Yarmouth and Ferry Service

NS: A ferry will sink without federal funding, insists Pink
By Tina Comeau, Transcontinental Media

Source: The Vanguard, January 14, 2011

[YARMOUTH, NS] — As people dream of a return of ferry service for Yarmouth, a councillor with the town of Yarmouth says people in government are dreaming if they think a service can operate without some form of government subsidy.

And Martin Pink says despite all of the talk and the effort, with no ferry for another year Yarmouth finds itself in the same boat today that it was in a year ago.

At council’s January 13 meeting, Pink passed a motion calling on the mayors and wardens of southwestern Nova Scotia to get together as a group and call for a meeting with MPs Peter MacKay and Greg Kerr, and perhaps even Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to discuss the dire need for ferry service, and to discuss the federal government coming to the plate with federal funding to help with the operation of a ferry.

The motion was approved by council.


Yarmouth town councillor Martin Pink says the mayors and wardens of this part of the province need to press the federal government for ferry funding. — Tina Comeau photo

Pink said he feels the buck has been passed around too much between the provincial and federal government when it comes to restoring ferry service in Yarmouth. He noted that the provincial government says it will provide financial assistance — although never again a yearly subsidy — for a service that can be proven to be financially viable on its own.

“If we think that some ferry operator out there, is going to come forward, in this economic climate . . . with a financially economically, feasible operation with a little seed money from the province and make a great success of it, I think we’re in dreamland,” he said.

Pink feels this means that the area has to ask the federal government to step up because the province, he said, is broke.

“We need a subsidy. We need funding from the federal level of government,” he said.

Pink said a report funded by area chambers and prepared by Spencer Economic Consulting shows that there was money to be made for the economy – but it wasn’t made because there was no ferry.

Pink believes the only level of government that can help in any meaningful way is the federal government. He said an operator might feel they are better positioned to operate a ferry service if they know the federal government is going to have money available. And as the economy improves, maybe in years to come the assistance can be phased out said Pink.

“But if we get nothing here we’re going to be in the same situation 12 months from now as we are right now, except we’re going to have a lot of tourist-based operations close down.”