Politicians are encouraging the public to bring their ferry concerns to a meeting with B.C. Ferries Commissioner Gordon Macatee Sept. 7 at the Gibsons and Area Community Centre at 7 p.m.
"People really should come out and give their input. They [Macatee and his staff] are good listeners," said Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) board chair Garry Nohr.
Nohr and nine other coastal regional district chairs recently met with Macatee to talk about the negative impacts increasing ferry rates are having on coastal communities.
"Basically what we explained again was the economic problems that come out of the ferry system based on escalating costs," Nohr said.
He said in other ferry dependent communities, businesses are closing due to the cost of using the ferry service regularly.
Here on the Coast, Nohr said he has heard of businesses not being able to retain employees due to escalating ferry fares. He also said the ferry fees make people think twice before purchasing a home on the Sunshine Coast.
"When I talk to realtors they quite often say that is a deciding factor when people look at the costs and read that the ferry costs could go up so much over the next few years. It is a concern," he said.
Macatee is undertaking a review of the Coastal Ferry Act this year and with the passing of Bill 20, he was tasked with the new responsibility of considering the interests of ferry users in his report.
In a letter to Blair Lekstrom, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, Macatee said he is familiar with the issues faced by communities dependent on the ferry system.
"Those concerns centre around affordability of fares in future, and sustainability of the coastal communities which are ferry dependent. Ferry users clearly expect fare increases to be reasonable, affordable and predictable, with a related expectation that the ferry commissioner's office will use its authority to achieve that outcome," he said in the letter to the minister.
Although Macatee may have an understanding of the problem, politicians want to be sure he hears it loud and clear from the communities he visits.
"After years of intensive lobbying by local and First Nation governments, by individuals, businesses, societies, agencies and by the official opposition, the provincial government has begun to realize what every single resident of the Sunshine Coast has known for a long time: the Liberal party's political experiment with B.C. Ferries has failed," said Nicholas Simons, Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA in the Aug. 10 edition of the Powell River Peak. "It has forced people to move away from the Sunshine Coast, it has prevented people from visiting, it has made businesses suffer, and it has generally caused a lot of hardship."
The regional district chairs who recently met with Macatee will also be compiling a position paper that will outline a series of policy options and recommendations to help improve the ferry service.
That paper will be reviewed in early September and presented at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities conference later that month.
