A spirited B.C. Premier David Eby took aim at the federal government Thursday over what he says is the unfair treatment of B.C. ferry passengers before accusing Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s aggressive pipeline push of threatening the viability of other projects in his province.
Eby made the comments in Ottawa after having dinner with Prime Minister Mark Carney Wednesday evening. He’s also meeting with key cabinet ministers during his visit to the capital.
“I am obviously disappointed that there hasn’t been an increased emphasis on the incredibly unfortunate treatment of ferry users in British Columbia compared with ferry users in Eastern Canada,” Eby said.
The premier said he told Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon he was upset the federal government is paying to build ferries for Atlantic Canada but is only offering B.C. a low-interest loan for the same purpose.
B.C. Premier Eby says ‘unfairness needs to be addressed’ with subsidies for West Coast ferry users
“B.C. Ferries users get on average $1 in federal subsidy while eastern ferry users get $300 in federal subsidies,” he said. “That disparity and that unfairness needs to be addressed.”
The federal government supports ferry service in Eastern Canada by funding Marine Atlantic, a Crown corporation that runs ferries between Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.
And Transport Canada’s Ferry Services Contribution Program supports ferries that run between Digby, N.S., and Saint John as well as P.E.I. ferries that service Caribou, N.S., and Quebec’s Magdalen Islands.
The federal government owns the P.E.I. and New Brunswick ferries and terminals and pays for their repairs, but leases them out to private companies rather than operate them itself.
In the 2019 federal budget, the Liberal government announced it would “procure two ferries” to replace the vessels servicing Quebec and Nova Scotia and would purchase an interim replacement ferry for the Nova Scotia route until they were expected to be delivered in 2028 and 2029.
In 2023 the Liberal government signed a $38.6-million contract to buy the MV Fanafjord replacement ferry. The new ferries being built by the Davie Shipyard in Quebec are still in the design phase.
When B.C. Ferries, a former provincial Crown corporation that is now a publicly owned independent company, needed four new ferries, the federal government loaned the company $1 billion instead of buying them and leasing them back.
After the loan was approved, a Chinese state-owned shipyard was contracted to build the vessels, garnering criticism from both the Liberals and Conservatives.
MPs on the transport committee voted Thursday to call former minister of transport Chrystia Freeland to give evidence showing what she knew about the decision to contract a Chinese shipyard using money from a federal loan.
Eby defended the decision when it became public, saying B.C. Ferries went through a five-year procurement process and the vessels were “desperately needed.”
A key difference between the West Coast and East Coast ferry operations is that in B.C. the service is a provincial concern that connects points within a province, while the ferries in the East connect five provinces to one another and mainland Canada.
Under the 1949 Terms of the Union, which set out conditions for Newfoundland joining Canada, it was agreed that the federal government would maintain a freight and passenger link between North Sydney, N.S., and Port aux Basques, N.L.
When P.E.I. joined Canada in 1873, one of the conditions of that agreement was that the government would provide and pay for a link between the island and the mainland.
That commitment was fulfilled by the use of ferries until the Confederation Bridge across the Northumberland Strait came into use and the Constitution was amended to say a fixed crossing could be substituted.
Oil shipping push ‘doesn’t exist in any meaningful way’: B.C. Premier Eby
Eby also warned that Smith’s push to get the federal government to back her dream of a pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to the northern B.C. coast is premature and risky.
“I’ll say this for premier Smith,” Eby said. “She’s an incredible advocate, because you would never guess that there is no private proponent, there is no money, there’s no project, there’s no support from First Nations along the coast. In fact, nobody’s talked to them.”
Eby said the project only exists “in the political discourse.”
He said he was concerned about projects worth tens of billions of dollars in his province that “may be put in jeopardy” of losing First Nations support because of Smith’s push for a new pipeline.
