Bowen Island mayor calls for change after hundreds stranded by weekend ferry cancellations

It was anything but smooth sailing for BC Ferries over the long weekend — with Bowen Island residents and visitors getting the worst of it.

Along with a mass outage to its systems, there were a number of cancellations that left hundreds of people stranded going to or from Bowen Island.

In a tweet Saturday, BC Ferries said the cancellations were because it was “unable to secure the required crew.”

#ServiceNotice #HorseshoeBay #SnugCove #QofCapilano As BCF was unable to secure the required crew, all sailings today from #Vancouver to #BowenIsland, starting with the 3:30pm sailing, have been cxl’d. Water taxis to provide service on the route.

More: https://t.co/fE8RfVcaNo^at

— BC Ferries (@BCFerries) May 20, 2023

Bowen Island Mayor Andrew Leonard is calling for the company to restore a basic level of service, adding that he wants to see a reliable service that allows visitors and residents to get to where they need to be.

“I just find it so disappointing that on a weekend when BC Ferries is sending out press releases that were boasting about 100 additional sailings between the mainland and Vancouver Island, that it was Bowen…that had to shoulder their staff shortages. Especially, given the smaller infrastructure that we have here and really, our difficulty in accommodating folks that are trapped on the island,” he said.

Leonard says that the island wasn’t equipped to handle the influx of unexpected visitors and many were left without a place to go.

“We had hundreds of tourists that were trapped on Bowen Island, and as staff, and residents, and as a community, we were scrambling to deal with an overnight influx on an island of 4,200 people and no hotels. We had people sleeping in their cars,” he said.

While he says he’s appreciative of B.C. government efforts to subsidize fare costs — he says that benefit isn’t really there if you can’t depend on the service.

“It happened in the winter, it happened a couple of months ago, and it happened now where the ferry service gets cancelled. Bowen Island has to shoulder the outcomes of that and there’s no commitments or investment or anything made to shore up what is only linked to the mainland,” he said.

Leonard says he’s hopeful of having meetings with BC Ferries and other parties, including the province, to figure out a way to address these ongoing issues.

“I would love to see BC Ferries come to the table. I would love to see the province come to the table. we’re open to having constructive dialogue about solutions and what we can do. But we just need to actually get together and do it and see some firm commitments,” he said.

With files from Emily Marsten