An online petition rallying to bring BC Ferries under government control was presented at the B.C. Legislature on Monday, March 12th.
The document, boasting a healthy 16,000 signatures, was delivered by Jim Abram, a Strathcona Regional District director.
He argues that putting ferries into government hands will allow the cost to be spread out among taxpayers. It’s currently an independent commercial organization, and has been since 2003; however, ferry passengers have been paying high fares to utilize the service.
Prices spiked drastically under this move by the prior Liberal government. As a result, Abram believes that it should be housed in the Ministry of Transportation.
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BC Ferries and the NDP
The NDP government has committed to dropping some fares by April 1st; they have been frozen for the past two years. In addition, they are introducing seasonal discounts and adding additional flexibility to tickets.
‘It’s also conducting a promised review of BC Ferries that will seek to identify improvements that can be made to the existing operations — but that review is not considering governance of the ferry system,” reports CBC News.
BC Ferries also recently banned smoking on all decks as well as in ferry terminals.
