Ferry frustrations flare with violent threat at Sunshine Coast meeting

Frustrations are flaring on the southern Sunshine Coast, as people living in ferry-dependent communities deal with delays because of a reduction in service.

A recent community advisory meeting in Gibsons erupted into anger and threats, an indication of just how angry residents are at a loss of more than 30 BC Ferries sailings to and from Langdale in September.

“We’ll just have to learn to swim … I mean that’s the way people are starting to feel,” said Diana Mumford, chair of the Southern Sunshine Coast BC Ferry Advisory Committee.

“What next can they take from us?”

Last Wednesday’s committee meeting was a full house, with dozens of frustrated residents showing up to air their grievances in front of board members and BC Ferries officials.

“I had let BC Ferries know beforehand that I had heard there was a planned protest about ferry service,” Mumford told CityNews. “Our meeting was well-attended by community members and feelings were high. Someone made a comment about a gun that was totally inappropriate and not acceptable.”

Mumford says the comment was shouted from the back of the room, someone threatening to “take a gun” to everyone if there were not improvements to service but, with her back to the crowd, it was hard to tell who it came from.

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“Many of us couldn’t see who said it and nobody said anything to the person at the time. Our FAC didn’t and none of the BC Ferries staff did either. The concerns came about afterwards.”

Mumford says frustrations have been building after sailing cuts caused by BC Ferries shuffling services away from the Langdale route to deal with lengthy repairs to its Coastal Renaissance vessel, which normally services the Tsawwassen-Swartz Bay route.

As result, there is no capacity for supplemental sailings during busy times on the Langdale-Horseshoe Bay route and Mumford says there have been weekends in September where people have spent up to seven and half hours waiting for a sailing.

With back-to-back long weekends ahead and another major Spirit Class vessel soon to be docked for nine days of repair, Mumford expects conditions won’t improve anytime soon.

“This has been building,” she said.

“I think there is just a level of frustration that is not being addressed. I sent an email to the president of BC Ferries, to their board, to their commissioners expressing our concerns about it and the only response I got back was from a vice president who said we should plan a communication piece to tell people to travel at less busy times.”

Despite a lack of response from higher ups in the corporation, Mumford says local BC Ferries representatives at committee meetings have been receptive to community concerns.

“The people who were sitting at our meeting in Gibsons were listening intently and I believe they were honestly trying to find solutions within the parameters that they have. And that’s a challenge. We get that they can’t bring us a new boat tomorrow, but there is no second ferry planned for our route until 2029. We have several years of this to get through.”

The RCMP is looking into last Wednesday’s gun comment and Mumford says upcoming Sunshine Coast ferry advisory committee meetings have been moved online for now.

“We are very disappointed and upset that this event happened at our meeting. It has taken away from the value of the voices that were there … it is still important to deal with our issues,” she added.

“I am concerned that meetings for other ferry advisory committees are now being cancelled and put online. It’s taking away those voices so everybody is being punished by an absolutely deplorable decision by one person to make a comment.”