The B.C. Ferry Coalition (BCFC) made its first in a series of appeals to local government last week, asking District of Sechelt council to back its call for no fare increases on BC Ferries between 2016 and 2020.
Ferry commissioner Gord Macatee has set preliminary annual price caps at 1.9 per cent over that four-year period, but Macatee had said in 2012 that fares then were already at the tipping point and causing a decline in ridership, BCFC co-chair Jef Keighley told council April 1.
“Strangely, that prompted the provincial government to add a further 17 per cent in fares, inclusive of the 3.9 per cent April Fool’s boost we got this morning, which takes us well past the tipping point and on to the slippery slope downward,” he said.
Keighley and coalition co-chair Ric Bills asked council to respond to Macatee’s report by the June 30 deadline for comments, urging him to scrap the planned 1.9 per cent price caps. They also requested council lobby the province to “substantially increase its investment in BC Ferries” in order to lower fares and help struggling ferry-dependent communities.
“And we ask that you prod them to seek more federal monies both for operational costs and capital investments,” Keighley said, citing “the huge disparity in federal government funding between B.C. and Atlantic Canada’s ferries.”
While B.C. ferry users receive a net subsidy of $1.41 per trip from the federal government, Marine Atlantic passengers are subsidized $493 per trip — or 350 times more, a Union of B.C. Municipalities study calculated.
“The provincial government has not actually taken advantage of available federal infrastructure funding to help finance capital programs,” Keighley said. “It would appear that when it comes to BC Ferries, our provincial government has been asleep on their watch. And not surprisingly, the federal government had no interest in waking them up.”
The coalition advocates returning BC Ferries to more direct government control with a mandate to function as both a vital public transportation service and an economic generator for the province.
Since the provincial government transformed BC Ferries from a Crown corporation into a quasi-private entity in 2003, fares on the Horseshoe Bay to Langdale route have shot up 86 per cent (from $37 to $68.79 for a vehicle and driver), Bills said.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone has said the burden of assuming BC Ferries’ debt is the single greatest challenge to restructuring the coastal service, but Keighley noted BC Ferries has had to borrow money for capital upgrades at significantly higher interest rates than the provincial government would be charged, costing an estimated $50 million to $60 million extra per year.
By resuming control of BC Ferries, the government would also have the “economic leverage” to award contracts for new ferries and other capital assets in B.C., as the taxes generated would bring down actual costs, whereas with BC Ferries “there’s zero incentive for them to look at local building,” Keighley said.
“This is a huge economic generator that’s going wasted, frankly.”
Council agreed to draft a letter outlining the District’s concerns over the ferry commission report. The coalition was scheduled to appear April 7 before Gibsons council and May 14 at the Sunshine Coast Regional District board meeting.
