For the past several weeks, Kim Barton-Bridges has tried to figure out when, or whether, BC Ferries executives planned to come to Powell River for the regularly-scheduled spring Northern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee meeting, which she chairs.
The last one was September 21, at Town Centre Hotel. That one was a little raucous, because some locals were angry about a summer of waiting for hours in hot parking lots, a reservation system that had failed, the cost of travelling, and sailing cancellations due to staffing problems and occasionally technical problems. Although ultimately, Kim noted, everyone at the meeting was relatively respectful.
In Gibsons the night before, BC Ferries faced a grouchy crowd. One attendee, believing the percentage of reserved deck space on that run to be part of the problem, threatened to take a gun to BC Ferries if they increased reservations on the Horseshoe Bay/Langdale route. There had been 32 cancellations on that run over two months preceding that meeting.
“No one reacted to the threat at the time,” Kim recalls. “No one called the police or shut the meeting down.”
The community member who issued the verbal threat had apologized to BC Ferries in the days following, promising not to attend any future meetings and asking them not to hold the FAC responsible for what had transpired.
These FAC meetings are supposed to be a chance for citizens to speak directly with BC Ferries personnel about challenges they’re facing on the ground. And, to hold BC Ferries accountable to the communities they serve. Those are the conversations Kim facilitates, as chair. The FACs are organized and paid for by BC Ferries.
On January 8, Kim said she received an introductory email from Jeff Groot, the new BC Ferries executive director, communications and engagement, stating that BC Ferries “hopes to provide an update on next steps in the coming weeks about how we can restart consultations."
One month later, Kim asked for an update on how things were going as it takes time to choose a date, secure a venue and prepare an agenda advertise to the public. She was also concerned that there were items unresolved and unanswered from the September 21 meeting, and that business and individuals are already apprehensive about ferry travel this coming summer.
“I was starting to get worried that this meeting wasn’t going to happen,” said Kim.
She noted that the FAC chairs had yet to receive any introduction from Lindsay Matthews, the interim VP, public affairs and marketing, who was appointed several months before on a six month secondment and under whose purview the FAC fall.
“Perhaps it isn’t important for the VP leading community relations to reach out to the 13 ferry advisory committees who represent ferry-dependent communities throughout the province, especially when the relationship between BCF and FACs has become rather one-sided,” said Kim. “So here we are with public engagement essentially shut down. There is just so little communication. People don’t feel respected.
“It’s now five months since the incident at the Gibsons FAC meeting. Now it’s like an excuse. How long does it take to sort out security? Powell River City Council has open meetings all the time, and they are much more volatile. What are BC Ferries executives afraid of, really?”
With the next Northern Sunshine Coast FAC meeting still not booked, Kim has been ruminating about other ways BC Ferries doesn’t seem to be interested in authentic citizen engagement.
For example, she notes that the years-long “Charting the Course: A Vision for Coastal Ferries” engagement project started with a survey that asked questions such as, how supportive are you of the goal that Coastal ferries are reliable and convenient: choose from very supportive to not supportive at all. What could BC Ferries possible hope to glean, she wonders, from any answer to that question? Of course people want reliable and convenient ferries, Kim noted.
More recently, FAC chairs were notified via email on February 9 that as of that day BC Ferries would only email service notices to subscribers if sailings between Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island and Metro Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast were running more than an hour late as delays under an hour are considered “slightly behind schedule.”
“As we know, a sailing even 30 minutes late from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale has a significant impact on connections with other sailings, and Earls Cove is not a great place to hangout for a few hours, especially when you are ‘in the dark’ as to what is happening,” said Kim. “And on February 13, the only reason BC Ferries issued a service notice advising that the Malaspina Sky would hold the last sailing of the day for ferry traffic coming from the sailing that was moved an hour later was be cause of our FAC hounding them all day.
“It’s as if instead of improving communications with communities they serve, they are lowering the bar so the attention is taken away from the poor on-time performance. I feel embarrassed because I am the face of BC Ferries around town, and I get the feeling that people think we’re just not doing enough. And I’m angry on behalf of this community. For me, it has been months of anger.”
Kim and other FAC chairs in the province are losing patience with the BC Ferries FAC model and are considering starting independent citizen groups dedicated to lifting up the concerns of locals, and truly holding BC Ferries accountable for fulfilling their public mandate. Stay tuned.
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