Transportation minister Mary Polak announced last week that service cuts to BC Ferries won’t be coming this spring.
On March 5, Polak released the Coastal Ferries Consultation and Engagement report which saw ministry of transportation and infrastructure bureaucrats, as well as representatives from BC Ferries, meeting with residents of coastal communities and collecting public input on ferry service. Over eight weeks in the fall, 40 meetings were held in 30 communities that are serviced by BC Ferries.
Victoria had entered into the process looking for $26 million in cost-saving service reductions over three years.
The transportation ministry had a June 30 deadline to inform the ferry corporation of what cost-cutting measures to take, but Darin Guenette, BC Ferries manager, public affairs, explained that the government “decided to extend the date to make the decision. If they didn’t have a plan by that time they would have to figure something out.”
Guenette explained that without service changes current fare levels wouldn’t be enough to cover the ferry corporation’s expenses, so Victoria provided $7 million “to make the whole revenue expense picture make sense.”
When BC Ferries changed from a Crown to a private corporation, Victoria drew up a ferry service contract which is broken up into four-year terms called performance terms, explained Guenette. At the end of these terms BC Ferries and the provincial government enter into negotiations over ferry service levels, changes to service fees and what BC Ferries will be paid to provide these services. The ferry corporation is currently in performance term three which lasts until the end of March 2016.
“Now they have to find $19 million in service changes,” he said. “It could be any time, though I expect an election might change that.”
