Committee seeking year-round ferry weighs legal action

A citizens' group hopes to avoid going to court to force federal and provincial governments to fund a year round ferry for Campobello Island. However, both Ulysse Robichaud and Justin Tinker say the Campobello Island Year Round Ferry Development Committee has taken very preliminary steps towards filing legal action if politicians refuse to provide a way for residents to get to the Canadian mainland without travelling through the United States.
The committee decided to look at legal options to spur the federal and provincial governments to make it possible for Canadians living on Campobello to exercise mobility rights protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in their view, to travel across their own country without showing passports.
"We would rather solve it politically because, politically, it would be faster and, really, the government should not force us to go to the courts," says Robichaud, who grew up in the mainland New Brunswick community of Saint Charles in Kent County. "We have access to the United States, which is great, but we'd like to have access to our own country."
He has experience in suing governments from his involvement over 20 years ago in successful legal action to provide French language public schools on Prince Edward Island.
"We need Canadian governments and New Brunswick governments to step up to the plate and recognize, one, that there is a problem and, two, that the responsibility to provide a solution is on their shoulders," says Tinker, who grew up on Campobello Island but now lives and works in Saint John.
Governments in Fredericton and Ottawa contend that the over 800 people living on Campobello do not need a ferry because they can cross the Franklin D. Roosevelt International Memorial Bridge to Lubec then drive up the coast to reemerge in Canada at St. Stephen.
Further, the provincial government is subsidizing East Coast Ferries Ltd. to extend its privately owned seasonal summer service between Campobello and Deer Island because of the COVID 19 pandemic.
"Given that the province is back in the orange phase, we are concerned for the residents of Campobello who have to go through Maine to reach mainland New Brunswick. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is working with the private ferry operator, East Coast Ferries, to extend the service to and from Campobello Island until March 7, due to COVID 19. The service will continue to be offered four days a week, depending on the weather," New Brunswick Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Jill Green says in a written statement.
"We are evaluating the situation on a month by month basis, and we will work with the private operator to further extend the season if the situation surrounding COVID 19 warrants it. The cost to operate the ferry fluctuates according to ridership and days lost because of inclement weather. Passengers continue to pay the usual fares," she wrote. The one way fare is $22 for a car and driver, $5 per additional passenger up to a maximum of $34 per car; people 12 and under ride for free.
"The solution, a part time ferry, is not the answer at all," says Robichaud, who called the Campobello Deer Island service "just like a taxi" in the tourist season. He and Tinker both say the East Coast Ferries vessel -- a barge pushed by a boat -- is not meant for winter, putting the service at the mercy of the weather.
"It's not just about COVID-19, it's about everyday living, and it's very difficult here to survive without access to your country. It's pretty basic," Robichaud says, citing examples such as buying gasoline, getting a car fixed, buying appliances and not receiving visits from mainland Canadians because they have no passports.
"I respect the Americans. We're lucky that they're letting us do even what we do within COVID-19. They could have said 'no way,' and they're helping us more than even our government," he says.
Robichaud and Tinker say the committee thought it had a commitment to a Campobello ferry from Premier Blaine Higgs following a meeting last May. New Brunswick Southwest MP John Williamson tabled a petition in Parliament on October 6 signed by 711 people calling on the federal government to meet with Higgs to discuss funding for a ferry. Federal Transport Minister Grant Garneau responded that ferries are a provincial responsibility.
Green said in January that she would be willing to meet with Garneau to discuss federal funding for infrastructure, which Williamson said might be there, for a year round ferry but made no commitment to operating the proposed service. These talks do not seem to have gone far. "Discussions have taken place with the federal government, but at this point no permanent solution is being considered," Green wrote in the same e-mail explaining the extension to the private ferry's season.
Tinker says the committee has heard nothing from Green. "We're proceeding as though we're getting ready to take steps judicially to make sure that the transportation rights and the same constitutional rights that every Canadian should have are upheld for islanders," he says. "We're in the preliminary stages; I mean, going to court's expensive, we're a bunch of volunteers, and, in our eyes, we've exhausted every avenue to get government to listen without judicial injunction or having to twist arms through the judicial system."
Robichaud, who has been down this road before, agrees. "We're still trying to get it politically before we go to court, but we're working on the court situation as plan b," he says. "It's a federal responsibility, and if the province is not doing what they should be doing, the feds are responsible for all Canadians." He adds, "Both governments should work together and make it happen."
The ferry committee commissioned a study in 2018 recommending a year round service from Campobello to Letete, using the same mainland terminal as the Deer Island ferries. This option would require only one new terminal, would avoid putting more traffic on Deer Island roads, and the East Coast Ferries summer ferry from Campobello Island to Deer Island could still operate.