Each Sunday following last month’s provincial election, we’ve published editorials on issues confronting the new government. Today’s, on ferry operations, is the fifth and last.
Had the New Democratic Party won last month’s election, it’s probable major changes would have resulted at B.C. Ferries. The New Democrats promised a full-scale audit of the company, followed by a different long-term vision.
What the Liberals intend is unclear. Before the election, the minister responsible, Mary Polak, raised a hullaballoo over figures released by the B.C. Ferry commissioner. She was alarmed because the company lost $16 million in 2011-12, and could face greater shortfalls in the years ahead.
On that basis, a hurry-up “public consultation” was held, and Polak announced that major service cuts would be required. The minister declined, however, to say which routes would be affected.
It’s time for some plain speaking. B.C. Ferries didn’t “lose” money, any more than our roads, our schools or our hospitals lose money. The company laid out funds to provide an essential service.
Cutting routes is no solution. If there is a coastal community that won’t be hurt by withdrawing or reducing its ferry service, we haven’t heard of it.
And raising fares won’t work either. Rates have already increased between 50 and 80 per cent in the past decade, and the result, predictably, is constantly declining passenger traffic.
Businesses on Saltspring Island are closing because visitors can’t afford the ferry tariff. Holiday rentals on some of the other Gulf Islands are down for the same reason.
Perhaps this sounds like special pleading. Perhaps it is.
But why treat this side of the Strait of Georgia differently than the other? A modest extension of the SkyTrain service in Vancouver — the Evergreen Line — is slated to cost almost as much ($1.4 billion) as the entire investment in B.C. Ferries ($1.8 billion).
And transit users in Vancouver are charged just 40 per cent of services costs, while ferry passengers pay close to 70 per cent.
The reality is straightforward. None of the smaller ferry routes break even because the populations they serve are modest in size.
By the same token, none of the highways in remote inland areas of the province could ever be money-making propositions. But we don’t take that out on communities such as Fort St. John or Invermere.
The real problem is the illusion that B.C. Ferries is a private company pursuing corporate goals. It is nothing of the kind.
Its capital assets (terminals, office buildings and most of the ships) were purchased by the taxpayers. It receives an operating subsidy of $180 million a year from government. And a minister of the Crown is preparing to dictate service changes, now the election is safely over.
In reality, the company is a poodle and government holds its leash.
So what is to be done? If economies must be made, there are better places to look.
In 2011, B.C. Ferries paid its president and 12 vice-presidents a collective remuneration of $5.6 million. (The company says that figure was inflated due to one-time bonus payouts.)
The same extravagance continues down the line. The company’s comptroller receives $189,000. The comptroller general for the entire B.C. government gets $140,000.
The company’s vice-president of information technology makes $218,000. The head of information technology at the provincial health ministry (total budget 25 times as large) earns $113,000.
What’s needed is a complete re-examination of the company’s management philosophy, starting with these corporate costs. That might not resolve all of the financial difficulties, but it’s a lot better than shafting coastal communities again.
