By CRAIG McInnes, Vancouver Sun columnistJanuary 6, 2012
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Opinion+Future+Ferries/5959982/story.html#ixzz1iz6kfJRZ
The legend of King Canute ordering the tide not to rise is often misrepresented as an example of unbridled arrogance. As originally chronicled, however, the 11th-century Danish monarch set his throne by the seashore to demonstrate the limitations of even the most powerful of men.
I was reminded of Canute in the reaction of the NDP ferry critic Gary Coons to the fuel surcharge announced by BC Ferries last fall.
Coons demanded the provincial government halt the surcharge, which it could have done. What it couldn’t do, however, is the thing that no government can do — order away the rising costs and falling revenues that have BC Ferries headed for the rocks.
Now that the sideshow over former president and CEO David Hahn’s $1-million-a-year salary has played out, attention has turned to the larger challenge of trying to corral all of the loose pieces of wishful thinking associated with ferries in this province and subject them to a stiff dose of reality.
The reality is that despite some significant improvements put in place by the management team of the quasi-private organization set up by the Liberals in 2003, the essential political and financial dynamic remains the same.
British Columbians rightly consider ferries to be a service provided by the provincial government. They hold the government responsible for the level and quality of that service and for how much it costs them to use it.
Because of that, the quasi-private corporation set up to try to end political meddling in the ferry system could never have been completely successful and even from the start was somewhat of a charade.
The government set the service levels that BC Ferries has to meet. It also limits the fare increases it is able to charge. And when embarrassed last year by the disclosure of Hahn’s salary, it jumped in and limited even what the board could pay its top employee.
Last year, Gordon Macatee, a former deputy minister who is now the B.C. ferry commissioner charged with regulating fares and other aspects of the ferry services, launched a review of the Coastal Ferry Act.
In response to a series of discussion papers posted by Macatee, BC Ferries argues that for its future financial viability, something has to give.
Traffic is down significantly since the start of the recession in 2008, but the government limits how much service can be reduced in order to cut costs. At the same time, inflation has continued to push those costs up while the subsidy provided by the province to pay for money-losing runs has been fixed.
As a result of this, BC Ferries calculates the additional revenue that has to be made up by increasing fares is almost $10 million a year.
What’s really intriguing in the BC Ferries’ submission is a complaint that it is being hampered by a lack of a long-term ferry service strategy and a defined ferry policy.
Ferry officials complain that they have to make decisions on investing in new ships and terminals without knowing the government’s future service expectations.
That’s a problem, but it also illustrates the fundamental flaw in trying to pretend that BC Ferries can be run completely outside of government. That’s because the political viability of the government depends in part in finding a balance between demand for services and what it can afford to provide, not just the ferries but in every other aspect of the Crown corporation’s operations.
The B.C. government got into the ferry business originally because the private companies that were operating the vessels were making the kind of management decisions private companies have to make: They didn’t run ships at a loss.
Most of the ferry routes on the B.C. coast are money losers in that sense. But so are highways.
So for BC Ferries, the big decisions about what services to offer always have to be made by politicians because they will always be supported by taxpayers. BC Ferries can’t be operated as a private corporation because the management can’t be allowed to institute private sector solutions.
Whatever Macatee ends up recommending, responsibility for providing the ferry service will continue to land in the lap of politicians. That’s as inevitable as the rise and fall of the tide.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Opinion+Future+Ferries/5959982/story.html#ixzz1iz6o8SId