Island-dotted coastlines and jagged mountains define British Columbia: both create demand for taxpayer-supported transportation. Yet coastal ferries have been singled out as “unprofitable” by the B.C. government. What’s next? For those at the end of a steep, snowy highway, will plowing or avalanche control also be user-pay? When profit rules the day, everyone’s in jeopardy of losing government services.

Stratospheric ferry fares drove passenger traffic to a 22-year low, yet the government remedy is short-notice service cancellations and seniors’ discount cuts. Now some islands are proposing alternate service cuts for April, but the government won’t release the data that would let business and working families propose less damaging savings. It’s infuriating, and everyone’s set on edge not knowing whether they can get to shift work or book tourists come April.

It’s time for some myth-busting about coastal ferries. As chair of the Islands Trust Council, I’m speaking of the 10 routes serving Islands Trust’s 465-island archipelago, but these principles hold for all coastal ferries.

We pay our way. Coastal ferry-users pay more than their fair share, $5 billion during the past 10 years while B.C. taxpayers contributed $1 billion in service fees. System-wide, ferry-users pay 100 per cent of operating costs. If BC Transit riders paid at the same rate, a $3 bus fare becomes $9. Everybody pays taxes for roads we’ll never drive; it’s the cost of the social contract that ties Coastal, Interior, and Northern communities together.

We can’t just move. Like other British Columbians, we’re deeply invested in our communities, and can’t leave businesses and multi-generations of family support. And we shouldn’t need to: coastal development was shaped by ferries, promoted by repeated government commitments that ferries are our highways and will remain affordable, reaffirmed by the Liberal government in 2003.

We’re not wealthy. Median family income in the Islands Trust Area is 16-per-cent less than B.C.’s. Entrepreneurial, innovative, hard-working islanders rely on ferries to enable tourism, get to shift work, and to market goods. Three generations working Gabriola’s Boulton farm pay $25,000 in ferry fares annually to feed and market beef.

We didn’t cause cost hikes. Since 2002, BC Ferries’ budget grew 55 per cent, with no change to ferry service. Financing and amortization soared 200 per cent: $208 million in debt-servicing is a new annual cost with no user-benefit. Ideological decisions pushed capital costs from government to riders, which shot fares up and let the fleet deteriorate.

“BC Ferries services an area that provides tax contributions of roughly 36 per cent of B.C.’s annual revenue, yet this area only benefits from about six per cent of capital expenditure on highways, including the expenditure on ferries,” says former Liberal leader Gordon Wilson. The service fee to BC Ferries is just 0.4 per cent of the government budget.

Nobody wants waste. For decades, ferry users suggested cost-savings, to no avail. Yes, some late-night sailings have few cars, same as B.C. roads in the wee hours. But Interior ferries run empty sometimes, where no service cuts are proposed, despite being free to ride. Many coastal runs cut based on low-utilization sell out mid-day, and off-peak sailings carry essential goods and shift workers.

The province’s solution is bad for business. Compounding the impact of fare hikes as high as 142 per cent during 10 years, the government just cancelled lifeline ferry sailings with a few months’ notice. This is terrible for working families, tourism, businesses, and students finishing their school year. An island nurse says “My family and I are in a difficult place now; should we sell now and leave the island that has been my children’s home for their whole lives, my husband’s for 29 years or wait and see what happens next?” The chamber of commerce just estimated a $5.7-million loss to one island’s economy, from service cuts netting $400,000. The government did no economic assessment, belying its stated commitment to family and economy.