Tag Archives: BC Ferries

Transportation

Abuse, weapons threats to BC Ferries staff put public meetings on hold

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Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

B.C. Ferries abruptly cancelled all public community meetings and shifted local ferry committee meetings online Wednesday to protect employees citing a spike in aggression that includes gun threats and acts of vandalism. 

Public notice about moving the Cortes Island and Quadra Island ferry advisory committee (FAC) meeting online, and the outright cancellation of a subsequent community town hall session happened within hours of the two events scheduled for mid-day and at 3:30 p.m. respectively. 

It’s not entirely clear if it was a single incident or a compilation of incidents at different events that caused the cancellations, said Diana Mumford, chair of the Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee. 

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Tourism, Transportation

BC Ferries frustrates tourists ​– ​but they’re still lining up to come here

Originally published on qathet Living

So far this summer, 18 guests have cancelled their accommodations at the Old Courthouse Inn, due to problems with BC Ferries.

“It would have been many more, but I talked a lot of them down,” explained Kelly Belanger, who has owned the Inn for 11 years, and says he has never seen a summer like this before ​– ​​featuring unpredictable ferry overloads and cancellations.

“Most guests just look at the chaos as it’s being reported on the news, and believe they won’t be able to get here, so they call to cancel. I tell them, ‘No, actually, ferries are usually reliable. Get there two hours before your sailing and you’ll probably get on.’

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Transportation

Ferry cancellations on the mid-West Coast became more frequent starting this spring

Originally published on qathet Living

Editor’s note: Tensions boiled over at a recent Sunshine Coast ferry advisory committee meeting (FAC), and a woman said she would ‘take a gun’ to everyone’ if there weren’t changes.  

Each quarter, BC Ferries releases thorough data about ferry cancellations on its website (bcferries.com/in-the-community/resources). Stats are currently available until June of this year; the July through September stats will be released as a full data set in the fall.  

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Transportation

Ferry Advisory Committee: Cortes and Quadra talk to BC Ferries

Cortes Island’s Ferry Advisory committee met (via Webex, a Zoom-like conferencing app) on the afternoon of Wednesday September 27th at 12:30pm. The meeting had originally been scheduled as a “town hall” style event at Mansons Hall; however, at the last minute BC Ferries announced that their FAC meetings would be held online, due to threats of violence from the public.

Though such threatening behaviour seemed unlikely on Cortes Island, BCF’s policy apparently applies across the board. The last-minute change of venue caused some confusion, but approximately thirty people joined the videoconference call on Wednesday (including BC Ferries staff and FAC members).

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Arts

Why is Lovefest such an ongoing success?

Image credit: Kim Pauley singing ‘The Book of Right On’ during Wiley Ferguson’s performance – Igor Backmann photo

(The podcast of this program opens with a clip of saxophone player Dave Blinzinger’s version of the blues classic ‘Route 66,’ in which he added lyrics like ‘Get your kicks right here on Cortes Island’ and ‘When you take that Linnea Farm trip, get your kicks on Route 66.’)

I can’t take too much heat anymore and had to pack it in by 4:30, but it was already apparent that this year’s Lovefest was another success. 

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