A day after the New Brunswick government announced the addition of a new $6.5-million ferry to its current fleet, residents in the Village of Gagetown, N.B. say they are keeping a close eye on where the new ferry will be going. They also say that they won’t give up the fight to have ferry service reinstated to their region.
Area-resident Robert Stoney is one of several residents with a “mixed reaction” to the news.
“I’m pleased that the government is finally looking to invest some money into aging ferry infrastructure, but it strikes me as odd that in making this investment and committing $6.5 million to a new ferry that the only thing the minister could definitively say is where it’s not going — that being Gagetown,” Stoney said.
New Brunswick Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Bill Fraser said the new ferry will go to a high volume crossing area.
“We have six river ferries servicing the greater upper river valley area, so we have six different sites where these ferries operate out of,” Fraser said. “One of those sites is the Kennebecasis Island ferry which currently is a rental ferry, so we pay $750,000 a year rent to use that vessel so by purchasing this new ferry it will go within our existing fleet and we will be able to return the rental.”
Fraser said the province has procured the new vessel and said it’s currently under construction and he expects delivery sometime next fall.
READ MORE: Gagetown residents fight for their ferry at the NB Legislature
“It will replace one of the ferries that has the higher runs and then that ferry would replace the Kennbecasis one,” Fraser said.
Fraser told Global News the new ferry shows the government’s commitment to the river ferry system but said Gagetown won’t be getting a ferry back.
‘Save the Gagetown-Jemseg Ferry’ committee member and area-resident Hugh Harmon said while it’s good news for other communities who also rely on ferries, he said this week’s news stings.
READ MORE: Future of Gagetown ferry unknown
Harmon said he and other residents will continue the fight for a ferry into next fall, no matter which party is in power.
“We’ve had to make some difficult decisions as a government when we were first elected in 2014. We inherited a financial mess really and we spent two years trying to get our finances in order and we went through a strategic program review process where we had to make some very difficult decisions. One of those decisions was to eliminate the ferry in Gagetown and when I became minister of DTI approximately a little over a year ago I met with several people in the community of Gagetown and I was very clear with them that the decision has been made and we wouldn’t be reversing that decision,” Fraser said.
Stoney said he’s shocked by the province’s “utter intransigence” on the issue.
READ MORE: Village of Gagetown residents continue to fight for ferry, meet with Opposition leader
“The minister has said a number of times in his comments that ‘the issue is dead, the issue is closed, it will be not revisited, we are not having any more discussions with Gagetown. That in my mind is not indicative of a government that is actually willing to listening to the people, to hear the concerns of its constituency and to come up with reasonable, meaningful and effective solutions,” Stoney said.
“I understand that people are upset with that and I feel for them, but we made the decision and we’re not going to be reversing the decision,” Fraser said.
READ MORE: Residents fighting to bring back the Gagetown ferry
Fraser said the new ferry will be deployed to an area where it will get the most use and said the current ferry will go to replace the rental vessel being used in Kennebecasis, an area the minister said had fairly low ridership.
Stoney said that ferry has lower ridership numbers than the Gagetown ferry and disagrees with the minister’s decision to remove the ferry partly because of what he said was lower ridership.
Fraser said low ridership and the fact that the ferry didn’t pass a safety inspection lead to its removal.
“My understanding is that if they looked at the numbers of the Gagetown ferry on a regular basis, the numbers of the Gagetown ferry would be four times higher than that of the Kennebecasis Island, so when the government tries to say the Gagetown ferry was the lowest ridership in the fleet, that’s just not true,” Stoney said.
“I don’t have the exact numbers but what I can tell you is that the ferry in Gagetown when it was in operation had the lowest ridership numbers of the fleet and there was an alternate route that was readily available for residents in the area and that factored into the decision along with the fact that the vessel that was in operation had to be taken out of operation,” Fraser said.
Gagetown-Petitcodiac MLA Ross Wetmore said the news of a new ferry has given him an idea, and he said he plans to present a proposal to opposition leader Blaine Higgs in the coming weeks. Details were vague, but Wetmore said he hopes it’s something Higgs will accept.
“What I can tell you is that with a ferry being added to the fleet, that I believe that the proposal that I’m going to be bringing forward should be very acceptable I’m hoping to the leader of the opposition and hopefully the new premier of New Brunswick after next September,” Wetmore said.
“Any proposal that is willing to work with the community and is willing to look at effective solutions to the problem that we have is better than what we’re getting from the current government, which is ‘no, no no'” Stoney said.
Comments