Premier David Eby wants to see the federal government give BC Ferries passengers a break in light of Prime Minister Mark Carney cutting travel fees in Atlantic Canada.
Carney announced halving fares for passengers, vehicles, and commercial traffic on federally supported Eastern Canada ferry services starting Aug. 1.
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At a media event Monday, Eby reacted to the announcement, describing it as part of an ongoing “structural unfairness.”
“The time has come to address that unfairness,” the B.C. premier said.
Eby claims B.C. contributes billions of dollars annually to other provinces in equalization payments, while Atlantic ferry riders already enjoy 300 times the amount in fare subsidies.
“It’s time for them to up the federal subsidy that is unchanged for almost 20 years in British Columbia, while East Coast ferry users continue to see benefits from the federal government,” said Eby.
The so-called imbalance, he says, has been a “long-standing grievance” between multiple B.C. premiers and multiple federal governments. But Eby says there’s a straightforward solution.
“We need the same per capita funding, the same per-person funding that any other province gets through any other announcement that’s made across the country. It doesn’t have to be the same — we’re not the same as other jurisdictions — but it has to be an equal amount of funding available to provinces based on the number of people that live there,” said Eby.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s an economic program, a subsidy for ferries, subsidies for road building, subsidies for immigration, health-care funding, child-care funding — you name it, equal funding is the answer.”
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Eby says he’ll meet with Liberal MPs from B.C. later Monday to discuss how to ensure the province remains “on the radar” of the federal government for opportunities such as ferry subsidies.
“We’re going to do all we can to make sure that that’s the case, that we’re front of mind, and that Ottawa is considering, when they launch a new program, how other provinces can participate on an equal basis.”
