In 2003 the Provincial Government embarked on a new Vision for BC Ferries.

“Firstly, this new legislation sets out the terms of the corporate restructuring. This act recognizes the new company. The act recognizes the intended conversion of the British Columbia Ferry Corporation from a Crown corporation to a new, regulated, independent, commercial operating company under the Company Act that will be renamed British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. The act underpins the vision for the new company as the integrator of services, charged with planning and coordinating the delivery of services and activities in the coastal ferry system.”

-Transportation Minister Judith Reid, Second Reading Coastal Ferry Act, March 24th, 2003

Three amendments later, and its still not working.

Wednesday’s statement from the province said, “the government has committed to having discussions with communities regarding the tradeoffs among service adjustments, fare increases and potential community contributions.’

“In addition, government will seek public input to develop strategies to support a vision for connecting coastal communities.”

Its been nine years with the Coastal Ferry Act, and the BC Government is looking to find a new VISION for BC Ferries. They are moving away from User Pay to Community Pay, but local Governments are already paying for service.

BC Ferries’ terminal property assessments tumble

By The Vancouver Sun January 23, 2006

B.C. Ferry Services Inc. will save about $4.5 million a year in total property taxes on 45 terminal properties on the coast, following a settlement reached with the B.C. Assessment Authority.

The BCAA has cut the ferry corporation’s total property assessment on all its terminals by 42 per cent for 2004 and 48 per cent for 2005.

At Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island the cut is even greater, from $44.1 million to $21.7 million for 2005, a 51 per cent reduction.

The Tsawwassen terminal in Delta dropped the same percentage, from $96.8 million to $47.7 million.

The assessment for Nanaimo’s three terminals last year was $56.9 million and it has been cut to $27.6 million.

A BCAA statement said the settlement has been accepted by all the municipal governments affected and recognized the “functional obsolescence” of recent terminal improvements.

The docks, wing walls and loading ramps were based on design configurations when the ferry corporation started up in the 1960s.

Expensive changes were constructed over the years, but the BCAA accepted in the appeal that a modern ferry operator wouldn’t need to have those kinds of docking and terminal facilities.

“We wouldn’t build anything [now] the way we did,” said ferry president David Hahn.

Hahn said the ferry corporation’s total property tax bill was $9 million, but that is now cut in half, and the company will get a refund on taxes paid in 2004 and 2005.

“That all gets plowed back into maintenance and repairs,” Hahn said.

Until April 1, 2003, it was a provincial Crown corporation exempted from property taxes, and it paid smaller grants in lieu.

The BCAA said even with the assessment reductions, municipalities with ferry terminals will get more in tax revenues than they used to in grants.

Other owners of prime waterfront properties on the coast shouldn’t get excited about prospects of a dramatic reduction in assessments.

“The settlement applies to only the unique characteristics of the improvements found at B.C. Ferries’ terminals, and should not be interpreted to suggest that the valuation methodology applied relates to other types of waterfront properties,” the BCAA said.

So part of the Property Tax break went to Management Bonuses and Wages, since the bargaining unit personal did not receive a raise during that time, and it did not go towards maintenance and repairs.

Section 5: Expenses

The total decrease in operations expenses reflects a $7.7 million net decrease in property tax expense. In January, 2006, the Property Assessment Appeal Board accepted an agreement reached with the BC Assessment Authority to settle 2003/04 and 2004/05 terminal property assessment appeals[G1] . Prior to becoming an independent company, BC Ferries paid approximately $1.4 million per year in grants-in-lieu of property taxes. In 2003/04, BC Ferries was levied $8.9 million in property tax and a further $9.9 million in 2004/05. The settlement reduces terminal property assessments by approximately 40% for 2003/04 and 47% for 2004/05 resulting in a refund of $8.2 million. This reduction in property tax expense was partially offset by an increase in wages and benefits of $3.6 million, a $0.7 million increase in the total fuel costs due to a 5% increase in the set price as approved by the Commissioner in Order 05-02, a $1.3 million increase in marine insurance and a $1.6 million increase in major advertising campaigns and travel agent fees. Costs not covered by third party insurance for the grounding of the M.V. “Queen of Oak Bay” totaled $1.5 million, with $1.2 million reflected in operations and $0.3 million reflected in maintenance expenses.

September 30, 2006 45 of 169
Performance Term Two Submission to the British Columbia Ferries Commissioner

Well it looks like the direction of this new Vision for BC Ferries will be Community Pay, or take a cut in service. The choices are limited.

Lately we’ve had lots of people asking if SAVE OUR FERRIES is going to the, “I Told You So Tour”, since we identified that BC Ferries was heading into a  Perfect Storm way back in 2008, prior to the Second Performance Term. I know that we would enjoy going on the road to talk to people, but our focus right now is to work on finding solutions to the problems BC Ferries is facing, and there is lots of them, so over the next couple of months we will be releasing papers on identified problems, and our suggested solutions. 

In the mean time here are the latest financials.

Sweeping recommendations include limiting fare increases, upping gov’t contributions.

By Andrew MacLeod, Today, TheTyee.ca

“It exceeded our expectations, considering the limited guidelines the commissioner was operating under,” said Save Our Ferries co-ordinator Gregg Dow. “It’s clearly taking into account the public good.”

The report expresses well what people in coastal communities want from the ferry system, he said. “My hope is the government will enact all the recommendations in the report. They make sense.”

Anyway if the Province decides to amend the Coastal Ferry Act, to implement the Commissioner’s recommendations, in the upcoming Spring Session you will see some changes coming to YOUR ferry system. Why I call it YOUR ferries, is because at the end of the day, you still own it. So if the Province follows through with the recommendations, they actually have to take into account not only the interests of the ferry user, but the interests of the owners, YOU the taxpayer.

To learn more please go to the Ferry Commission site.

http://www.bcferrycommission.com/reports-press/whats-new/coastal-ferry-act-review/report-released/

Gregg

Public interest against ferry operator sustainability, should play a big part in the report.

Sine the start of the New Year, your Save Our Ferries team has been busy having meetings, reviewing the latest safety report from George Morfitt, and LNG Ferries.

There is a lot going on and we will be adding new posts in the near future, so please stay tuned, as we make sense of everything that is happening with Ferries.

Gung Hei Fat Choi

Gregg  

When I was a young boy, out one day at the local corner store, a kindly gentleman asked my mother if he could buy my brother and I an ice cream. Recognizing the man, my mother gladly accepted his offer. Turns out that man was W.A.C. Bennett — and as thanks for buying me that ice cream cone all those years ago, I’m going to save his Navy, BC Ferries.

Actually, Save Our Ferries goes well beyond a simple ice cream cone. It is about the well-being of the economy of British Columbia.

You see, W.A.C. Bennett could see the advantages that arose with the province running certain things—like Hydro and Ferries—because Ferries, like any other transportation infrastructure, opens up economic opportunity. And with that development, it supports the social well-being of communities and of the province as a whole.

As most of you are aware, BC Ferries is in the news a lot, and there is a reason for that. The service impacts the lives of a great many British Columbians — more, in fact, than any other form of transportation in the province. According to Angus Reid, about half of all British Columbians used BC Ferries last year. All have friends, business associates and family that they share their experience with, good, bad or indifferent. So when the government messes with BC Ferries, the public makes sure the government understands their personal frustration — sometimes in the form of a strongly worded letter, or a protest. And sometimes at the ballot box.

Save Our Ferries has been around for eight years. When we launched our campaign, we were initially accused of being fear mongers because we were trying to warn people about the impact that the new Coastal Ferry Act would have on BC Ferries and on British Columbia. Not many people believed us at first; they suspected we were just disgruntled ferry workers trying to protect our jobs. And maybe they were right. We were worried about jobs. But not just our own.

During the past eight years, we’ve toured the coast, talked to everyone who would listen and listened to anyone who would talk. We produced opinion pieces and analyses like the “Perfect Storm” and “Course Correction” to report on our conclusions.

During that time, Save Our Ferries evolved, and along with it, the people following us did too. They realized the argument was no longer about our jobs, but about them too. It was about retaining the ability for families in BC to continue to see their relatives. About the price of frozen peas in Oak Bay, about a small restaurant on Salt Spring trying to make a go of it, and about a local shipping company fighting to juggle the cost of moving our goods while hit with an unexpected fuel surcharge that it hadn’t budgeted.

We could go on and on about the impact of ferries on people’s lives, but this is all you really need to remember: Twenty per cent of the British Columbians have invested their hopes and dreams, both socially and economically, in ferry-dependent communities, and right now they feel abandoned as fares continue to skyrocket.

I hope the government can swallow its pride, admit that its experiment has not worked out, and put the fleet back on course. Getting that to happen continues to be our goal.

Thanks for visiting our site. We look forward to your continued support.

Gregg Dow
Save Our Ferries

P.S. Thanks for the ice cream, and for BC Ferries, Premier Bennett.