Members of the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District Board continued to plan a way to fight back against the proposed ferry fare increases at their monthly meeting last Friday.
Members of the board invited local MLA, Gary Coons, to help come up with a way to stop the price of a ferry trip from doubling over the next four years.
Coons suggested that they put pressure on Steve Smith who is the Northern representative on BC Ferries’ board of directors, and to Dan Miller who is appointed representative.
“I think directly appealing to Steve and to Dan who are on the board saying ‘this can’t happen.’ Because they are the ones who are supposedly rubber-stamping the decision being made by the CEO,” says Coons.
Coons says that the whole North Coast needs to come together as a region, including the First Nations and make their displeasure known as widely as possible in the provincial government, and possibly even the federal government.
“Pulling together as a region is what we’ve got to do, and the Prince Rupert Chamber [of Commerce] is equally concerned about the issue,” says Coons.
After a heated discussion, it the board decided to approach the Coastal Community Network, of which the regional district is a member, to organize a lobbying effort aimed at the ministry of transport, in the hopes that they can be convinced to increase the government subsidy for BC ferries, so that fares will not have to be raised.
The board also agreed to send an invitation to Transport Minister, Blair Lekstrom, to the North Central Local Government Association Convention which is taking place later this year so that local politicians can discuss the issue with him directly.
If these doesn't work, the board says it does not have a “plan B.”
In that same meeting, the new 5-year budget for the regional district was official passed. According to board chair, Barry Pages, there was very little public input in the month-long budgeting process, but that the board is satisfied with the amount of input that did take place.
It was also decided that communities in areas C and D (Sandspit and Rural Graham Island) will have to spend $10,000 to emergency preparedness, an action prompted by the Tsunami warning for the North Coast and Haida Gwaii during the recent Japanese earthquake.
The board may looking into similar projects for the mainland communities,but the earliest that could happen would be next month's meeting.
The mayor of Queen Charlotte, Carol Kulesha, expressed concern on how much property taxes for the few hundred households on the islands would have to be raised to spend that much money. The tax increase had not been calculated, Electoral Area Director for Sandspit, Evan Putterill said that they didn’t have the choice not to take precautions for similar emergencies in the future.