FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2026
Expanded Sailings and Community Input Mark Progress on Ferry Service
Gibsons, BC — We all agree that we need improvements to our ferry service. The independent Ferry Commission affirmed this in its unprecedented service review released last month, prescribing that “the community, BC Ferries, BC Ferry Authority and the government work together to seek a creative solution.”

The word “creative” is necessary because potential service expansion today is constrained by hard realities. BC Ferries has not been a Crown corporation, able to rack up tax-dollar debt as a government service (like highways), for 23 years. Many of us wish it still was, but successive premiers from different political parties have assured us we’re not going back.

The Commissioners’ report also confirmed that BC Ferries is meeting its contractual obligation to the government for essential service on the Sunshine Coast, which may be good news in some respects but not something we can use to push for change.

And perhaps most problematically, significant operational challenges and economic conditions in the service will be increasing costs for all of us just to keep the status quo. There will need to be a significant government subsidy to fuel BC Ferries through its next performance term (it was $500 million last time), and last month’s review confirms that especially on our route, the operating costs are grim. And we all know the BC Budget looks no more promising.

Finally, no vessel replacements for our route are scheduled until 2038.

We can all easily blame provincial governments for policy decisions going back decades—but this isn’t going to get us a shiny, fully-staffed $250-million vessel show up at the Langdale terminal tomorrow morning, or a $2-billion-BC-budget-breaking cheque signed by David Eby. As local elected representatives, we need to operate in reality, and this is why the Commissioners are calling upon us to represent our communities in the hard work for a “creative” solution, which does not mean a fantasy solution.

So, given where we are at, we first need to ask how we can better utilize the sailings we have, for both locals and visitors, which we currently don’t even do well in the summer when we get hourly sailings. Last summer, capacity utilization was only 63% overall—many sailings were full, but others were half-full, or less.

Especially considering the hourly summer service, most of us would probably acknowledge the service we get is great, most of the time. It just isn’t that handful of times per year that we really need to get somewhere, which is still unacceptable. (And granted, for those of us who require higher-than-average ferry service, it can be more than a handful.)

Our biggest problem right now is our shoulder seasons just before and after the summer hourly sailings—mid-May to late June, and September to Thanksgiving. This is a substantial part of the year that I have had to describe as “chaos” in recent media interviews. Medical appointments, children’s sports and cultural activities, visits to loved ones, and business trips do not pause for shoulder season.

So, I am pleased to report that BC Ferries has informed me that they are responding to this problem by adding two more afternoon sailings (a total of 120 this year) to our shoulder seasons, which will go a long way to stabilizing shoulder-season travel.

BC Ferries is also expanding its “Saver” program of offering lower fares for off-peak runs, to offer us a better deal for selecting sailings with space. The trade-off that allows them to offer these improvements, operationally, is increasing reservable space on the popular sailings to give BC Ferries more certainty on demand.

I’ve also been assured that although BC Ferries envisions an average of an 80% reservation cap being viable on our route, they will not shift up to this number without more community engagement and feedback, driven by data. The Town of Gibsons is supporting this ongoing community feedback process by forming a new locally appointed and administered Ferry Advisory Committee that will be open to Coast-wide membership and other local government liaisons. The process for applications will be advertised soon.

On behalf of our community, we will be insisting that future service changes toward a solution be incremental, flexible, consultative and transparent. We can accept that changes to operational procedures like schedules, fares and reservations can be fluid based on community needs and demand—but if these changes do not result in a more efficient and reliable service, including to get us back and forth to medical appointments and kids’ sporting activities, we will be reminding BC Ferries, the Commission, the Ferry Authority and the provincial government how easy it is to dial back on reservations, or to protect necessary local travel to the Mainland in some other way.

Seeking a “creative solution” will be an iterative process, and it is only just beginning. We appreciate both BC Ferries and the BC Ferry Authority for reaching out in recent days to improve communications with our community, and for their commitment to offering a better ferry service to the Sunshine Coast—something we can all definitely agree on.

– Silas White, Mayor of Gibsons