BC Conservatives demand that BC Ferries reinstate community advisory committees

“BC Ferries is playing Grinch this Christmas, firing coastal community volunteers.”  – Harman Bhangu MLA, Langley-Abbotsford - Official Opposition Transportation critic

 

December 4, 2024, Vancouver, BC – British Columbia’s official opposition is demanding that BC Ferries Corporation reinstate the 13 volunteer coastal citizen advisory committees that it fired last week over a conference call.

“BC Ferries is playing Grinch this Christmas – firing 13 volunteer panels with 30 years of service,” said Harman Bhangu, MLA for Langley-Abbotsford and BC Conservative Transportation critic.

In a letter to BC Ferries board chair Joy MacPhail and CEO Nicholas Jimenez, Bhangu demanded that they meet with MLAs representing the coastal communities silenced and ignored by the corporation’s high-handed move.

"I ask you to meet with us to outline your plan for the immediate reinstatement of these volunteers,” Bhangu wrote “as well as your plan to involve coastal communities more robustly in discussions relating to changes forthcoming to the services BC Ferries provides them.”

“To fire the volunteers tasked with providing you feedback and information from coastal communities, while scaremongering about 30 per cent fare increases, is a slap in the face to the people on the coast who depend on you,” Bhangu wrote.

“Jeremy Valeriote and Rob Botterell and the Greens have been asleep at the switch on this issue,” said Anna Kindy, MLA for North Island. “From Bowen to Salt Spring to Saanich, the silence is deafening. Maybe their unelected leader is afraid of offending the unelected board chair of BC Ferries.”

Brennan Day, MLA for Courtenay-Comox called attention to the silence of NDP MLAs on the issue. He called on them to stand up for coastal communities.

“We have heard nothing from Dana Lajeunesse, Debra Toporowski, Josie Osborne, Sheila Malcolmson, Randene Neill, or Tamara Davidson,” said Day. “These so-called representatives are taking their marching orders from Joy MacPhail in the corner office in Victoria.”

“If you live on an island community or a coastal community, in Chemanius, on Penelakut, on Thetis, on Denman or Hornby, on Gabriola, Gambier, Keats, or Texada, in Prince Rupert, Lemtu, Bella Coola, Ocean Falls, or on Haida Gwaii, the only MLAs who will stand up to BC Ferries and fight for you are the BC Conservative MLAs.”