A Bowen Island man who collected signatures of almost 40 per cent of island residents asking the province to reconsider cuts to ferry service says he's unhappy his Liberal MLA Jordan Sturdy isn't making the issue a bigger deal.
Andrew Pietrow gave the petition to Sturdy - who is also parliamentary secretary to Transportation Minister Todd Stone - earlier this month, but says it wasn't until the NDP ferry critic Claire Trevena got involved that Sturdy presented the petition with about 1,300 signatures to the legislature on Tuesday.
But Pietrow said even when he did that, Sturdy didn't describe what the petition was about, say how many people had signed it or make any public statements questioning the ferry cuts.
"I want him to do more," said Pietrow. "He needs to step up to the plate and do something."
B.C. Ferries is planning to cut the first two sailings on Saturday morning and the first and third sailings Sunday morning between Horseshoe Bay and Snug Cove, as well as one of the last round trips on Sunday to save $270,000 on that route. The cuts - which come into effect at the end of April - are among $14 million being made to minor ferry
routes to save money for the financially troubled ferry corporation.
Pietrow, who moved to the island from North Vancouver three years ago to raise his family, said Bowen is essentially a suburb of the Lower Mainland with a community that has developed relying on regular ferry service. "People move to small towns like Bowen Island for family life," he said. "Where are the family values? They expect us to swim across?" Pietrow said he feels Sturdy has put his allegiances to his party ahead of those of his constituents. "If he really represented Bowen Island he'd be saying 'Minister Stone, half of the voters on Bowen Island have a problem with the service cuts.'" But Sturdy says it's not true he hasn't been standing up for Bowen residents. Sturdy said publicly embarrassing his government isn't likely to do constituents any favours. "What would your assessment be of how my minister and my caucus colleagues would take that?" he said.
Sturdy said he has instead been raising the issue in caucus and in private discussions with Stone. "I'll have to be the judge of how I can be most effective on behalf of the residents of Bowen," he said.
Jack Adelaar, the mayor of Bowen Island, said the proposed ferry cuts do pose a hardship for residents and businesses on Bowen. "People are upset," he said. "We're affected on the same basis as every other community that relies on ferries."
But Adelaar said he thinks Sturdy has been working on behalf of island residents behind the scenes. "Jordan's been advocating for us from Day 1. He's in the right portfolio. He talks to his boss pretty much every day."
Claire Trevena, the NDP ferry critic, said Sturdy has been conspicuously silent on the issue of ferry cutbacks. "It's clearly an issue that's an embarrassment," she said.
Trevena said Sturdy didn't stand up and say anything about the ferry service cutbacks during the public consultation meeting on Bowen, or since in the legislature. That's what MLAs are elected to do, she said. "They're not elected to be the mouthpiece of the government."
Pietrow said while his own municipal council hasn't passed a resolution endorsing his petition, he has been asking for support from the three North Shore municipalities.
So far, the City of North Vancouver has backed Pietrow's campaign.
