Editor:
BC Ferries’ VP of strategic planning and community engagement Mark Collins informed our Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee on Oct. 27 that BC Ferries will have no further discussion with our community about fare inequities or restoration of service cuts, narrowing the field for future engagement.
In 2001, following 10 months of broad-based community consultations, the province announced that BC Ferries would incrementally adopt a fare structure based on distance travelled as the best way to resolve what was and remains a hodgepodge of fares.
As a member of our FAC and co-chair of the BC Ferry Coalition, I want to thank Mark Collins for his frank and refreshing honesty. He says if communities expect to be heard with respect to fares or service levels, don’t waste your breath talking to BC Ferries, go directly to the provincial government. He let the genie out of the bottle. I’m not sure his political masters will be as impressed with his candour.
Gordon Campbell’s semi-private BCF management model was designed as a firewall to protect government from citizen pressure. Previous BCF spokespeople employed a strategy of delay, defer and deflect to avoid dealing with the substance of fare inequities and service cuts. Collins buried that strategy forever.
For years our FAC has been arguing for fare equity. Our Langdale run has the third largest traffic volume in the system after Tsawwassen/Swartz Bay and Horseshoe Bay/Departure Bay. We represent 40 per cent of the traffic through Horseshoe Bay: Nanaimo is 43 per cent and Bowen Island is 17 per cent. Of the three major routes, ours charges the highest passenger, vehicle and commercial fares based on distance travelled: excessive fares that are damaging our communities. Why the difference, you may ask? Go ask Premier Christy Clark and Transportation Minister Todd Stone directly, because BC Ferries has stopped talking!
Jef Keighley, Halfmoon Bay
