There are a couple of good recent articles that you should really read.
First, Dave Neads has written an excellent analyis on the Bridge-Free Salish Sea website. “The Big Picture” looks at the history of the BC Ferries management model, how it’s working out, and implications for the future, particularly with regard to bridges.
And secondly, another demonstration that implementing ferry cuts without a proper economic impact study is beyond clueless, as reported by Global News: BC Ferries service cuts has cost tourism industry millions.
On the subject-related NDP webpage,
[NDP leader John] Horgan said that rather than saving money, the study commissioned by the West Chilcotin Tourism Association showed that in this first year alone, the cuts made to the Discovery Coast Passage route (Route 40) cost the region $3.3 million in lost economic activity, and $3.9 million in lost tourism revenue.
“Even government took a direct hit,” said Horgan. “While the B.C. Liberals said they were aiming to save $725,000 per year by cutting the service, the study showed a loss of $870,000 in municipal, provincial and federal taxation in 2014.”
The report itself can be downloaded here.
Minister Todd Stone’s response? It’s a bad study. “This report, much like the first report that this same author did for the UBCM is riddled with all kinds of gross simplistic assumptions, and overstates in a number of ways the impacts of the change.”
But heaven forbid that the government should actually commission an economic impacts study. No no, it’s much cheaper—and economically efficient!—to criticize your opponents than provide actual independent data to contradict them.
