Acting on the Transportation Safety Board’s recently released Watchlist of recommendations would increase costs and reduce service on B.C. Ferries, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

Deborah Marshall of BC Ferries didn’t have the exact costs of implementing the TSB Watchlist but said it would increase costs a lot more.

We certainly wouldn’t be sailing every hour, said Marshall.

Well, yeah, not if they have to have a list of all passengers’ names, which is what Marshall thinks the watchlist requires.

B.C. Ferries and Marine Workers Union president Richard Goode agreed with Marshall about the unwieldiness of accounting for every passenger.

You’d almost have to have 100-per-cent reservations, said Goode.

He pointed to routes like the one to Gabriola Island, where identifying all the passengers could take longer than the 20-minute trip.

This page used to link to the Province article quoted above. That article is [no longer available on the newspaper's website].

Many Monday-morning commuters on the 7:50 a.m. ferry from Gabriola Island to Nanaimo had to wait for the next crossing due to Transport Canada regulations limiting the number of passengers on the vessel.

The Bowen Queen, which has temporarily replaced Gabriola’s regular ferry the MV Quinsam as the latter undergoes a major refit, had to leave the island with just 35 vehicles (about half its vehicle capacity) because of an unusually high number of walk-on passengers. [continue]

I have nothing polite to say about this.

Anyway, it’s not just Gabriola that’s affected by the new rule; other island communities served by small ferries are in the same predicament. The Queen Charlotte Islands Observer reports that their ferry, the Kwunza, has been given an exemption from the new rules by Transport Canada. Do you suppose we could get an exemption, too?