If you were at the helm of BC Ferries, how would you save it from sinking? The B.C. government will be asking the public just that at November and December meetings designed to get input on how to address a chronic funding shortfall.
Declining ridership, rising fuel and labour costs and increased capital costs have resulted in the Crown corporation losing $16 million this fiscal year.
It will only get worse, warns the BC Ferries commissioner, who projects the ferry operator will be facing a $56 million annual shortfall within five years.
“Due to a combination of factors – including a downturn in the economy, a decline in ridership, reduced tourism and particularly the application of the greater reliance on the user pay principle – ferry fares have risen sharply across the system, especially in the less populated parts of the B.C. coast,” commissioner Gordon Macatee concluded in his January report.
Macate said fare increases, service reductions, increased taxes or a combination of all three will be needed to address the shortfall.
Over the next two months, a series of public meetings will be held across the province to garner feedback from the public on the best way to address the ferry system’s funding problems.
The only Vancouver meeting will be November 26 at the Segal Draduate School of Business at Simon Fraser University, from 1 to 3 p.m.
