The provincial government is providing $180,000 in additional payments to BC Ferries in order to get the company to resume sailings that had been cut from the Earls Cove-Saltery Bay route and 10 other minor routes earlier this week.
When BC Ferries first announced it would end the daily 4:35 p.m. sailing from Earls Cove and the 5:30 p.m. departure from Saltery Bay as of June 16, it said the “minor adjustments” were being implemented but that it would maintain “minimum core service levels.”
Similar cuts were made to the Powell River-Texada route and the Powell River-Comox run.
BC Ferries confirmed the change through a series of service notices issued on June 18.
“BC Ferries and the Province of B.C. have worked collaboratively to add supplemental sailings to the summer schedule,” the notice for the Earls Cove route said.
The round-trip that was cut will be back on the schedule until at least Sept. 7.
Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons said the potential loss of that mid-day round trip would have made it extremely difficult to make connections between Vancouver and Powell River and hurt businesses that rely on timely shipments.
Kim Barton-Bridges, the chair of the Northern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee (FAC), which has the Earls Cove-Saltery Bay route in its mandate, made a similar argument in a letter to Transportation Minister Claire Trevena and the premier, copied to the Powell River Peak.
“How will the economies in coastal communities open up when there are six-hour waits at terminals?” Barton-Bridges wrote. “It is rather a catch-22 situation; we need the sailings in order to recover. The rest of the province is not being told that their highways are closed for six hours at a time. We need help in our recovery, not cuts.”
In a statement to Coast Reporter, Trevena said the government’s priority is ensuring “affordable, reliable ferry service” as part of the restart plan.
“Ferries are an essential service and a key part to the needs of our coastal communities,” Trevena said. “We are already seeing ferry ridership begin to grow, and Ferries should be in a position to respond to this demand. I’m pleased the immediate, proposed service reductions will not proceed … [and] service will be there for people and coastal communities as we continue our restart plan.”
Simons said FACs on the upper and lower Coast, municipal governments, and the public have been outspoken about ferry service in a way that’s reminiscent of 2014, when there was outrage over proposed cuts and fare increases, with one key difference – this time it’s working.
Earlier this month BC Ferries reversed course on a schedule change that eliminated late evening sailings between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay and added a round-trip that had been cut earlier in the pandemic to cope with increased demand.
“This government knows the importance of BC Ferries and they’re more likely to hear the arguments and are more receptive to the arguments that are being put forward by community members here,” Simons said.
