Transportation and Infra-structure Minister Todd Stone has agreed to form a working group that will include regional district chairs who have been lobbying the province on ferries issues.
The new group will hold its first meeting later this month, Sunshine Coast Regional District chair Garry Nohr told the Feb. 29 transportation committee meeting.
On the government side, the working group members will include Stone, along with staff from his ministry and the Minister of Community Sport and Cultural Development, Peter Fassbender.
“One of the groups that’s joined is the First Nations Summit, who supported the initiatives to have a change at BC Ferries on fares and the sort of thing the chairs group was working on,” Nohr said.
As well as members appointed by the regional district chairs, the working group will also have members from the ferry advisory committee chairs, and BC Ferries itself.
“I don’t know what’s going to come out of it,” Nohr said, “other than the fact that we’ve been asking for the opportunity to talk about the economics that were of a concern to each of the ferry-dependent communities because of some of the changes by BC Ferries and the government, so I’m pretty sure that will be the starting point.”
Nohr also circulated a draft terms of reference for the working group. It gives the purpose of the group as “constructive and productive dialogue with the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure and selected stakeholders regarding BC Ferries affairs and its impact on coastal British Columbians who represent 70 per cent of the provincial population.”
The draft terms also specify two goals for the working group. The primary goal is “to achieve collaborative options that will ensure the sustainability of coastal communities as well as the ferry service,” and the secondary goal is “to mitigate negative impacts to coastal community social and economic hardships.”
