Mutiny averted! BC Ferries sails through summer doldrums

There is nothing like a good keelhauling. So, Friday found us at the Harbour Centre to attend the annual general meeting of BC Ferries. Nothing quickens the blood like the sight of others’ being spilled.

Alas, no keels were hauled. No mutiny ensued. The hopedfor multitude of angry ferry customers we hear so much about failed to materialize.

Maybe 20 members of the public showed up, and they were almost outnumbered by the board of directors, who sat together in a protective phalanx. When the floor was opened for questions, a grand total of two were asked. Neither drew blood.

“It’s a lot different meeting than it has been for the last four or five years,” said Jane Peverett, chair of the B. C. Ferry Authority. “This was very quiet.”

Ah, the last four or five years ... those were the days. But then those days had former BC Ferries boss David Hahn — a. k. a. The Million- Dollar Man — who said he “voluntarily” left the helm last year because he felt his “job was done.” I wonder what led him to that conclusion?

Maybe his absence had something to do with Friday’s no- shows.

Hahn, like no other Master of The Universe, galvanized the taxpayers’ impatience with executive compensation. But now he’s gone, and in his wake he left a hole in the water where once the public could pour its loathing.

Hahn’s salary was a distraction, anyway. One of those easily seized- upon issues that are full of sound and fury but signify chicken feed. BC Ferries had a whole lot bigger and more expensive problems than Hahn’s compensation, like the soaring cost of fuel, and a whole slew of ferry routes that regularly run at 25 and 30 per cent capacity.

But here’s another thought that might explain Friday’s becalmed general meeting. It’s one I know to be blasphemous.

Maybe the BC Ferries system is, overall, well run.

And maybe the public, overall, has taken into account the crappy state of the tourism business and the realities of today’s global economy and — while they don’t like high fares — shrugged.

In return, they get ships that are clean, efficient and safe, offer a terrific amount of services and run, more often than not, on time. ( Last fiscal year, 91 per cent of all sailings departed within 10 minutes of schedule.)

If you need proof of that, and a stark telling contrast to it, try sailing on a Washington State ferry — often cited by critics of BC Ferries as being run so much more cheaply.

Earlier this month, I did just that, taking the ferry from Anacortes to the San Juan Islands.

First off, the schedule offered fewer sailings, and seems, in terms of convenience, to have been made up by a sadist. It didn’t accept reservations; it was first come, first served. We boarded on a Thursday morning, and it couldn’t have been more than a third full.

The ship was the “super class” ferry MV Elwha, built in 1967 and refitted in 1991. It showed every year of its age.

The cafeteria was closed, replaced by a bank of vending machines. The floors were linoleum, and the seating was rows of benches covered in some kind of pleather. There was no games room or retail store, only a couple of newspaper vending machines. The bathrooms — the men’s bathroom, anyway — was filthy, and a blower had been set up in the middle of it to dispel ... I can only guess what. The stalls were covered in graffiti, much of it obscene.

In short, if it had been one of our ferries, the B. C. public would have screamed for a government investigation.

And that’s the either- or position BC Ferries finds itself in.

On the one hand, the Washington ferry was much, much cheaper — costing just under $ 44.70 ( US) round trip for car, driver and passenger, in stark contrast to $ 153.65 ( Cdn) for a comparable trip to Galiano Island from Tsawwassen.

On the other hand, the Washington State system doesn’t have to cover anywhere near the territory our system does, and offers nowhere near the services that B. C. passengers have come to expect.

Critics can pooh- pooh that all they want, and say our ferry system should strip down to basics, but there’s a long history of passengers bitching about poor service and the lack of amenities on long ferry rides.

In light of that, maybe the problem with BC Ferries is not whether it is managed well or not, but that it has never been forced to make up its mind whether it wants to be a ferry service or a cruise line. Maybe its mistake is that it has tried to be both — or as BC Ferries president Mike Corrigan said Friday:

“We’ve got to be all things to all people.”