There’s no debate about its deterioration. BC’s ferry system is on its knees, reeling rudderlessly over a tipping point, sinking into a death spiral of declining ridership – now at a 22-year low – while draconian service cuts and ongoing fare increases generate less revenue.
The question is: how to repair and restore BC Ferries Services Inc. (BCFS)? How to get back on course – more Service, less Inc., – by navigating a storm of epic mismanagement, stereotypes, myths and fantasies about market supply and demand, and the myriad communities that make up a maritime province?
Once upon a time it was the envy of the world, one of the largest fleets on the planet, comprising vessels built here at home, to access and serve a coastline that’s internationally renowned for its extraordinary beauty, biological diversity and vibrant communities. BCFS lost the plot, lost its way.
In 1961, W.A.C. Bennett – BC’s longest-serving premier – purchased Blackball Ferries, for $7 million, creating a publicly-owned extension of the highway and transportation system. It grew exponentially by prioritizing service to people, not payment to private shareholders, in much the same way as public ferry systems operate financially to the south in Washington State, north to Alaska, or in any other direction in most of the world.
The Vancouver Sun’s Stephen Hume has described BCFS as an “arrogant, insensitive monstrosity into which W.A.C. Bennett’s inclusive dream of making the ferries an extension of the highway system has evolved.” (April 9, 2011)
Make that devolved. In 2003, then-Premier Gordon Campbell introduced the now-despised Coastal Ferry Act’s quasi-private, user-pay system. Since that time, the BCFS budget has grown 55 per cent, with no change in service. Financing and amortization – the single biggest cost increase – tripled to $208 million, with no additional user-benefit. Chris Abbott, president of the 4,000-member BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union, projects debt will rise to $1.2 billion in the next decade and asks: “How high are fares going to have to go to cover that size of debt?”
MLA Claire Trevena travelled south of the border for a revealing, wave-making comparison. Washington state builds their own ferries and has one manager for every 40 employees in a similar-sized fleet. At BCFS it is one in six (or one in 10 if Canadian regulations are factored in). That amounts to 17 managers for every BC ferry, greater in number than the in-service crews of the minor, intermediate vessels and some larger ones as well.
Renumeration
BC taxpayers were enraged by hefty bonuses to BCFS’ many managers, despite sinking ridership, and skyrocketing debt. Abbott says, “The fix was in. Bonuses were rolled into base pay, all of which is now pensionable.”
Retired former BCFS CEO David Hahn, who implemented semi-privatization, draws $300 grand a year for life. His successor Michael Corrigan will be paid $500,730 in 2014, down from $915,000 in 2012. That includes $364,000 base salary, bonus, two pensions and a vehicle allowance. David Moseley, head of the Washington ferry system, made just $165,943 last year.
In the meantime, flashy new headquarters were opened in Victoria, along with a shiny BCFS Vacation Centre in downtown Vancouver and a glossy Onboard magazine launched. But the monopoly has no plans for cuts in management or promotion.
BCFS won’t share data with residents of coastal communities, who were shaken by incessant rate increases (up to 147% over a decade), and rudely awakened last November by Transportation Minister Todd Stone. Not only would fares rise yet again – followed by fuel surcharges – but service and decades-long schedules and seniors’ discounts would be cut. As well, a pilot project of onboard slot machines are going to be tested as a source of revenue on ships serving the Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay route.
BCFS and the BC government have not conducted a study of socio-economic impacts to the coastal communities that will be affected. Instead, a last minute round of “community consultations,” were staged night after night in packed town halls, run by note-takers, not ferry or government officials, who also ignored calls for a moratorium. Fragile economies are being fractured as property values and incomes fall through the cracks in numbers greater than the $14 million in savings BCFS seeks in current service cuts and fare hikes that are scheduled to go even higher in 2015.
The flawed strategy is enabled in part by the lingering stereotypes of coastal residents as a disposable assortment of free-loading hippies and wealthy retirees, worried and whinging about their “highly subsidized” lifestyles. But marginalized coastal residents are arguing for an essential, no-frills, commuter service. A ferry system where, once again, once-in-a-life-time family vacations to Haida Gwai, along with Cathedral Grove, Long Beach, the lawn of the Legislature, and a camping spot on the Gulf Islands, are affordable from mainland BC.
The Facts
In BC, 22% of people are ferry dependent. Coastal communities contribute roughly 36% of the province’s annual revenue. Their benefits total about 6% of capital expenditure on highways, including the service fee to BC Ferries which is a paltry 0.4% of the government budget, according to a study by former BC Liberal leader Gordon Wilson.
Sheila Malcolmson, chair of the Islands Trust Council, speaks for residents of ten ferry routes. According to the 2006 census, 37% of islanders were self-employed, compared with 14%, province-wide. Median family income in the Islands Trust Area is 16% lower than BC’s average.
She says, “Coastal ferry-users pay more than their fair share, $5 billion during the past 10 years, while BC taxpayers contributed $1 billion in service fees. System-wide, ferry-users pay 100% of operating costs. If BC Transit riders paid at the same rate, a $3 bus fare becomes $9. Everybody pays taxes for roads they’ll never drive; it’s the cost of a social contract that unites the province.”
BC’s Liberal government has no plans to change free inland ferries – which, unlike their coastal equivalents, have alternative roads – operating under BC Highways and Transportation. Abbott says: “A stroke of a pen would save a lot of money. Roll all ferries back into Highways, pick up capital costs at a cheaper government rate and then cover operational costs.”
There is little mention of the Duke Point/Tsawwassen run that loses $25 million annually. But nearby, BCFS hopes to save $400,000 over two years on the Gabriola/Nanaimo run. Island residents calculated the strategy would result in a loss of 176 jobs and $5 million in business, and negotiated a more realistic, slightly revised schedule. In the meantime, ferry traffic plummeted; vehicles were down 17% with 13% fewer passengers compared to February, 2013. That’s in advance of the changes made on April Fools Day. Similar double digit drops in ridership are anticipated, fleet-wide, going forward.
Impacts
Impacts aren’t isolated; most noticeably in the BC tourism industry, which generated $13.4 billion last year. In the Cariboo Chilcotin, the pine beetle wiped out forestry. Residents struggled to create a new, non-extractive economy. One key was a circle-tour travel-package, providing access to a last frontier and one of the world’s great drives.
The Discovery Coast Route – once touted and promoted by BCFS – provided a vital link to approximately 140 communities, included a 115-vehicle full-service vessel that stopped at the traditional communities of Bella Bella, Klemtu, Ocean Falls and Bella Coola, where travellers would get off to continue a land journey through the Cariboo-Chilcotin to the Lower Mainland, or down Vancouver Island.
With the hope of saving $1.4 million, BCFS cancelled the direct connection between Bella Coola and Port Hardy, replacing the Queen of Chilliwack with a milk run. The Queen of Chillicwack was replaced by a 16-vehicle car barge Nimpkish (including space for four RVs). It is being refitted to install seats – with no wheelchair access, interior heat, potable water and vending machines for the nine-hour voyage from Bella Bella up the fjord to Bella Coola.
Early estimates of cancelled tours indicate a $10 million hit to an already devastated economy. Jonview, the largest international tour wholesaler in Canada, sends 100,000 tourists to BC every year. It described the Discovery Coast Circle Tour as a “cornerstone” of future tourism growth, but no longer recommends the route. And disappointed Europeans have cancelled 2014 bookings in droves.
Aboriginal entrepreneurs looking to develop home-grown tourism ventures along the central coast say their plans have been interrupted by cuts to the Bella Coola–Port Hardy run. After investing $1.5 million over the past two years, the Aboriginal Tourism Association of BC says the cuts to ferry service forced it to gear down campaigns to train coastal First Nations to embrace tourism opportunities.
When 1,500 protestors rallied at the Legislature March 15, the highlight was a tape recording of Premier Christy Clarke, made in 2008, while she was employed as a talk radio host on CKNW:
“BC ferry fares have finally gotten so high that for every dollar they raise it will actually garner less in revenue. And at this rate, how long will it be before they abandon the routes where they don’t make any money? How long before the provincial government abandons its responsibility to provide a public service to many of the people who depend on ferries to travel or to ship their goods?”
Among the speakers was Cam Pirie, owner of Quadra Island’s Walcan Seafood, a 40-year-old family seafood processing business, employing 150, while paying $1.3 million every year on BC Ferries. It is may use barges, or relocate.
What Now?
Post-rally, organizers are planning other phases, working with municipal, local and regional governments, business and community organizations, as consultants conduct socioeconomic studies that were never undertaken by BCFS or the provincial government. “Mad as Hell” young families are increasingly involved. They are essential to the future of coastal communities.
The government is being lobbied and will be “dogged” during elections.
Some residents plan to withhold property taxes, demanding reassessment with ferries factored in. Human rights and legal issues are being explored, ranging from lack of access on the Nimpkish for people with mobility problems, to whether BCFS has violated the Federal/Provincial Coastal Subsidy Agreement which paid $28 million in 2013.
Too many people are pulling up stakes, shutting businesses, selling homes at reduced prices, walking away from deep investments in community, hard work, and relatively modest, once-realistic dreams.
Still there is some of the legendary expertise and resiliency of coastal communities left, to survey the inestimable damage done by BCFS – to pick up the pieces and fight on.
Join in or keep track at www.savethediscoverycoastferry.ca
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Bruce Mason is a Gabriola Island and Vancouver based writer, author of Our Clinic and contributor to Common Ground magazine
