Newfoundland MP Gerry Byrne

Until Marine Atlantic is run from Port aux Basques (Newfoundland & Labrador) the service may not improve according to a former board member.
Clyde Way, a trucking company owner, started as a member of Marine Atlantic’s board of directors in 2002 when he was appointed by then Transportation Minister David Collonette.
It was his experience that most of the Crown corporation’s management was in North Sydney (Nova Scotia) with a handful of people working at the head office in St. John’s.
“It’s not the board that makes up these rules and regulations they’ve got going on,” Way said. “It’s management in North Sydney, that’s who makes up the rules.”
Way spoke at a forum in Corner Brook on Marine Atlantic held by Gerry Byrne, Liberal commons member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Wednesday night (May 19). About 60 people attended the event to talk about the gulf ferry service.
Howard Sparkes, owner/operator of Sparkes Trucking, runs a fleet of two trucks and his experience with Marine Atlantic has been terrible. When CN Marine used to take rail cars across the Gulf, he said the service was better than it is today.
He’s spending on the order of $135,000 a year to get his vehicles across the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
He used to be able to get a dangerous goods crossing five days a week. Now he’s limited to once a week and that’s a problem.
He told the 60 people in the room at the Pepsi Centre the Marine Atlantic staff used to tap on the side of the truck to wake the drivers up and let them know they could board the boat. One of his drivers pulled in to the parking lot at North Sydney and had a nap while waiting for the boat. If a wake-up call came, he didn’t hear it.
“The boat sailed and his truck was still in North Sydney,” Sparkes said. “He had to sit there for seven days. You know what they said at Marine Atlantic, ‘it’s not our fault, we tapped on the side of his truck and he didn’t wake up.’”
Byrne said that kind of story is a great example of how the federal government is not living up to its constitutional responsibility to provide passenger and freight service from North Sydney to Port aux Basques as the traffic offers.
He said the Prince Edward Island government sued the federal government over a 10-day strike at the ferry service for shirking its responsibility to provide the service constitutionally guaranteed.
The province won and on appeal they won millions in damages because there’s no excuse for not providing the service agreed to in the constitution.
Byrne believes the same holds true with the Gulf of St. Lawrence service. The report he compiles from the evidence presented at the forum in Corner Brook and the earlier session in Mount Pearl will help form the basis of a legal challenge for breach of constitution. The document could be available as early as mid-June — just in time for peak tourism season.
“We know the breach occurred, we know there have been delays in the ferry service, but we have to catalogue that and describe it in detail to be able to present it as evidence in a court of law,” Byrne said.
He wants to make sure the federal government provides the service guaranteed from Port aux Basques to North Sydney.
The much anticipated argument with Port aux Basques Mayor Brian Button came toward the end of the meeting with Button wondering why he wasn’t invited as mayor of the gateway town. Byrne pointed out Button was invited as chair of Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador’s chair of the Marine Atlantic working group.
A sheaf of emails was circulated by Byrne at the end of the meeting.
For his part Button is looking forward to working with Byrne toward solutions to the problems of Marine Atlantic, from the reservation systems to on-time performance. He was happy to hear Byrne say he wanted to keep the service running in Port aux Basques.
“It’s not about Gerry Byrne and Brian Button,” Button said. “If the service is that important, it should be put to one side. We should be moving on.”