Does the trained restaurant chef keep asking the dissatisfied customers for the right recipe, while telling them the ingredients they want aren’t available?
We ask because that seems to be the approach favoured by the marine professionals at BC Ferries when it comes to Route 3. The latest fiasco over the now-abandoned summer trial was the end result of a “community engagement” process that consisted of a survey filled out by 285 people and a report that concluded while some Coasters say tomato, others emphatically say tomahto.
The only sensible thing in the report was tacked on at the end, written by former Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee member David Dick, who had some actual knowledge, outlining how the ferry company could increase sailings on Route 3 by changing the way it operates its vessels out of Horseshoe Bay.
Instead the company decided that passengers and commercial users need to change their behaviours, meaning travel during hours or days when they don’t need to travel and not travel during the hours and days when they do need to.
Some proponents of the ill-fated trial like to compare the ferry service with airlines, so that a 95 per cent reservation capacity makes perfect sense. Except it’s a poor comparison for the Sunshine Coast. A more apt one would be a public transit system, flexible enough to meet the public’s ever-changing daily needs and keep up with the fluid and extraordinarily diverse demand.
BC Ferries read the writing on the wall and spiked the trial right out of the gate. MLA Nicholas Simons, the only political leader who represents the entirety of the Sunshine Coast and Powell River, called it the right decision, and he was right. So was FAC chair Diana Mumford, who not only said it was the right decision but added she was “quite delighted” by it.
Many people are delighted and no doubt many are disappointed, including the heads of the three local governments that prematurely endorsed the trial and in effect let the lion out of the cage. Sechelt Mayor Darnelda Siegers in particular has used social media posts to focus on the offensiveness of some of the opponents. While we agree that bullying and abusive speech are unacceptable, we also would have to take issue with framing the opposition in those terms. The vast majority of opponents we heard from – and we heard from a lot – were informed, reasonable and respectful. They were certainly not the problem.
Based on everything we saw, it wasn’t the reaction to the trial that was divisive – it was the trial itself.
