Powell River has been hit hard by BC Ferries service reductions announced by the provincial government on Monday, November 18.
Powell River-Texada Island route is losing 834 round trips, including two daily, plus one on Saturday evening and one on Sunday mornings. The service reductions include these sailings leaving Texada: 6 am Sunday; 6:15 pm Saturday; 7:40 pm daily; and 10:10 pm daily.
There will be only two round trips on Saturday and Sunday from early September to the end of June on the Powell River-Comox route. It’s losing 94 round trips, including the last one on Saturday night year round and the first one on Sunday morning in the off-peak season.
Saltery Bay-Earls Cove is losing 365 round trips, as the last sailing of the day is being cancelled year round.
The cuts total 16 per cent of all round trips servicing Powell River and Texada, for a total estimated savings of $2.42 million to 2016.
The service reductions are part of the government’s “new course for our coastal ferries’ future.”
The government has also decided to reduce the seniors’ discount by 50 per cent and introduce a gaming pilot project on the Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen route.
“The BC coastal ferry service has been wrestling with cost pressures for more than 20 years,” said Todd Stone, minister of transportation and infrastructure. “We are making tough decisions today to ensure that our coastal ferry service is sustainable for future generations. These changes protect basic service levels and are in keeping with the fiscal realities facing provincial taxpayers.”
According to the government, $18.9 million in net savings are necessary over the next two years to meet the requirements under the current price cap. The service reductions, which will be implemented in April 2014, account for $14 million.
The government is holding meetings throughout the coast about its plans. An open house, followed by a question and answer session, will be held on Monday, November 25 at the Texada Island Community Hall and on Tuesday, November 26 at the Powell River Town Centre Hotel. Both meetings are being held from 5 to 8 pm.
Details of the planned changes are available online.
Colin Palmer, Powell River Regional District board chair who heads up a group of regional district chairs from coastal communities, said people knew there were going to be cuts, but they didn’t know it was going to be done this way. The government is going to reduce Texada’s runs by 22 per cent, he said. “They’re going to chop your legs off,” he said. “Do you want your left leg or your right leg off? Which arm would you like to take off?”
The government says it has provided nearly $1.4 billion over the last 10 years to support coastal ferry services, Palmer added. “I’m sure people in the Interior and down in the Lower Mainland will say, those people have all that money in the last 10 years,” he said. “But they haven’t mentioned that the people who have paid their fares have provided $5 billion.”
As well, Palmer said, he believes the government is now running the ferry system. “They’ve put the Coastal Ferry Act to one side and the politicians are running the system,” he said. “We’re back to a government operated service, which tells me BC Ferries is running out of money.”
Further fare increases of four per cent on average are coming in the next three years, Palmer also said. “That will take the traffic down,” he said. “These cuts will reduce the traffic and in the end, they’ll still be losing $40 million by the end of 2016 after all this, because the traffic is going down enormously.”
For every one per cent drop in traffic, BC Ferries loses $4 million, Palmer said. One per cent represents about 100,000 vehicles and 200,000 passengers, he explained. “That’s the kind of thing that has been developing for the last five years, and it’s going to continue,” he said. “It’s going to get worse.”
Palmer also said he is worried about businesses anywhere on the coast. “They’ve all got their investments and here they’re being told that so many runs are not going to take place,” he said. “I would say that anybody in business in Powell River wanting to go to Vancouver is going to have major problems.”
As well as his group, Palmer said, City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa has been organizing coastal chambers of commerce around the campaign for fiscal fairness and ferry advisory committees are also working on the issue. “I’m hoping we can get some resolution,” he said. “I don’t think blockading ferries is going to solve any problems, because it affects the people who need them.”
Coastal communities are using a failed system, Palmer said, a system that is not functioning properly. “It isn’t going to until the government admits the fact that they’ve got to up their service fee and provide more support, just as they do for roads throughout the province,” he said. “It’s the marine highway, but they won’t admit it.”
Stone said during a press conference on Monday that the government does not consider the ferry system to be part of the highway system. Palmer pointed out Stone is from Kamloops. “How can he possibly understand it?” he asked.
Formosa said he was disappointed to hear Stone say the government doesn’t consider the ferry system to be part of the highway system. “I’ve spent my political life as a councillor and as a mayor to say every chance I get that the ferries are our highways,” he said. “They’re entitled to their opinion and I understand and respect it, but as far as I’m concerned, and my community and the other 20 per cent of the population that live in coastal communities, BC Ferries is our highway.”
The majority of governments around the world that run ferries refer to them as their water highways, Formosa said. “I don’t believe we are being treated fairly,” he said. “Our way of life is affected yet again, even more. Our economy is affected with these changes.”
The ability to have doctor appointments and do business on Vancouver Island, the Lower Sunshine and in Vancouver is restricted, Formosa said, and the movement of trade and people back and forth from Texada to Powell River is hugely affected and totally unfair, he added. “These communities provide resources to the province of British Columbia, in the form of royalties, income taxes and taxes from aggregate extraction, logging and industry. “Yet, we’re not looked upon as the rest of BC where we have these unfair charges and unfair opportunities to move to and fro from our communities under these stringent cutbacks,” he said. “I understand the issue of the economy and costs, but if the ferries were where they belong in the department of transportation or in the transportation authority, we would just be part and parcel of the billion of dollars that highway costs this province.”
Formosa said he will continue with many others to fight back and let the government know that this part of democracy “we don’t enjoy. We will have to let our voice continue to be heard and maybe we have to step it up many notches to try and convince the province of British Columbia that we are indeed part of this great province and that those ferries are our highways.”
Bill Cripps, chair of the Northern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee, said it’s important that people who are affected by the specific cuts attend the upcoming consultation meetings to let the government know how they are going to be harmed. “We’ve had these ferry schedules for a long time and people have made personal and business decisions based on them,” he said. “That sets the stage for the reductions, because now you are really adversely affecting people who made plans based on the schedules.”
The argument won’t be enhanced by generalities, Cripps added. “These are specific cuts and we need specific comments about why those cuts are inappropriate and how they harm people, whether it’s their business, job, leisure activities or their health,” he said.
Service reductions were first announced in general in the coastal ferry services contract between BC Ferries and the province when it was amended in April 2012, Cripps noted, although specific round-trip sailings were not identified. However, it was stated that cuts “will take into account the need to ensure basic services at the route level, where applicable. Examples of basic ferry services include travel to and from school, work and significant community events.” For Powell River and Texada, commercial traffic and the ability to travel the same day to either the Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island for medical appointments should have been included because these are also basic ferry services,” Cripps said. “It seems to me that highway users in the rest of BC don’t have to pay tolls to have a sustainable highway, which is part of their transportation infrastructure.”
MLA Nicholas Simons, Powell River-Sunshine Coast, said the service reductions will have a huge impact. “It’s going to have an impact on the economic viability of all our communities, something that this government has refused to consider,” he said. “I’m more worried than I am disappointed, because the people in charge don’t understand the importance of our community.”
Simons also pointed out the savings from the cuts to the Horseshoe Bay-Langdale route is about two-thirds of the bonus Rob Clarke, BC Ferries’ vice president of finance, received last year. The plan is to cut 40 round trips on the route for an estimated savings of $200,000.
Simons questioned how the service reductions will translate into savings. According to the government, the Saltery Bay-Earls Cove cuts are estimated to save $750,000, while Powell River-Comox cuts will save $720,000 and Powell River-Texada reductions will save $950,000.
“I don’t know how they’re going to save money on labour when they have collective agreements in place,” he said. “You have requirements for a certain number of crew.”
BC Ferries holds meetings on terminal closures
Powell River residents have back-to-back ferry meetings to attend next week.
In addition to the province’s public consultation meetings on proposed service reductions, BC Ferries is holding two information sessions about finalized details for alternative service provisions during the temporary closure of the Little River and Westview ferry terminals.
The first meeting is on Monday, November 25 at the Powell River Town Centre Hotel. The second meeting is on Tuesday, November 26 at the Texada Community Hall in Gillies Bay on Texada Island. Both meetings will be held from 7 to 9 pm.
BC Ferries is currently upgrading the berths at Little River and Westview. Both terminals will temporarily close on January 12, 2014, with Little River expected to re-open on February 8, 2014 and Westview set to re-open on March 10, 2014.
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