It was good to read, that qathet Regional District board chair Patrick Brabazon's team supports the electrification of BC ferries [“qathet board supports electric ferry initiative,” February 2].
Sadly, our provincial transport folks have defined strange terms of reference for the study. Remember the bridge study with its terms of reference structured to reach extremely expensive solutions, and hence no action? Remember the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 when the feds helped fund a demonstration of Ballard fuel-cell buses running to Whistler in front of the world? It worked.
What happened provincially? Nothing. So here are the feds once again trying to get BC to enter the “Electric Age.”
BC still doesn’t appear to have woken up to the reality that we live in a technology driven world and every year it creates billions of dollars of new wealth and 1.3 new jobs for every job lost. Nor the reality that maximum benefits result by concurrently manipulating organizations/people, and finance with technology change. This is the correct way to adopt and adapt new technology.
It is no wonder transport costs have risen so fast they now take too big a slice of our wages. Innovatively done, ferry electrification can triple the identified silo-minded savings every year. If BC Ferries submits proposals based on its current approach the feds should spend their money elsewhere. We should tell them so. It is our tax dollars.
Happy to see the local qathet initiative. Sad to see the same old thing happening with the NDP that happened with the Liberals. What next, the Greens?
Tom Hobbs
Butedale Street
Powell River
