BC Ferries CEO responds to long weekend cancellations and glitches; mayor demands change

After a busy long weekend with cancellations, delays and a website outage, the head of BC Ferries is addressing what happened.

Nicolas Jimenez was not put up to speak on the issues during the May long weekend, but spoke with Global News on Tuesday.

He said despite some unfortunate events, including the cancellation of all Saturday night sailings to and from Bowen Island, over 400,000 people travelled on ferries over the long weekend.

Still, Jimenez said the corporation could’ve done a better job at communicating with the public when the website went down on Monday.

“Could we do better? We can always do better. I think that is clear,” he said.

“So, we take every opportunity, like this one, to make sure we build in better practices in the future to make sure when customers can’t reliably get into our systems, they at least know why.”

The crash came from an issue in the corporation’s Kamloops data centre, he added.

When pressed on the sailing cancellations to and from Bowen Island, Jimenez said it speaks to the larger issue of staffing levels.

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“For mariners, one of their biggest issues is not technology, it’s not vessels, it’s people,” he said.

“Coupled with that, we’re coming on the heels of a pandemic, which really disrupted labour markets.”

But that explanation wasn’t good enough for the mayor of Bowen Island, who had spoken with Jimenez earlier in the day.

Andrew Leonard said the delays over the long weekend point to the deterioration of ferry service in his community.

“It feels certainly like we’re at a tipping point and something has to give,” Leonard told Global News.

“We need BC Ferries, we need the provincial government to come to the table with us and get actual solutions instead of just conversations of like, ‘Oh, we hear you and change is coming.’ That’s the story that we’ve been hearing for the last number of years.”

While Leonard acknowledges the staffing shortfalls, he said BC Ferries is unfairly targeting smaller routes for cancellations, when he believes those routes require fewer resources to maintain a consistent schedule.

“BC Ferries sent out press releases that were boasting 100 additional sailings between the mainland and Vancouver Island. And yet it was the smallest boat, Bowen Island’s boat, the only one that experienced cancellations,” he said.

“And it affected us in a disproportionate way because of our smaller infrastructure, our smaller island, and our inability to really absorb or cope with that kind of pressure when it’s left on us.”

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Hundreds of tourists were stuck in the small community with no hotels, Leonard added.

Short-term solutions could include assured loading for residents and ferry marshalling to help deal with traffic congestion, he said.

But he’s still worried things will get worse as the summer travel season ramps up.

“It’s really anxiety-provoking. It cuts us off from the mainland. It has us feel like second-class citizens,” he said.

“We have tourists that are sleeping in their cars or scrambling to find accommodations overnight. It’s not a good experience for them and it creates a public safety issue on this side of the island.”