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Busy ferries anger Coasters after advice against non-essential travel

BC Ferries sailings to the Sunshine Coast have been busy since Thursday, with a least one overload reported, prompting a social media backlash from residents claiming the spike in traffic is mainly tourists and vacation property owners acting against
Ferry Line
A screen capture of the BC Ferries webcam showing the line for the 4:20 sailing from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale on April 9. The sailing ended up being an overload.

BC Ferries sailings to the Sunshine Coast have been busy since Thursday, with a least one overload reported, prompting a social media backlash from residents claiming the spike in traffic is mainly tourists and vacation property owners acting against the advice of B.C.’s public health officials.

In a statement Thursday, the province said, “This is not the time to travel to secondary homes or vacation properties in other communities. It's not only important stay home and maintain physical distancing, but access to resources and health care may be more challenging in smaller communities if someone should become ill or if there's a community outbreak.”

Health minister Adrian Dix even mentioned Sechelt specifically as a place people shouldn’t travel to in his April 9 briefing.

Local government leaders on the Sunshine Coast have been repeating that message since last month, and BC Ferries has also been advising people against non-essential travel.

 “If you have family and friends who want to visit from other jurisdictions – tell them to stay where they are,” Sunshine Coast Regional District chair Lori Pratt said in an April 9 video message. “If the Sunshine Coast is not your primary residence, please consider staying home. Or pick one home and stay there. Do not travel back and forth as it creates a risk of transmission of COVID-19 to everyone. Be mindful of what you’re doing this weekend.”

After ferries started filling up Thursday afternoon, and angry social media posts started filling local forums, the District of Sechelt tweeted, “Dear Metro Vancouver citizens, we like you. We really like you. And we’d love to see you later when this health crisis is over. We know it’s a drag but it’s important. Please stay home. Love and kisses, Sechelt.”

At a council meeting earlier in the week, Gibsons Mayor Bill Beamish related a conversation he had recently with an out of town visitor who’d come up to his vacation property and was concerned about the Town’s position discouraging seasonal residents from visiting. “I explained to him that a big part of it is we don’t know what you’re bringing with you.”

Beamish said he’s been getting the argument that the Sunshine Coast has always been able to provide adequate health care and other services during the height of summer. “In the summer people leave here as well, so it kind of balances out to a net population as opposed to simply doubling the population,” he said. “It’s tough for a lot people, I appreciate that, but we’re not the only community that is strongly urging people at this point in time to stay, stay close to your own supports, stay close to your own doctors and look after yourselves and we’ll try to do the same here.”

Although there’s been lots of strongly worded advice against travelling unless absolutely necessary, there are currently no enforceable orders prohibiting non-essential travel.

On Good Friday, Sechelt mayor Darnelda Siegers posted on her Facebook page that she had been following the posts and messages. “I understand and share your frustration,” she wrote, but added that neither the local governments nor BC Ferries has the authority to stop people from travelling without a provincial order.

“While suggestions have been made, no level of government has made it an order,” Siegers wrote. “Unless and until it is an order, BC Ferries is considered an essential service and cannot refuse boarding.”

“We have weekly meetings with the province. All of the communities on these meetings are imploring the province to make this an order… I would suggest that local residents continue to contact Dr. Bonnie Henry and [Health Minister] Adrian Dix. They are the only ones who can change this.”

In an interview on Eastlink Community TV’s Parliamentary Talkback April 9, Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons and West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky MP Patrick Weiler said they weren’t aware of any plans to institute such a ban by either the federal or provincial governments.

Simons also took to Twitter April 10. “For weeks Dr. Henry has said don't travel if it's not essential,” he wrote. “Yesterday ferries to the Sunshine Coast were full of people who deserve to live in a dictatorship. The rest of us respect seniors, health care workers and each other.”

On April 11 BC Ferries issued a statement clarifying just how full its sailings actually were, given that it has cut passenger capacity in half as a result of a Transport Canada order. Deborah Marshall of BC Ferries said the C-Class ferries that serve the Langdale - Horseshoe Bay route normally carry a maximum of 1,460 passengers and crew and the most they can sail with under the new regulations is 730. She said the busiest sailing to the Sunshine Coast on Good Friday carried 294 passengers. The busiest sailing from Langdale had 179 passengers.