B.C. finds funds for sailings on 11 minor routes

B.C.’s transportation minister reversed course Thursday and found the necessary funding to prevent cuts to ferry sailings.

Claire Trevena said the government will pay for sailings that were slated to be eliminated on 11 minor routes, after a standoff in recent weeks between the province and B.C. Ferries over funding.

“At the moment, it’s making sure B.C. Ferries is not making any cuts,” Trevena said. “At a time we’re starting to recover the economy, it’s not a smart time to make cuts.”

The province provides B.C. Ferries with almost $200 million annually to help run the coastal ferry system, with fares, retail sales and a small subsidy from Ottawa making up the rest of the corporation’s revenue.

About $180,000 in new funding will temporarily stave off cuts to 11 coastal routes until September. After that, Trevena said, the hope is B.C. Ferries’ finances will have stabilized and it can resume operations without the extra money.

The money does not help B.C. Ferries cover its larger financial losses accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which amount to several million dollars and worsen daily. Those continue to be a point of negotiation between the government and the quasi-private ferry corporation. (It operates as a private financial entity but only has one shareholder, the province.)

“I’m very pleased there are going to be no reductions of services as we move into restart and people in coastal communities are going to be able to continue relying on the ferry service they need as they and their communities and businesses start to try and climb out of the problems COVID has been leaving for everyone,” said Trevena.

B.C. Ferries had said the cuts were necessary because the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced ridership by as much as 80 per cent and caused it to lose almost $1 million per day.

Eliminating some routes, along with other cost-cutting measures, was part of a plan to stem losses until ridership recovered.

The targeted sailings were on routes serving Salt Spring, Powell River, Texada, Gabriola, Denman, Hornby, Quadra Island, Cortes, Saltery Bay and Haida Gwaii.

The government and B.C. Ferries had been engaged in protracted talks over funding since the ferry corporation served 90-day notice in March that it intended to eliminate the sailings.

The notice expired Tuesday without a government commitment, and so B.C. Ferries began cutting some routes.

Trevena responded earlier this week by calling the cuts “premature” while negotiations were continuing. Half of the ferry advisory committee for Denman and Hornby islands resigned in protest over the cuts.

“We’ve paid $180,000 but we are still at the table because we’ve got to make sure we have a robust system for people,” said Trevena.

The bailout comes as the B.C. government prepares to open up domestic and inter-provincial tourism. The government will be encouraging British Columbians to travel the province in a bid to spur economic activity during the summer. The province would have faced the prospect of encouraging more travel at a time B.C. Ferries was reducing key travel routes to tourism-dependent communities.

The bailout also came one day after Premier John Horgan faced questions about why his NDP government would allow the same sailings to be cut that his party once said were vital for coastal communities when they were eliminated by the previous Liberal government in 2014.

“We do take this very seriously,” Horgan said Wednesday. “In all honesty, as an islander, I understand intimately the challenges in coastal communities. We were right in 2014, and we’re right today. We’re working collaboratively with B.C. Ferries to find a way forward.”

Horgan had been trying to convince the federal government to provide operating funding to B.C. Ferries as part of its COVID-19 economic recovery programs. But he admitted it was unlikely to happen. “I have to confess, there hasn’t been a particularly sympathetic ear because B.C. is the only province that has a significant ferry complement,” he said.

The sailings that were due to be cut were some of the ones the previous Liberal government eliminated in 2014.

The cuts were unpopular in coastal communities and deemed “absolutely outrageous” by Trevena, then-Opposition NDP transportation critic. She likened it to the government closing highways.

“This is the destruction of our coastal communities and the destruction of our coastal economy,” she said at the time. Stories emerged of coastal island residents missing medical appointments and students unable to attend extracurricular activities.

B.C. Ferries restored some of the sailings in 2018 when its finances recovered.