The PacifiCat Explorer, which went into service in 1999. Courtesy BC Ferry Corp.

At the beginning of April, 2003, the provincial government completed the privatization of British Columbia's fleet of coastal ferries. For the first time since 1961 the ferries, symbols of the coast, are owned and operated by a private company. The BC Ferry Corporation, a Crown Corporation, was officially replaced by BC Ferry Services Inc., with a new logo (stylized blue waves), a new management structure and a new mandate to make the system profitable. BC Ferry Services will operate the fleet on contract for the government in return for an annual payment, set at $105 million for 2003.

The BC Ferry Corporation goes all the way back to the days of W.A.C. Bennett and his Social Credit government. When a labour dispute shut down the privately-owned ferries running between Vancouver Island and the mainland in 1958, Bennett decided that the provincial government should go into the ferry business itself. The first two vessels began service between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen in the summer of 1960; the following year the province purchased the rival Black Ball Line and took over the Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo run as well. Over the years the fleet grew to its present size of 38 vessels travelling on 24 routes, one of the largest ferry systems in the world. Initially a branch of the ministry of highways, BC Ferries was reorganized as a Crown Corporation in 1977.

But things began to go sour for the Corporation during the 1990s as it began piling up debt to pay for new vessels. The biggest money loser was the "fast ferry" fiasco. The government created a separate Crown Corporation to build three of these high-speed PacifiCat vessels at a combined cost of $454 million. The PacifiCats were state-of-the-art aluminum catamaran ferries with the ability to carry 1,000 passengers and 250 vehicles at speeds up to 70 km per hour. Unhappily for the government, they cost much more than expected and turned out to have a number of embarrassing operational deficiencies. The Ferry Corp. was forced to mothball them, and the scandal was one of the major factors contributing to the stunning defeat of the NDP government at the polls in 2001. In March 2003, the new Liberal government sold the PacifiCats at auction to the Washington Marine Group, a Montana-based transportation company that owns 14 marine-related subsidiaries in the province. Sale price? $19.2 million. The Group's CEO, Kyle Washington, would not rule out the possibility that the trouble-plagued vessels may yet see service somewhere in the world.

Meanwhile, the new BC Ferry Services Inc., minus the "fast ferries", is promising redesigned terminals, improved services for travellers, several new vessels and steadily escalating fares over the next five years. Fares will be set by agreement with the government and regulated by a government-appointed ferry commissioner. The commissioner also has the power to eliminate ferry service on a route if it is considered uneconomic to continue it. Clearly, a new era has begun in the history of coastal transportation.

For more information about BC Ferry Services Inc., visit its website at www.bcferries.bc.ca.