollars in B.C. Ferries’ debt back onto provincial books, squeezing the government’s ability to borrow for projects like schools, hospitals, bridges and highways. The ferry corporation spent $238.1 million in the last 12 months alone on new vessels, terminal upgrades and other capital projects.
“I absolutely understand the anxiety that coastal communities, ferry-dependent communities are feeling,” Horgan said.
