Scotland’s islanders to get 10 TIMES the subsidy for their ferries than those in more affluent British Columbia, to keep fares amongst the lowest in the developed world

Professor John Robertson OBA

From Richmond News today:

Right now, B.C. Ferries, which according to the union carries more than 21 million passengers and $8 billion in cargo each year, receives about $35 million annually from Ottawa.1

BC Ferries has 41 vessels serving 47 locations to 21 million passengers per year.2

CalMac has 36 vessels serving 50 locations to only 5.3 million passengers per year.3

Yet the Scottish Government, from taxpayers living in places like Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Coatbridge and Dundee, will be a bit more generous than BC:

Transport Scotland is proposing a total subsidy of £3.7 billion over a 10-year period for CalMac Ferries Limited to deliver lifeline ferry services under the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS) contract.4

This is 10 times the level of support in a country with only half the GDP of British Columbia.

This is why Scotland’s islanders, contrary to the media lies, get the most frequent, cheapest, safest, most reliable ferry service in the world, in the stormiest seas of any ferry service and to give life to the tiniest of communities who’d get no service at all in harder-nosed parts of the world.

The constant negative reporting of CalMac is a disgusting, dishonest, shameless and cynical campaign by politicians, media and entitled recently arrived islanders to undermine the SNP in government.

Sources:

  1. https://www.richmond-news.com/transportation/ferry-workers-union-calls-for-more-federal-funding-for-bc-ferries-10562754
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_Ferries
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonian_MacBrayne
  4. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-on-the-proposed-subsidy-to-calmac-ferries-limited-by-transport-scotland

4 thoughts on “Scotland’s islanders to get 10 TIMES the subsidy for their ferries than those in more affluent British Columbia, to keep fares amongst the lowest in the developed world”

  1. ” ….and entitled recently arrived islanders ” is a bit off John, although I do realise who you are specifically referring to…. There will always be an agitator waiting on such a comment to arise, then distort it to “anti-islander obsession”.

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  2. Scotland’s public sector budget is determined by England’s Parliament and not Holyrood.Left exposed to market forces,many of these services would disappear or at best be severely curtailed due to lack of profit.Holyrood could divert more funds to island ferries but that would be at the expense of other public enterprises such as health.

    Life has always been hard for Scotland’s island communities and the fact that many people living in our cities are descendants of islanders is mainly for that reason.

    As a nation,we value our rural communities and,where possible,try to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate and geography on those locations by subsidising transportation.

    The limits on that funding are largely outwith our control as a nation and the hostile media should be directing their ire at the people in London who decide our public spending budget,year on year.

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