Merchants in Horseshoe Bay were breathing a sigh of relief Thursday after Transportation Minister Todd Stone took less than 24 hours to kill a plan to cut the Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay ferry run.
Stone said Wednesday the provincial government has "no interest in seeing the cancellation of the Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo run."
Stone's comments torpedoed a proposal floated in a B.C. Ferries report to the B.C. Ferries Commissioner at the end of September that could have seen the ferry route cancelled in the name of cost cutting.
Holly Kemp, manager of Troll's Restaurant and president of the Horseshoe Bay Business Association, said that proposal has been on the radar of local business for over a year, since West Vancouver MLA Jordan Sturdy first told her it might be considered.
Horseshoe Bay businesses were determined to fight the plan, said Kemp, knowing the loss of the Nanaimo route would spell the end for many of them.
Currently, the Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay route carries about 1.2 million vehicles and 3.3 million passengers annually.
Kemp said once they got wind of it, the business association hired a lobbyist and started talking to key stakeholders in Victoria.
But it wasn't until this week that the public actually saw the plan in writing.
Reaction was swift, said Kemp, with most travellers calling the idea "an absolute outrage."
According to the B.C. Ferries report, one key reason for considering the plan is a seismic upgrade needed to the upper loading area at the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal that could cost the corporation between $200 million and $250 million.
But on Wednesday, Stone said B.C. Ferries will have to come up with other ways of "whittling down" that quarter billion dollar cost.
Stone also kiboshed the idea of eliminating one of the two Nanaimo ferry terminals and running a passenger-only ferry service between Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay.
Kemp said Thursday she's pleased to see "the whole idea (of cutting the Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay ferry route) is dead in the water."
She said she was amazed at how quickly Stone apparently put an end to the plan. "If that's how quickly he responds to public outcry, we need to do it more often," she said.
Stone said Wednesday that hearing from his Liberal MLAs on Vancouver Island as well as Sturdy, who also serves as his parliamentary secretary, convinced him to put a quick end to the proposal.
Kemp added that until final decisions are made about how to get the ferry corporation out of deep financial water, "I'm still going to feel on edge about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it."
"He's a politician," she said of Stone. "Gordon Campbell told us we weren't going to get the HST."
Kemp said she still feels the ferry system should be run as a public service under the Ministry of Transportation. "I pay taxes. I paid for the new Port Mann Bridge and I will probably never drive over it," she said.
Kemp added the federal government should also put more money into the ferry system.
