Tories win skirmish in legal battle on management fees information

The Nova Scotia Progressive Conservatives have scored a court victory in their ongoing legal challenge to force the province to reveal details about Bay Ferries' management fees.

The Tory Caucus filed a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy application in 2016 for disclosure of the fees but the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal refused. The Tories appealed the decision in February after Catherine Tully, the provincial privacy commissioner, recommended the release of the information.

Bay Ferries launched a court challenge to have the PC Caucus appeal denied, maintaining the caucus could not file an appeal. It had to be a person. The caucus amended their appeal naming

Tory Leader Tim Houston as the appellant, an action that Bay Ferries appealed, submitting that another staffer in the caucus actually submitted the paperwork. A judge ruled in April that the PC appeal could go ahead, whereupon Bay Ferries launched an appeal of that decision.

The most recent decision, released Nov. 12, denied that bid by Bay Ferries.

In a phone interview the next day, Houston said the decision clears a "procedural hurdle."

"We have a very clear objective and that objective is to basically fulfill what the privacy commissioner had already ruled, which is this is information about the management fee that should be released to the taxpayers," he said.

"The government refused to do so, (which) left us with no option but to take it to court, so that's what we've done. And since we've been in the courts, they've been trying to put up procedural hurdles that would allow them to continue to hide the management fee, to continue to keep it secret. So today we cleared another one. We'll just keep moving forward."

The Tories suit for full disclosure will go to trial on March 26, 2020.

"Unless they find another hurdle to erect, the next step would actually be the court hearing in March," Houston said. "That would be when the courts decide whether to release it or not."

He said taxpayers have a right to know the information.

"And I think any time you have a situation where government tries to hide information, tries to keep things secret, you should look at that with a skeptical eye. Sometimes there'll be good reason for it but in this case the privacy commissioner has already said there's not. There's no good reason to hide this information."

Houston said while the ferry between Yarmouth and Maine is an investment in the province's important tourism industry, it should be up to the people to decide whether it is the most "efficient and effective" use of taxpayer money.

The ferry did not have any passenger sailings between Nova Scotia and Maine during the 2019 season due to ongoing work on the terminal in Bar Harbor.

"It's certainly not been reaching the potential that's been advertised," Houston said. "Somebody's being paid to manage it. And I think it's a fair question to say how much are they being paid to manage it, especially in the face of some of the failures of the service."

Yarmouth MLA Zach Churchill says the Conservative Party has been trying to undermine the service for years.

“The fact is that we have a really good contract with Bay ferries. For the first time the ferry is actually serviced and stays on this side of the border, so fuel, food, all the supports that that ferry needs, are being supported on the Nova Scotia side," Churchill says. "That didn’t happen under the previous Conservative government."

“But all of the other components of the contract are very similar to the components of the contract that the Conservatives had (with Bay Ferries in the past),” he adds. “The former Conservative government paid for upgrades to (the terminal) in Bar Harbor. They protected proprietary information for Bay Ferries and fully supported the company. Now we have the Conservative party taking this company to court and the only reason to do that is to further hurt the service. We already had a tough year – not having the service run this year – so this just adds to that challenge. I think the intention is to continually undermine public confidence and market confidence in the vessel.”