Sunday, November 02, 2008
Boycott the Ferry Coproration
Boycott the Ferry Corporation.
By ian.Lowden@shaw.ca
I think we all can agree that the Ferry Corporation is slowly strangling the islands with constant fare increases and a steady downward spiral of service quality. We may agree but I haven’t seen anyone coming up with any real strategies to do anything about it. That is no one until our Premier showed us the way – he cut fares because the higher fares were costing more from a decrease in profits than the increased fares could make up for it.
The three new ferries are tied up at the docks and they are using the old smaller ones because with the fare increase they can seldom fill the new ones and so they can’t justify the expense of using them. According to TV news David Hahn the CEO of BC Ferries found out on the news on TV that the premier had ordered a 30% cut to try and lure people back to using the ferries and did so without even consulting with the CEO. If I were Hahn I would think it time to dust off the old resume. So now we know who is really running BC Ferries-the Premier, and what his weaknesses are Bad PR and the ferry corporation losing more money by not running at full capacity.
With more than a billion dollars debt and virtually no assets BC Ferry doesn't have the credit rating to borrow money for the bridge and the government has refused any and all funding for a bridge, I think therefore that the bridge issue is pretty dead. Our MLA has sent me two emails concerning the bridge. In the first he assured me that he has polled almost every MLA and no one wants to get into building any bridges, suggested that the whole thing started from a ill considered remark by David Hahn in a television interview and now he doesn’t know how to back out of it but the MLA’s (or is it the MIA’s) and the premier are not impressed with him at this point Here is the second letter:
Dear Constituents,
Thank you for your recent emails around the issue of a bridge to Gabriola. I do not now, nor will I ever support a bridge to Gabriola. The purpose of Islands Trust is to preserve the unique character of the Islands. One cannot have an Island connected by a bridge!
Yours truly,
Leonard Krog, MLA
I am also including a letter from the Island Trust to David Hahn and his response where he declares he has no preference for a bridge or a ferry. It is in Adobe but I will also include the same thing in word.
I think once people start to figure that out that the bridge is never going to happen they will realize the only choice we have is to get the rates and waits down. Without the pro- island vs. pro-bridge split, people will be more willing to work together because we all realize that presently the greatest danger to the islands are the ferry rates and service. A version of this will be coming out at the end of November, after all the politics is done, in my column. Maybe the Sounder will even reprint it and hopefully so will the Island Tides newspaper.
If we can get most of the islands newspapers, the Island Trust, and every conceivable group on each island like the Chamber of Commerce, Ratepayers Association, Service Clubs, Gun club, Palette People, Artists, Musicians, Builders Seniors, Conservation Groups, any one and everyone, to all back the idea then we can win. This is a problem that affects everyone including Vancouver Island, the North Coast and Queen Charlottes. This may be the very first time that everyone can work together no matter any other differences because it is the problem we all face. If we don’t win it what happens to each of us and to our communities? People are already leaving the island over the fares and service. The Real Estate Bubble may not have burst quite yet but the ferry problems are sure putting some mighty big leaks in it.
What starts out as some ideas of how to organize and some strategies, slowly becomes a movement that may eventually have every island involved likely even Vancouver Island. The more involvement the more media attention it draws and therefore draws in more people and becomes self-sustaining. When it starts to give the BC Liberals a bad time in terms of negative attention, which affects voters everywhere then the government will listen. To get them to listen we have to speak loudly and in a language they understand –bad PR and a slowly bankrupting Ferry Corporation. Do we have to worry if the Ferry Corporation bleeds itself out of business? No not at all, because in turning Ferry corporation from Crown Status to private corporation they had to sell it to someone. There were of course no investors who wanted to buy it after it was stripped of assets and left with more than a Billion dollars debt for ferries commissioned by the Government. Our government did some very creative bookkeeping (of the kind they wouldn’t allow private citizens to do) and thus sold the corporation to itself. As the government owns BC ferries they can’t let it go down and if our boycott works then they will have to return to subsidies, they won’t have any other choices. There is no doubt that the Government has encouraged people to settle off shore so they should have the same duties to us as they do to the people served by highways. When was the last time you had to pay a toll to use a road in BC or even a Bridge?
I was in Ontario during the Claque Sound protests and it was being covered by all the networks and major papers-virtually everyone in the rest of Canada, except maybe Quebec, knew about it and sympathized. Political public opinion matters even from other provinces because it affects tourism, business relocating to BC, and eventually votes. If elected I will be asking the Trust Council to get behind this concept for all the Islands- it is clearly within their mandate to do so. If not elected, I will be expecting those who do win to do the same. Who knows they might if everyone else is getting involved.
Developing a full-scale boycott takes time and patience and being inclusive. That means we involve everyone within a lose framework so nobody fells like some person or group is telling them what to do – perhaps even a Boycott Council on every island. We don’t need leaders and followers we need active participants. There have been other protests that seemed to just peter out. I suspect that the reason they accomplished little is that they lacked a realistic strategy and may have been somewhat exclusive. I just found out last night that a couple of individuals had been trying for nine months to organize an effective protest, I hadn’t heard much about it and I will bet most of you didn’t either. Besides protest rallies are one offs that make no real difference if there isn’t a strategy to do more than simply protest. Protests seldom work but boycott’s do because they affect the Corporation and eventually the government where it hurts – in the pocket book and in making them look bad.
Concretely, what we need to do is we our ferries to lose more money by trying to make sure they almost never run at anywhere near their capacity. That means putting far fewer vehicles on the ferry. We can accomplish this by car-poo9ling, small co-ops of neighbors ordering bulk quantities of what they now shop in Nanaimo for and using our own boats when possible. Car-pooling is not easy to arrange, some people just won’t do it, as they aren’t interested in getting involved. We have to expect the usual amount of apathy from those who don’t feel part of the community or those who believe they are too good to get involved in anything as mundane as going a little out of the way for their community. I know people who don’t own a car, won’t hitchhike or ride a bicycle 3 km to the ferry because it is beneath them- instead they are always depending on someone else to drive them anywhere.
To get car-pooling and small co-ops going means getting together with friends and neighbors and also means meeting strangers. One of the ways we could facilitate it is by organizing a couple of parking areas with signs up for North, South, and West Nanaimo. That way as you drive by, say somewhere like Agi Hall, you would know at a glance if there was anyone wanting a ride and going your way. Some people already park cars on the Nanaimo side. They could pick up walkers on the ferry or as they get off.
Besides commuting the second biggest reason people go to Nanaimo is for shopping at places like Costco. Instead of going shopping once a week get together with a group to buy bulk quantities and the share them out with a small group or a larger one. This would take a little organization but instead of ten cars going it could be done with a Van and two people. Many years ago this was the normal way people did things.
Also, before you make that trip over – really think about whether it is necessary? Could it be put off? Could groups take kids to top the aquatic center or other events? Could you put off for a while your need to use the ferry? Eventually, if enough of us try hard enough and co-operate for the community good we would cause the ferry corporation to lose even more money and that is the goal because as we all know, when money talks governments listen.
Ian’s Blog http://ianlowden.blogspot.com/ E-mail ian.lowden@shaw.ca
By ian.Lowden@shaw.ca
I think we all can agree that the Ferry Corporation is slowly strangling the islands with constant fare increases and a steady downward spiral of service quality. We may agree but I haven’t seen anyone coming up with any real strategies to do anything about it. That is no one until our Premier showed us the way – he cut fares because the higher fares were costing more from a decrease in profits than the increased fares could make up for it.
The three new ferries are tied up at the docks and they are using the old smaller ones because with the fare increase they can seldom fill the new ones and so they can’t justify the expense of using them. According to TV news David Hahn the CEO of BC Ferries found out on the news on TV that the premier had ordered a 30% cut to try and lure people back to using the ferries and did so without even consulting with the CEO. If I were Hahn I would think it time to dust off the old resume. So now we know who is really running BC Ferries-the Premier, and what his weaknesses are Bad PR and the ferry corporation losing more money by not running at full capacity.
With more than a billion dollars debt and virtually no assets BC Ferry doesn't have the credit rating to borrow money for the bridge and the government has refused any and all funding for a bridge, I think therefore that the bridge issue is pretty dead. Our MLA has sent me two emails concerning the bridge. In the first he assured me that he has polled almost every MLA and no one wants to get into building any bridges, suggested that the whole thing started from a ill considered remark by David Hahn in a television interview and now he doesn’t know how to back out of it but the MLA’s (or is it the MIA’s) and the premier are not impressed with him at this point Here is the second letter:
Dear Constituents,
Thank you for your recent emails around the issue of a bridge to Gabriola. I do not now, nor will I ever support a bridge to Gabriola. The purpose of Islands Trust is to preserve the unique character of the Islands. One cannot have an Island connected by a bridge!
Yours truly,
Leonard Krog, MLA
I am also including a letter from the Island Trust to David Hahn and his response where he declares he has no preference for a bridge or a ferry. It is in Adobe but I will also include the same thing in word.
I think once people start to figure that out that the bridge is never going to happen they will realize the only choice we have is to get the rates and waits down. Without the pro- island vs. pro-bridge split, people will be more willing to work together because we all realize that presently the greatest danger to the islands are the ferry rates and service. A version of this will be coming out at the end of November, after all the politics is done, in my column. Maybe the Sounder will even reprint it and hopefully so will the Island Tides newspaper.
If we can get most of the islands newspapers, the Island Trust, and every conceivable group on each island like the Chamber of Commerce, Ratepayers Association, Service Clubs, Gun club, Palette People, Artists, Musicians, Builders Seniors, Conservation Groups, any one and everyone, to all back the idea then we can win. This is a problem that affects everyone including Vancouver Island, the North Coast and Queen Charlottes. This may be the very first time that everyone can work together no matter any other differences because it is the problem we all face. If we don’t win it what happens to each of us and to our communities? People are already leaving the island over the fares and service. The Real Estate Bubble may not have burst quite yet but the ferry problems are sure putting some mighty big leaks in it.
What starts out as some ideas of how to organize and some strategies, slowly becomes a movement that may eventually have every island involved likely even Vancouver Island. The more involvement the more media attention it draws and therefore draws in more people and becomes self-sustaining. When it starts to give the BC Liberals a bad time in terms of negative attention, which affects voters everywhere then the government will listen. To get them to listen we have to speak loudly and in a language they understand –bad PR and a slowly bankrupting Ferry Corporation. Do we have to worry if the Ferry Corporation bleeds itself out of business? No not at all, because in turning Ferry corporation from Crown Status to private corporation they had to sell it to someone. There were of course no investors who wanted to buy it after it was stripped of assets and left with more than a Billion dollars debt for ferries commissioned by the Government. Our government did some very creative bookkeeping (of the kind they wouldn’t allow private citizens to do) and thus sold the corporation to itself. As the government owns BC ferries they can’t let it go down and if our boycott works then they will have to return to subsidies, they won’t have any other choices. There is no doubt that the Government has encouraged people to settle off shore so they should have the same duties to us as they do to the people served by highways. When was the last time you had to pay a toll to use a road in BC or even a Bridge?
I was in Ontario during the Claque Sound protests and it was being covered by all the networks and major papers-virtually everyone in the rest of Canada, except maybe Quebec, knew about it and sympathized. Political public opinion matters even from other provinces because it affects tourism, business relocating to BC, and eventually votes. If elected I will be asking the Trust Council to get behind this concept for all the Islands- it is clearly within their mandate to do so. If not elected, I will be expecting those who do win to do the same. Who knows they might if everyone else is getting involved.
Developing a full-scale boycott takes time and patience and being inclusive. That means we involve everyone within a lose framework so nobody fells like some person or group is telling them what to do – perhaps even a Boycott Council on every island. We don’t need leaders and followers we need active participants. There have been other protests that seemed to just peter out. I suspect that the reason they accomplished little is that they lacked a realistic strategy and may have been somewhat exclusive. I just found out last night that a couple of individuals had been trying for nine months to organize an effective protest, I hadn’t heard much about it and I will bet most of you didn’t either. Besides protest rallies are one offs that make no real difference if there isn’t a strategy to do more than simply protest. Protests seldom work but boycott’s do because they affect the Corporation and eventually the government where it hurts – in the pocket book and in making them look bad.
Concretely, what we need to do is we our ferries to lose more money by trying to make sure they almost never run at anywhere near their capacity. That means putting far fewer vehicles on the ferry. We can accomplish this by car-poo9ling, small co-ops of neighbors ordering bulk quantities of what they now shop in Nanaimo for and using our own boats when possible. Car-pooling is not easy to arrange, some people just won’t do it, as they aren’t interested in getting involved. We have to expect the usual amount of apathy from those who don’t feel part of the community or those who believe they are too good to get involved in anything as mundane as going a little out of the way for their community. I know people who don’t own a car, won’t hitchhike or ride a bicycle 3 km to the ferry because it is beneath them- instead they are always depending on someone else to drive them anywhere.
To get car-pooling and small co-ops going means getting together with friends and neighbors and also means meeting strangers. One of the ways we could facilitate it is by organizing a couple of parking areas with signs up for North, South, and West Nanaimo. That way as you drive by, say somewhere like Agi Hall, you would know at a glance if there was anyone wanting a ride and going your way. Some people already park cars on the Nanaimo side. They could pick up walkers on the ferry or as they get off.
Besides commuting the second biggest reason people go to Nanaimo is for shopping at places like Costco. Instead of going shopping once a week get together with a group to buy bulk quantities and the share them out with a small group or a larger one. This would take a little organization but instead of ten cars going it could be done with a Van and two people. Many years ago this was the normal way people did things.
Also, before you make that trip over – really think about whether it is necessary? Could it be put off? Could groups take kids to top the aquatic center or other events? Could you put off for a while your need to use the ferry? Eventually, if enough of us try hard enough and co-operate for the community good we would cause the ferry corporation to lose even more money and that is the goal because as we all know, when money talks governments listen.
Ian’s Blog http://ianlowden.blogspot.com/ E-mail ian.lowden@shaw.ca
