The B.C. Liberal government’s decision to delay ferry service cuts until after the provincial election cost taxpayers about $7 million.
The Ministry of Transportation quietly signed a contract amendment with B.C. Ferries on April 3 that gave the ferry corporation $7.1 million because the government couldn’t meet a June 30 contract deadline to outline proposed service cuts.
The extra ministry cash, which was not publicly announced by either side at the time, means the government now has to find only $18.9 million in cuts to coastal ferry service, and not the $26 million it had originally proposed.
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Transportation Minister Mary Polak denied that the costs were incurred because of a political decision to put off unpopular route cuts until after the May 14 provincial election.
Polak said there “just wasn’t time” to finalize route reductions between the end of the consultation with coastal communities in March, the May election and the June deadline.
“So we extended the time so that whichever government is in power will be able to then have the consultations on the changes and reductions on the minor routes,” Polak said in an interview.
The route reductions, which the government said are necessary because of B.C. Ferries’ low ridership and high debt, will not have to be identified now until March 31, 2014.
The delay was not a move designed to spare the Liberal party grief from ferry communities during its re-election bid, Polak said.
“If that’s what we were intending to do, we wouldn’t have been out there quite loudly saying we are going to go make the $26 million in route reductions. Why would you do that if you were going to try and hide it? We’ve been really up front.”
The NDP said the decision to delay cuts was the right one, but it was done for political reasons.
“They knew it would be massively unpopular and would hurt them even more in this election,” NDP ferries critic Maurine Karagianis said.
“Much of what they do is motivated by political reasons,” she said.
“It’s about trying to save their own political fortunes and not about thinking about what is good business policy for a significant transportation network.”
The NDP has said that if it wins the election, it will freeze fares, audit B.C. Ferries and not proceed with the service cuts proposed by the Liberals.
In that way, it’s good the Liberals delayed making a decision on route reductions, Karagianis said.
“Given the current circumstances, it’s better they haven’t made any further moves,” she said.
“Every one of these missteps by the government just shows they do not have a grasp on how to move forward with the B.C. Ferries corporation.”
The Liberals have counter-attacked that the NDP position on the future of the ferry corporation is unclear.
Leonard Krog, the incumbent NDPMLA in Nanaimo, told CHEK News this week that an NDP government would put B.C. Ferries “back under direct government control” as a Crown corporation or part of a ministry.
Karagianis said that’s not the party’s official position, and any decision on whether to return the quasi-private, taxpayer-funded ferry company to direct government control would first have to await consultations if the party wins the election.
