Bay Ferries Ltd. of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, has announced plans to end ferry service between Saint John, New Brunswick, and Digby, Nova Scotia, on Oct. 31.
The year-round service employs 100 workers and has provided transportation for Nova Scotia businesses for more than 50 years, chief among them the fish packing industry. It also provides transportation for American tourists who don’t want to the expense of taking THE CAT to Nova Scotia, either from Bar Harbor or Portland. THE CAT is owned and operated by Bay Ferries.
At press time, efforts were underway to keep the ferry in service. These included a July demonstration in Digby that drew several hundred participants, and a working group consisting of the federal government’s Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), Transport Canada, the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and community stakeholders.
At the same time, Denny Morrow, executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association, said, ” I am leading an informal industry committee of seafood and forest product shippers separately from the government guys on this. I am trying to arrange a meeting with Bay Ferries officials and our committee (no government present).”
Morrow added, “The federal and provincial governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick must negotiate a short-term 10 -12 month extension of the existing ferry service between Digby, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick in order to maintain the vital transportation link for seafood shippers.”
According to Morrow, in excess of 1,500 transport trucks use the Digby ferry annually to get product to New England and central Canadian market centers.
Bay Ferries president and CEO Mark MacDonald said the shutdown of the MV PRINCESS OF ACADIA has been caused by a “combination of problems: declining revenues and rising fuel costs.”
He explained, “We took it over in 1997 from the government which had subsidized the operation. We had no subsidy, but we were able to make a go of it until changes in the economic situation in the past several years made it impossible to continue. If the service is to continue, it will take some kind of government involvement.”