After a brief hiatus, the Queen of Capilano’s 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. sailings on Sunday and Tuesday from Snug Cove and Horseshoe Bay will return as of June 19.
BC Ferries is restoring the runs until September following a deal with a province that will see the province paying for discretionary sailings cut as a COVID cost-saving measure. Bowen’s new schedule came into effect June 16. The Vancouver Sun reports that the province is providing funding of around $180,000 to restore cut sailings across 11 routes.
“Obviously we weren’t the only community that had been impacted by these discretionary sailings being cut,” said Bowen Island Ferry Advisory Committee chair Melanie Mason Thursday. “So there’s been a lot of conversation happening…between the FACs and BC Ferries and a lot of discussion as well between BC Ferries and the ministry [of transportation].”
Other routes affected by these adjustments include Quadra-Campbell River, Quadra-Cortes, Buckley Bay-Denman, Denman-Hornby, Crofton-Vesuvius, Gabriola-Nanaimo, Comox-Powell River, Powell River-Texada, Saltery Bay-Earls Cove and between the two Haida Gwaii main islands.
As it stands, the Saturday and Tuesday runs are to be removed after the Labour Day weekend as they’re still considered discretionary. Mason said that the FAC is still advocating to get the sailings restored permanently.
“We’re hopeful,” said Mason. “I’ve just gotten off a conference call with the minister [of transportation] and they are aware that these types of sailings have fallen through the cracks.”
The discretionary sailings are leftover from sailings cut in 2014 but restored in 2017 and not added to the core services contract in 2019 when the province mandated that remainder of the sailings cut in 2014 be restored. There are therefore two regular Queen of Capilano runs not in the core service agreement.
“I’m very grateful for this news,” said Mason. She said that the FAC had heard concerns from the community––on Sundays from those wanting to travel within the province for a weekend and on Tuesdays from commuters. “This is good.”
