Last year, Nova Scotia taxpayers shelled out $17.8 million for a ferry that didn’t go anywhere, and it looks like this year we’ll drop another boatload of cash for the same thing.
Bay Ferries says it will be July 15, at the earliest, before it starts operating the ferry — known as The Cat — between Yarmouth and Bar Harbor, Maine. That’s only if the Canada-U.S. border reopens and the chance of that happening any time soon is somewhere between nil and zilch.
Nova Scotia’s Liberal government budgeted $16.3 million this year for the service, although Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines has said the province and Bay Ferries will look for ways to reduce that price tag if the border stays closed.
A break on the ferry’s cost to the province would be a welcome change from last year, when it went $4 million over budget. The additional money paid for a bunch of stuff in Bar Harbor so that the tony little town could accommodate The Cat, its stillnotional passengers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The ferry service between Nova Scotia and Maine last operated in 2018, when Portland was the U.S. port of call.
Bay Ferries decided to change to Bar Harbor beginning in the 2019 season, but delays getting the aforementioned amenities in place resulted in sailings being cancelled for the entire season.
While last year’s big bill for the ferry that didn’t sail has the markings of bad planning, bad luck and bad management of a bad deal, COVID-19 is to blame this year. Even so, paying big bucks for an idle ferry still feels like a lousy deal for the province’s taxpayers.
The Canada-U.S. border has been closed — by mutual agreement — to all but essential traffic since March 21. The travel ban between the two countries has been extended twice already and is currently set to expire June 21. Sources in both countries say the border closure and travel ban will be extended again, likely for another 30 days to July 21, leaving The Cat with nowhere to go for the foreseeable future.
Travel restrictions have tourism operators provincewide looking at a tough season, and those in the southwest face a second successive dismal year. Year over year, tourism was off by about 20 per cent in southwestern Nova Scotia last summer and the loss of the ferry service is cited as the main cause.
The millions of dollars that the province pours into the ferry service cover the gap between the operating costs and the money collected in fares, as well as an undisclosed management fee to the operator, Bay Ferries. That management fee has become the source of some political controversy.
Nova Scotia Conservative Leader Tim Houston appealed to the courts, seeking disclosure of the fee after the provincial government refused to give up the number.
The province’s former information and privacy commissioner, Catherine Tully, had ruled that the management fee was public information under the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Realistically, the likelihood of the Canada-u.s. border opening in time for The Cat to operate this summer is remote. The border was closed to contain the spread of the coronavirus and, while COVID-19 seems to be under control across much of Canada, and certainly in Atlantic Canada, the same can’t be said for the United States.
The U.S. has the highest rate of infection among developed countries, and last week 21 American states recorded their highest number of new COVID-19 cases to date.
Only 14 per cent of Canadians want to see the border reopened by the end of July, and 51 per cent say it should not be reopened before the end of the year, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies’ COVID-19 Social Impacts Network.
A ferry isn’t a cruise ship, but it’s likely relevant to The Cat’s immediate future that Canada has banned cruise ships that carry more than 100 passengers from Canadian ports until at least the end of October. The Cat has a 700-passenger capacity.
Whether Nova Scotians get value for the money spent on the ferry — when it’s operating — is open to debate. The government has never produced a costs-benefits analysis of the service.
The sole purpose of the ferry is to bring tourists to Nova Scotia, but, this year and last, Nova Scotians will sink $34 million or thereabouts into the operation and not get a single tourist in return.
