Will Northumberland ferries survive review?

Since the opening of Confederation Bridge, many people have felt the Wood Islands-Caribou ferry service has been living on borrowed time.
Each time the federal government subsidy to Northumberland Ferries Limited comes up for renewal, concerns are raised about whether the funding tap will be turned off. The service, which runs from May 1 to December 20, receives approximately $5 million annually from the federal treasury. Those fears are back as the calendar winds down on 2009, and they are starting to reach a fever pitch.
Those concerns are fuelled by two recent events. The company has received a one-year funding extension (the current five-year deal expires in March of 2010), while Transport Canada conducts a review of its operation. Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea (who represents the province at the cabinet table) maintains the review is just routine.
However, Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay isn't buying that. He said there were moves within the Transport Canada bureaucracy five years ago to turn the service into a one-a-day tourist service during the summer. While public pressure back then killed the idea, he doesn't think it has disappeared.
The veteran Liberal MP is calling on the provincial government, as well as Shea and Defence Minister Peter MacKay (who represents the Pictou County region where the Nova Scotia terminal is located), to strongly defend the service.
Equally as troubling is what has been happening with the other two services operated by Bay Ferries - a company owned by Northumberland Ferries Limited. In 2006, Bay Ferries announced it was shutting down its service between Digby, N.S., and Saint John, N.B. Following extensive public pressure in both communities, the federal subsidy was extended until 2011.
More recently, the company announced it would not run its high speed ferry (nicknamed The Cat) between Yarmouth, N.S., and Bar Harbour, Maine next spring. The Nova Scotia government has pulled $7 million funding from that project, meaning the loss of 120 direct jobs. A major community public relations offensive is now being mobilized.
While the Northumberland Ferry Service is perhaps not essential in the same way it was before the bridge came on stream, it is still a significant transportation link for eastern P.E.I. It is responsible for over 100 jobs in an area of the province where employment prospects aren't exactly plentiful. It also provides a shorter route for truckers in that region and a shorter route for travellers going to Halifax and Cape Breton.
A number of tourism-related businesses have developed in Wood Islands and the immediate area and they need a full time ferry service in order to survive. There is an economic argument to be made for the preservation of the service and both federal and provincial politicians on both sides of Northumberland Strait state the case forcefully in 2010.

Andy Walker is a former reporter for the Journal Pioneer and is now a freelance writer who lives in Cornwall, P.E.I.
awalker@islandtelecom.com