BC’s government has stepped in to cap fare increases on all BC Ferries routes next year and block the company from reducing service until a review of the Coastal Ferry Act is completed. The government introduced legislation on May 24 that sets an increase of 4.15 per cent for all major and minor BC Ferries routes, beginning April 2012. The legislation is designed to give BC Ferry Commissioner Gord Macatee power to conduct a review of the Coastal Ferry Act.
Macatee announced his review last week, saying he will look at the financial relationship between BC Ferries and the government and whether rising ferry fares are affordable and sustainable.
The legislation gives the commissioner a mandate to recommend changes to better balance the interests of ferry users with the financial sustainability of BC Ferries. It also prevents BC Ferries from cutting sailings until a final decision on price caps is made. Macatee’s report is expected to be completed by early 2012.
The commissioner had already given preliminary approval in April to ferry rate increases for each of the next four years, including 4.15 per cent on major routes and 8.23 per cent on minor routes.
Blair Lekstrom, minister of transportation and infrastructure, said he has heard “loud and clear” the public’s concerns that an 8.23-per-cent hike would hurt smaller coastal communities.
“This legislation will allow for a review responding to the public’s concern about the affordability of ferry service and the effects of rising fares on ferry-dependent communities,” said Lekstrom. “Ferry users expect reasonable and predictable ferry fares.”
Meanwhile, a community day of action to protest rising ferry fares has been pushed back. Scott Randolph, Powell River Regional Economic Development Society (PRREDS) manager, said a new date is being found. PRREDS has a sub-committee that was established around BC Ferries fare issues, with members of the PRREDS board as well as stakeholders in the community.
Powell River is hoping to include other coastal communities in the day of action, Randolph explained, and June 13, a proposed date, is too soon to coordinate other communities. “We need to identify organizers in other communities and find a date that works for everyone,” he said.
However, Colin Palmer, Powell River Regional District board chair, is organizing a trip to Victoria with representatives of other coastal communities on June 13 to meet with Lekstrom. Palmer said while Lekstrom has capped fare increases for 2012 at 4.15 per cent, that still means the fares are going up. “That is not acceptable, to me, anyway,” he said. “We can remind him when we get there that we expected it to be zero, not four per cent more.”
That position is supported by the Ferry Advisory Committee Chairs (FACC). In a statement, FACC said the drop from 8.23 to 4.15 per cent in next year’s fare hike “doesn’t touch recent increases, nor fix the fare problem in the long term. Neither will the new ferry review, unless it takes on the issue of public policy and government support for ferries.”
