BC Ferries passenger questions enforcement of mandatory mask policy

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) — A frustrated passenger wants BC Ferries to do more to enforce the mandatory mask policy, after counting more than a dozen people flouting the requirement without consequences on a recent sailing.

Face coverings once again became mandatory in all indoor public spaces in the province on Aug. 25, a move triggered by rising COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations.

Diane Tourell says she oneboarded a busy 2 p.m. sailing between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay recently, she would have preferred to stay in her car, but that wasn’t possible. When she went upstairs and took a seat, she was shocked by how many people seemed to be flagrantly defying the rule.

“When I started looking around, I was surprised to see the number of people, either with no mask at all, or with it around their chin, or over their mouth but not their nose. At one point I started counting and just from my seat in the forward lounge, I could see 12 people that didn’t have a mask on,” she says, adding she noticed the same thing in the cafeteria where people were leaving their masks off well-beyond the time it took them to finish eating or drinking.

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BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall says there are a number of things being done to ensure and encourage compliance, and travel bans are among the consequences for those who defy the policy.

“What I can tell you is that we do make announcements on board, reminding customers that masks are mandatory in all indoor spaces at BC Ferries for anybody 12 years of age or older, and our staff do walk around the vessel. If they see somebody without a mask, they will approach them and tell them about the policy,” she says, adding these conversations happen on a daily basis.

“Most customers do take it in stride, but on occasion, there are some irate customers out there, and again we would have to escalate that situation to a supervisor, security personnel, or the police. We do want to remind our customers we have a zero-tolerance policy for abuse of our staff.”

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But Tourell says she didn’t see or hear any of these things happening.

“There was one announcement at the beginning of the sailing, tucked in between ‘how you put your lifejacket on’ and ‘what’s on offer in the cafeteria.’ That was it. There were not frequent announcements,” she says.

“There were no BC Ferries staff, they weren’t walking around the way they often are especially on a full ferry. I think to have a policy and then not enforce it — it sends the wrong message.

Tourell says she understands if staff are reluctant to approach unmasked passengers, but she says trained security could be hired to solve that problem.

“It’s in an increasingly small number of people that aren’t wearing masks and aren’t vaccinated, but those are the angriest people as far as I can see,” she says.

“We’re in the middle of a pandemic with increasingly easy to catch variants circulating, and it seems to me that they’re out abdicating their responsibility by just not doing a better job of enforcement.”