KINGSTON TOUR BOAT OPERATORS CALL FOR ACTION ON LASALLE CAUSEWAY
Tour boat and tourism officials are calling on the federal government, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally, to find a faster way to get their ships out of the Inner Harbour.
The owners of St. Lawrence Cruise Lines and the Kingston Destination Group gathered on board the Canadian Empress Thursday morning for a short trip from the Kingston Marina to the upriver side of the Lasalle Causeway.
There, they called on the Public Services and Procurement and Transport Canada to find an alternative to the proposed 10week repair schedule for the bascule bridge, closed since the end of March after being damaged during renovations.
“This situation has been ongoing now since March 30,” said Jason Clark, president of St. Lawrence Cruise Lines. “As far as we're concerned, the length of time that has been happening between the individual government agencies such as the PSPC and the Ministry of Transport, the communication is taking far too long. They're taking far too long on the ground to get their men on the ground.”
In a letter to Trudeau, Clark asked that the prime minister personally intervene to get the work completed faster or accept an alternative solution.
“Your government's failure to take speedy action to solve this problem has already caused millions in economic damage and put several Kingston businesses in jeopardy,” Clark wrote.
“My company is paralyzed because our flagship, the Canadian Empress, is trapped in the Inner Harbour due to damage caused during an overhaul to the Lasalle Causeway,” Clark added. “Other tour boat operators in Kingston are facing the same crisis, and the only dry dock in eastern Ontario is idle because it cannot be accessed from Lake Ontario.”
Clark and other Inner Harbour business owners said they have proposed that the government remove a fixed bridge at the east end of the causeway to allow the tour boats to get out of the Inner Harbour.
Clark said that work could be completed in three weeks and allow the tour companies to salvage the summer season.
Clark said his company has had to cancel three cruises, which amounts to a loss of about $350,000.
“I think just in the process of cancelling our fourth cruise so the numbers are growing exponentially,” he said.
“I think it was actually one of my HR specialists that summed it up when he said we survived the pandemic, two years of pandemic, just to be put out of business by our own federal government.”
From the deck of the Canadian Empress, Eric Ferguson, general manager of the Kingston Destination Group, pointed to two of his company's three ships that are stranded in the Inner Harbour, including the 165-passenger Island Star.
“A massive amount of Kingston economic activity is floating on those two pontoons. So, what's it doing there? It should be over there,” he said, pointing to the water beyond the causeway.
Ferguson said the clear option is to remove the east span to open up the waterway.
“They need to lift a span out of that bridge and they need to do it a couple days after the Victoria weekend,” he said. “They should have done it before.”
“If PSPC doesn't know its timeline for fixing the centre bascule portion of the bridge, then they should lift that out in the east span, allow marine traffic to continue to navigate on this navigable federal waterway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site,” Ferguson said.
Once the bascule bridge is repaired, Ferguson said a temporary Bailey bridge could be installed to reopen the causeway to traffic.
“All of these options exist,” he said. “How is it possible that they are taking no action on them, willing to basically just sacrifice all of this economic activity in the interest of bureaucratic bullet-point checking.”
Like Clark, Ferguson said his tour company is feeling the economic hit as tour operators, including international companies, are cancelling not just their local cruises but their entire visits to Kingston.
“Those calls are coming every few days. Soon, those calls will be every few hours,” he said.
Marijo Cuerrier, executive director of the Downtown Kingston Business Improvement Area, said it is not just the tour boat companies that are being affected.
Pedestrian traffic in the downtown area has dropped eight per cent, and businesses have reported drops in revenue, as high as 28 per cent in one case, since the causeway closed, she said.
“Our small business owners are still recovering financially from the impacts of the pandemic and the repaying of CERB loans this past January,” Cuerrier said.
“Full restoration of foot and vehicular traffic from the east end of the city as soon as possible is critical to mitigate the negative impact of the Lasalle Causeway closure and ensure the success of Kingston's vibrant downtown core.”
Tom Wroe, manager of the 140-year-old Davis Dry Dock, said the facility is the only one of its kind at the east end of Lake Ontario and ships are lining up to come in for mandatory five-year inspections.
“I have an American ship and a Canadian ship waiting,” Wroe said. “I have to turn away ships that want to come in for dry docking.”
Wroe said that with the causeway out of commission, ships that need to be dry docked for emergencies will have few options.
Bob Clark of Metalcraft Marine said about 1,000 boats come to the Kingston Marina each year to dock, buy fuel and shop in the downtown.
“The hotels, the shops are all going to take it on the chin,” he said. “This is a serious emergency.
“The city of Kingston's economy is in jeopardy.”