WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
By
William Thomas
The hijacking of personal choice and our democratic process by an unresponsive government operating behind closed doors will ring a liberty bell with our American visitors when they reach our shores on the Fourth of July - still in ferry ticket shock.
Loss of personal rights and freedoms is something many people in Iraq, Tibet, Burma and the post-9/11 United States are experiencing daily as bureaucrats loyal to political-corporate interests wreak havoc attempting to wring illusory profits from resources and services meant to benefit the public. Even without gunfire and bloodshed, their policies are violent.
So this is about much more than affordable ferry tickets. By focusing on immediate ferry fare rollbacks like those recently seen on Washington State ferries, and a longer-term vision for an integrated sustainable transportation network, Rock The Boat is also addressing much bigger concerns fundamental to our freedoms and future.
Our coalition comprised of ferry-dependent island and coastal communities understands that dealing with public water transportation in a province bounded by the sea involves issues of governance and accountability, fairness and rights - and ways of living, working and traveling that could become crucial alternative models as city-oriented cultures break down under the tectonic stresses of Climate Shift, Peak Oil, and Peak Everything Else. Even as the global corporate casino comes unraveled, these converging tremblers are already being felt.
Like so many others, Kim Benson, chairwoman of the Islands Trust representing Gulf Island communities, believes that ferry routes should not have to cover all of their costs through fares, "any more than a bus route or road should do that."
In 2007, Ms. Benson warned that continuing fare increases aimed at achieving the impossible could wreck the viability of ferry-dependent communities - and would not necessarily raise revenue if higher fares deter people from living on or visiting the islands.
[Vancouver Sun Aug 1/07]She was right.
Despite a 1997 B.C. Ferries study showing that each 10% rise in fares decreases the number of users by another 3%, the Campbell government has raised ferry fares 400%. In the first quarter of 2008, these ongoing fare hikes saw B.C. Ferries lose almost $8 million - nearly five-times more than during the same period the previous year.
[Island Tides Mar 23/06; TheTyee.ca Feb 9/05; B.C.F Management's Discussion & Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations for the Three Months Ended December 31, 2007This isn't working for anyone.
WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?
Island ferry routes used to be part of the Department of Highways system. Like provincial roads - and ferry systems all over the world - they were never intended to return a profit. Yet, at the stroke of a pen in 2003, we went from being owners of a ferry company with $500 million in shareholder equity, to holding a bag containing just $75 million in equity in a corporation quietly privatized in order to evade liability for the big loans needed to upgrade an aging fleet.
But even this was “peanuts when compared with the value of the Crown Corporation which was essentially given away,” Island Tides observed.
[Island Tides Mar 23/06]With its debt quadrupled, our newly formed ferry contractor - B.C. Ferry Services - was crippled on start-up. And as the Vancouver Sun reported, as a private company, BCFS now “has to pay more for borrowing than a Crown corporation would, and the higher costs contribute to higher fares.” [Vancouver Sun Feb 7/08; Vancouver Sun Feb 7/08]
In addition to crippling fare hikes, provincial taxpayers will face $1.3 billion in debts coming due, plus hundreds of millions more in ferry terminal construction, and millions more in interest payments - just as global warming shifts into hyperdrive, and peak oil prices go stratospheric, impacting every sector of the B.C. and world economies.
As reporter Terry Glavin explains, “In the sleight-of-hand transactions made possible by the new Coastal Ferry Act, we all went from being citizens, passengers on our own ferries, to being 'customers' of a private company.” [Georgia Strait Dec 22/03]
The Act “targets” riders, Glavin went on. Looking not to continue providing an essential service, but to the possible future liquidation of “minor” runs that are of “major” daily importance to their users - the Act called for the B.C. Ferry system's 24 subsidized routes to pay their own way, after “cross-subsidies” from the profitable two major routes were phased out by March 31, 2008.
This is impossible.
But while inland ferries continue to run for free, unprofitable inter-island runs that do not make money running concessions “can be cut at the whim of the board's ferry commissioner,” Glavin noted. And neither taxpayers nor courts can intervene.
[Vancouver Sun Dec 22/03]If something goes wrong (and what isn't, these days?), and B.C. Ferry Services defaults on repayment of its loans, “the banks are entitled to recover their money,” warn B.C. ferry workers on their website - through a taxpayer bailout, foreign sell-off, or repossession of bankrupt boats. [saveourferries.com]
“This is more than just an exercise in accounting,” Doug Christie clarifies from his post on the Ferry Advisory Committee . “Some serious thought should be given to the purpose of fares. If high fares inhibit the enjoyment of the Beautiful B.C. by its citizens, then the resource is not being well managed. We have now reached that point.”
“Our ferries have been stolen from us,” says Mayne Islander Terry Glavin. “We should take them back.”
Are we being reasonable? Ferry Advisory Committee chair Tony Law writes: “One reason that we have to make a careful and intelligent case is that the government makes a good case for saying they already put enough money in the system. The Province contributes $53 million to B.C. Transit which carries 42 million passengers (or $1.24 per passenger). It contributes $137 million to B.C. Ferries non-major routes which carry 7.8 million passengers (or $17.56)… Over the first five years of the Coastal Ferry Service contract [to the BCFS], government paid $652 in subsidies for the minor ferries and travellers paid $528 in fares.”
So?
“So... we have to be careful to assemble sophisticated arguments... and not just come across as out-of-touch islanders with a sense of entitlement!”
Guess what? We are in touch with historical and geographical realities. And all British Columbians are entitled to essential services.
Ferries go with the territory. This watery province has more islands and more miles of coastline than any other jurisdiction on the planet. Any elected government must deal with providing “highways” afloat as well as ashore.
There are other ways to move around cities. But an islander taking her kids to town can't put their car on a rowboat. And a transit bus ticket takes riders to within walking distance of their destination. The Hornby ferry, for instance, challenges foot passengers to make their way across Denman Island to catch a connecting boat. With ridership on the Hornby run declining, it's becoming a tough hitchhike. Then, when foot passengers disembark at Buckley Bay, there is no frequently scheduled public transit to cover the 27 kilometers into Courtenay and beyond. City buses are not ferries and cannot be compared in the respective services they provide.
AND THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST
Four years ago, B.C. Ferry Services boss David Hahn seemed to acknowledge this when he told an Annual General Meeting: “Our agenda is… keeping fares as low as possible and putting ferry users first.”
We who have no alternatives to ferries for our transportation, as well as our tourist-dependent livelihoods are totally onboard with that pledge. We are not onside with outrageous executive salary increases for B.C. Ferry board members - even though they are obviously working hard to soak the traveling public, and shipwreck the service in their care.
Not long ago in the provincial legislature, NDP ferry watchdog Gary Coons asked Transport Minister Kevin Falcon to justify “thirteen board members costing taxpayers over $730,000 a year, directors getting a collective $233,000 pay raise, while people up and down the coast are struggling to even come up with their fare increases.”
Gee, fuel is getting expensive, Falcon responded, neglecting to add that fuel remains the ferries' lowest operating cost. Or that the fuel surcharge already being imposed on top of fare increases is another hidden money grab that covers the entire day's fuel costs on shorter runs - in a single morning sailing.
“I think the minister is missing a beat here,” suggested Claire Trevena, an MLA for four North Island ferry ridings. “We're talking about $730,000 that is going to board members coming out of taxpayers' pockets and coming out of ferry fares, which is completely unjustifiable. We have communities that are suffering. We have families that are suffering. We have a simple situation where parents can't take their kids to swimming lessons because they can't afford the ferry fares. People who say they feel like prisoners in their own homes.”
[Hansard Apr 15/08]Returning the “marine highways” designation to island ferry routes will restore personal choice and freedom to those who prefer living in island communities that offer sharing, simplicity and sanctuary - and daily contact with the nature that is our own nature, after all. (I actually typed “contract” with nature.)
If we “vote with our wallets” as the popular saying goes, then when it comes to exercising our hard-won democratic rights, ferry ticket booths are as vital as voting booths.
Both determine our immediate fate and future. The difference is, voting booths are our response to government. And a government so continually contemptuous of the people it's supposed to serve had best take note of the predominantly gray haired constituents showing up for ferry fare protests.
As Gerry Masuda writes from Vancouver Island: “Some statistics I heard state that 75% of seniors vote, 45% of workers vote and only 24% of youths vote. Thus seniors will have a big impact on the elections because more of them vote than the other age groups.”
If ferry ticket prices are government's response to our needs and concerns, why is there conflict with a government that is supposed to represent us? If we have to spend so much of our time, money and energy opposing our government - it must not be our government! Then whom does it serve? The corporations? The bottom line? Certainly not the people. It's time that elected and selected officials remember that they are public servants - not profit-seeking corporate mangers.
WAKE UP CALLS
By their actions we can know them.
This is the same premier whose government immediately slashed welfare rates for single mothers, gutted the Employment Standards Act to allow 12-year-old children to work 10 hours a day in manual labour, and was condemned a record nine times in two years by the United Nations' International Labour Organization for human rights violations.
[Georgia Straight Nov 30/03; Democrat June 6/06]This is the government that looks at sea lice from farmed salmon in the Broughton Archipelago threatening the extinction of wild chum within the next few decades - and passes a bill giving themselves the power to impose fish farms on communities that do not want them. [TheTyee.ca Oct 30/06; Bill 48]
This is the government that deals with community opposition to polluting power plants, oil drilling, explosive LNG terminals and other detrimental corporate enterprises by passing Bill 75 giving themselves the absolute power to override all local bylaws and decision-making processes.
This is a corporate government so contemptuous of the communities it was elected to serve that Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon responded to pleas in the legislature from struggling island families with just two words: “Boo Hoo.”
[Hansard Apr 15/08; Vancouver Sun Apr 16/08]“British Columbia is up against a global development that is ruthless, rapacious, and without conscience,” writes Robin Mathews from B.C.'s Ashlu River. In his “Reason For Revolution,” he warns, “The U.S military industrial complex is obviously deep into B.C.'s gas operation, and is moving as quickly as it can to take over B.C. water.” [ashlu.info]
And you thought this was just about the price of ferry tickets?
THAT HOLLOW FEELING
“The government's long term goal is to operate the terminal facilities only, while private companies will compete as service providers,” observes B.C. Unity Party finance critic, Greg Watrich. “Or else force the Ferry Corp into bankruptcy.”
Is this part of a plan to “hollow out” small island communities by forcing youth, tradespeople and other hard working residents with marginal incomes to move away until schools shut, close-knit communities collapse and exclusive gated enclaves for a small privileged elite strangle the very essence of what they had come to enjoy?
As Keith Baldrey recently commented on-air, “Increasingly, you get the impression that the place is run by a little club of people - the Premier, his hand-picked deputies, chief of staff ,and people like Ken Dobell who are above everyone else. It gave the impression that certain rules weren't that important because we know what's better, we know what's best.”
[CKNW Mar 14/08]Better and best for whom?
Our public insistence on retaining affordable coastal marine access is part of a gathering worldwide revolt against a tiny oligarchy attempting to impose illegitimate taxes and restrictions on people defending their rights. In Baghdad, Gaza, and along the U.S.-Mexico border, concrete walls are going up to separate families and communities caught on the opposite side of check points. Is the Campbell government attempting to turn
provincial waterways linking our coasts and islands into barriers aimed at a similar “ethnic cleansing” of independent-minded individuals who choose to live outside cities - and who pay the least taxes?“Our ferries are not a private road into gated communities,” points out Denman Island's Doug Christie. “T hey are part of the highway system and used by people from all over B.C.. Hornby Island, for example, has about 55,000 summer visitors annually, almost all of whom are B.C. residents and voters. They comprise 45% of the annual passenger traffic.”
Think “ethnic cleansing” is too strong? Read Naomi Klein. Look into the shocked faces of families leaving our islands where they have lived for years, even generations - and say that corporate profits matter more.
Mussolini's defined “fascism” as governments that serve corporate interests by oppressing their constituents. But not even its inventor foresaw how unjust taxes, fees and regulations would come to be imposed by an interlocking global elite dedicated to personal profiteering and control.
RULE #1: YOU HAVE TO SHOW UP
This is why the growing movement to take back our ferries is part of a worldwide “upwising,” as Steve Bhaerman puts it, for the rights of people everywhere who will be heard and headed. Because we are our governments.
And remember, there's a heck of lot more of us than there are of a few elites who have yet to understand that onboard a vulnerable space colony speeding through the cold irradiated vacuum of deep space, we serve ourselves best by serving the good of all.
“How come it costs $40 for such a little ferry ride? How come it costs more to get to Hornby than it did to cross the Gulf?” asks Doug Christie. “ And the answer is: We do not understand, either, but we suggest you share your concerns with Transportation Minister Hon. Kevin Falcon. You can email him at: Minister,Transportation@gov.bc.ca.”
You can also show up for your local ferry rally.
It's time to make the connections. And jump outside of a rapidly closing box to act with compassion, courage and vision. Whether you live here, or depend on these havens for personal rejuvenation and respite - back away from the ferries issue long enough and you will end up backing out of the islands you love.
Ignore the attempted take-over of this essential service for corporate profit and the privatization of for-profit medical care, tax collection, shoreside transit and most other previously public services are not going to ignore you.
It all goes together.
So we must all stand together.
And start turning it around here.
Please don't tell me that you are too busy, too afraid of some vague bogeyman - or that it's hopeless, or you just don't care. Look into the eyes of your children and your neighbours and say it to them.
Better yet, bring them along to the next Rock The Boat rally at your nearest ferry landing on July 4! And for however many days it takes thereafter to restore our rights and respect.
A final thought on exercising due democratic diligence now.
When we die, we will each have to catch that final ferry across the River Styx.
What if it's user pay?
Support your community advocates. Donations are urgently needed to cover the escalating costs of this ongoing website coverage. Thank you! -William Thomas
