When BC Ferries brings two-vessel service to the Vesuvius-Crofton route by 2027, both will homeport on Vancouver Island rather than Salt Spring — a business decision made and settled, according to the company’s chief executive officer (CEO).
Ferry company CEO Nicolas Jimenez faced criticism from local elected officials, staff and the ferry-dependent public Friday, June 27, as a returning guest at the ASK Salt Spring forum. Around 30 islanders peppered Jimenez with questions and critiques on ferry issues generally — and on that homeporting issue most specifically.
Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC) had last week joined the broader Capital Regional District (CRD) board and the BC Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union in opposing the plan, largely over local job and community loss fears. Salt Spring’s CRD director Gary Holman reiterated those concerns directly to Jimenez Friday, backed up by fellow LCC members Earl Rook and Brian Webster.
All three decried the lack of “meaningful” consultation with local elected officials — the ferry company later pointed to an April 15 briefing call that included Holman, although the LCC wasn’t specifically invited.
And all three, with public support in the room, urged Jimenez to reconsider an alternative “dual-homeporting” plan first suggested by the union — to keep one ferry on each side overnight, meaning some crew could still easily live on Salt Spring and work on the vessel.
That did not appear likely.
“We made this decision, and there are lots of business reasons for it,” said Jimenez. “You may not agree with what we’re saying, and I respect that, but running a system as challenging as the one we’ve got, sometimes you make hard decisions that benefit most, but not all — because it’s better than the version of whatever operating parameters you have currently.”
As Holman and others pointed to the current dual-homeporting arrangement in place on the Gabriola Island/Nanaimo route, Jimenez said the situation wasn’t exactly comparable.
“For one, they don’t have a hospital on Gabriola,” said Jimenez. “Having the homeport provides some level of support service there. In the event there are issues and water taxis aren’t available, then our teams can be deployed.”
Another difference, Jimenez said, was that the Gabriola route stands alone on that island — whereas Salt Spring has two other terminals.
“In fact, this island has more terminals than any other part of our network,” said Jimenez.
But the big underlying concern for the ferry company, he said, was attracting — and keeping — licensed officer crew members. Jimenez said that highly certified segment represented the bulk of the company’s system-wide staff, and as a group they have a lot of career options, all over the world.
“Just coming over on the Quinsam this morning, one [crew member] had been working on the Great Lakes before, another was working ‘deep sea’ before he came here,” said Jimenez. “People choose to come here, which is great, but they also have choices to go work for other operators.”
And while he agreed he had met many crew members who “loved” being on Salt Spring, he said there remained a stubbornly high turnover rate here among those difficult-to-recruit officers — pointing out the average cost of a Salt Spring home is twice that of one in the Cowichan Valley area — and that it had memorably affected BC Ferries’ ability to provide on-time sailings, when they’ve been unable to field adequate regular or relief crew.
“The challenge we have is to provide an environment where we can faithfully provide service — and not put it at risk with that high turnover rate,” said Jimenez. “That’s just a simple fact; you might not believe me, but that is the reality of your network.”
On the matter of electrification, according to Jimenez, while the two hybrid-electric Island Class ferries that will serve the Vesuvius-Crofton route are indeed capable of running fully under electric power — and the same class of ferry will soon do so elsewhere, on the Gabriola Island/Nanaimo and Quadra Island/Campbell River routes — the infrastructure needed to charge the vessels serving Salt Spring is at least five years away, if not more.
Jimenez said for the moment, all that could be said of any effort to build a charging station that might serve that route was that it was “not in the five-year plan.”