Minister listens to ferry woes

Chairs from coastal regional districts met with both government and opposition officials earlier this month to discuss BC Ferries.

Colin Palmer, Powell River Regional District board chair, led a delegation of nine regional district chairs to Victoria on March 12. They met for an hour with Mary Polak, minister of transportation and infrastructure.

Each regional district chair had an opportunity to point out what they thought their local issues were in addition to the big issue, Palmer said. “Mary Polak got quite an earful about it,” he said.

Polak talked about the Coastal Ferries Consultation and Engagement report, which summarized public input following eight weeks of meetings last fall to gather input on how to find $26-million in savings for BC Ferries by 2016. The delegation pointed out there were no recommendations in the report, Palmer said, so the question was where does the government go from here.

Polak was talking about the future vision exercises, Palmer said, and she suggested they had problems defining marine highway. “I thought, oh boy, here we go, let’s start exercising our minds on that instead of getting the fares down,” he said. “At one point, she did say there would be no more money for ferries this year and probably no more money from the government for the next year.”

Palmer brought up the issue that vessels serving Powell River and Texada Island, the Queen of Burnaby and North Island Princess, needed to be replaced. “She was very aware of it, but she didn’t want to say too much about it,” he said. “I couldn’t get a definitive answer about replacement of these vessels.”

While Polak talked generally about the future, Palmer said, it didn’t sound like the government was going to make any major changes to the legislation or the financing.

The delegation also met with three members of the opposition, MLAs Maurine Karagianis, the New Democratic Party’s ferries critic, Claire Trevena and Nicholas Simons for an hour. “They were very, very definite they’re going to make some significant changes,” said Palmer. “They didn’t define exactly what it was, but they felt that the whole situation was not working and it had to work somehow.”

They said as far as they were concerned, the ferry system was a marine highway, Palmer said. But, they didn’t know who would be the minister responsible for ferries nor did they know the state of either the government’s or BC Ferries’ finances. “They would have to figure out what they would be able to do, but they were very determined to point out that they realized it wasn’t just a case of doing studies, other than where’s the money. They were actually going to make some changes.”

As well, they understood that the present system was killing local economies and that the sleeping giant was the money for replacing vessels and how that was going to be financed, Palmer added.