Eby Can Ration Ferry Spots. Where Is the Reliability Ledger?

David Eby’s ferry promise is now getting wider campaign attention, and the core problem is becoming clearer. A 12% locals-first reservation set-aside may help some residents book a sailing. It is still a rationing rule for scarce certainty, not proof that the ferry system has enough reliable capacity for the communities that depend on it.

Daily Hive reported Sunday evening that the BC NDP proposal would reserve 12% of advance booking space for local residents on two routes: Horseshoe Bay to Langdale, and Westview in Powell River to Little River near Comox. The NDP’s own release says 10% would be held until four days before departure and another 2% until 24 hours before sailing.

That distinction matters. The set-aside applies to advance booking space, not total vessel capacity. For a resident trying to reach a medical appointment, a shift, a family obligation or a mainland service, the pilot may be useful. But it does not create a vessel, crew a ship, shorten a terminal line, rebuild aging infrastructure or remove the fare pressure facing the system.

BC Ferries’ public documents show why voters should demand a bigger ledger than a campaign booking rule. Its 2025 performance report says the system carried a record 22.7 million passengers and 9.7 million vehicles, while warning that aging vessels and terminal infrastructure are putting reliability at risk. The same report says customers could face fare increases well above 30% starting in 2028 without a sustainable long-term funding model.

The annual report tells the same story in corporate language: higher volumes, rising costs, aging assets, capacity constraints on major routes and more than $3 billion in planned long-term capital investments reduced through deferrals, scope changes and revised timing. Those are not minor footnotes. They are the operating conditions behind the political need to ration booking space.

The B.C. Conservatives used the moment to promise a BC Ferries Charter with standards for reliability, on-time performance, capacity, affordability and customer service, plus leadership accountability and a push for federal ferry funding. Voters can judge that promise on its details. But the accountability question it raises is fair: where is Eby’s public reliability ledger, route by route, with targets, misses, costs and consequences?

The province has already committed $500 million above Coastal Ferry Services Contract levels for Performance Term Six to support affordability and limit annual average allowable fare increases to 3.2%. That support makes transparency more urgent, not less. When taxpayers subsidize affordability and passengers still face overloads, delays and long-term fare risk, the public deserves measurable service standards.

A local booking carve-out may be a short-term tool. It should not be sold as a fix. Coastal British Columbians do not just need a better chance at a reservation. They need a ferry system that can prove, in public, that reliability is improving.