Small town fights to stay afloat

The town of Yarmouth has been fighting for a lifeline since an announcement made by Bay Ferries on December 18^th. After discovering the provincial government would not be helping fund the ferry service between Nova Scotia and Maine, Mark MacDonald, president and CEO of Bay Ferries, announced that they would be unable to continue the ferry service for the 2010 tourism season.

The Cat ferry service has just been discontinued for the 2010 tourism season. Photo courtesy of Heidi Durkee

Bay Ferries had originally asked the provincial government for $6 million to keep the Cat ferry running.

Gary Smith has been an employee of Bay Ferries since 1997. He said the news of the ferry loss was something that none of the employees saw coming, “A lot of them were devastated actually because they’ve got mortgages and payments. It was a total shock because nobody expected it.”

Yarmouth’s Mayor, Phil Mooney, said that sentiment was spread across the town, “We were shocked actually. It came completely out of the blue. They’re doing a transportation study for Southwest Nova Scotia. We were led to believe that there would not be any decisions made on any ferry service or any closing of any service until the transportation study was unveiled.”

The town of 7,500 people thrives off of the summer tourism industry. Laura Muise, the manager of Rudder’s Seafood and Brew Pub, fears what the loss may do to her restaurant, “Our summer season, 50% of our summer is tourists. We don’t know at this point how much. It will affect us drastically though.”

And although the summer tourism season is still a few months away, the town is already starting to feel the loss.

“We had the first casualty, Captain Kelly’s, decided because of the loss of the ferry service this year, they are going to close on February 20^th,” said Mooney, “They only have seven employees there in the winter time, but in the summer time they double or triple the staff size, so there are 20 to 25 people gone in one small swoop right there.”

Captain Kelly's, a well known restaurant in Yarmouth, just announced their closure due to the ferry loss. Photo courtesy of Google.

And that’s just a small portion of jobs that will be lost if there is no ferry this summer. Within the Municipality of Yarmouth itself, Mayor Mooney predicts that there could be anywhere from 500 to 600 seasonal jobs gone this summer.

It’s the fear of these job losses that have the people of Yarmouth fighting to keep their ferry. 

“They started a YouTube channel, with each one having a little spiel as to their say on the devastation it will cause, province-wide and so on,” explained Smith, “They’ve been writing their MP’s. There’s been several talk shows on the Weekender [a local radio show], trying to come up with different ideas or different suggestions as to maybe other tactics that we can use.”

And on February 4^th, the town bused roughly 250 locals up to Halifax to rally outside of the provincial legislature.

“Although Percy Paris or any of the NDP officials would not come out and address the crowd, they had a little meeting afterwards with just a few people, a few chosen people, such as the mayor and a couple councillors,” said Smith, “and basically they’re still firm on their decision that they’re not going to bring it back to cabinet or they’re not going to contact the federal government to re-open the issue. They’re still not planning to fund the Cat.”

The day after the rally, news broke that town councillor Ken Langille had written a private e-mail to Premier Darrell Dexter regarding the loss of the ferry service. And while many in the community feel that Langille doesn’t support the fight to save the Cat, he says he still fully supports the fight, but that the town also needs to start focusing on a back-up plan.

The people of Yarmouth fear that the local businesses that make up the downtown area, will be lost if they don't have a ferry service this year. Photo courtesy of Google.

“The problem is we are so focused on keeping the Cat that we are not looking at what if we don’t win. We’re so focused on victory that we haven’t thought ‘What about defeat? What do we do then?’ said Langille, “And from my knowledge, when I wrote that on the 23^rd [of January], there was no back-up plan.”

“The minimum time to get a ferry service in the world right now is ten months, that’s minimum. By the time you buy it, you crew it, you get it retrofitted, you get it ready to run, you get your terminal approved, it’s ten months to get the boat lined up,” Langille continued. “That’s how long it takes, minimum. Average is 18 months. Well at this point, if you do your calendar game, guess what, we don’t have a 2011 season.”

But while the e-mail may have caused some controversy within the town and the council, Mayor Mooney still hasn’t lost focus on the top priority.

“Right now myself and the Warden from Yarmouth, Municipality of Yarmouth, the Warden from Clare, and the Warden from Argyle are all focused on one thing and that’s getting a ferry service for this year.”

And while the people of Yarmouth may fear drowning in a sea of unemployment, they refuse to give up their fight.

Check out the Rescue Our Ferry YouTube channel Here!

Short URL: http://www.newbrunswickbeacon.ca/?p=4604

Posted by Corinne Frost on Feb 15, 2010. Filed under News, This Week's Edition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.