The frequent refusals over the past two months of Bay Ferries and the Nova Scotia government to agree to release passenger figures for the CAT Ferry have been couched in claims of confidential business information. That the counts for paid passengers leaving from and arriving at Portland in the ferry will be readily available to the media and public through the City of Portland has PC Party leader Jamie Baillie fuming.
"Every time Stephen McNeil sits across from someone at a negotiating table, Nova Scotia loses," says Baillie in a news release Thursday .
Officals with the City of Portland told SCT Thursday that the passenger counts required in their contact with Bay Ferries will be public, as were the counts for the former Nova Star Cruise Ferry.
“We can’t afford a Premier gullible enough to keep locking us into bad deals like this. Stephen McNeil is incapable of negotiating a good deal and that’s holding Nova Scotia back.”
Baillie has been calling for Stephen McNeil and Bay Ferries Ltd. to release passenger counts to Nova Scotians for weeks. "Instead of being transparent with Nova Scotians, the Premier has been defensive and deflective, relying on over-the-top political rants," says the release..
Baillie says it’s not fair that Portland is entitled to passenger counts while Nova Scotians are told no and Stephen McNeil accepts that.
"Furthermore, since Portland is allowed to release the information to the public," says Baillie, "the Liberals’ secrecy is a moot point."
“All of this just proves Stephen McNeil and the Liberals had no idea what they were signing when they committed Nova Scotia taxpayers to this expensive and one-sided contract,” said Baillie.
Premier McNeil and Transportation minister Geoff MacLellan have also refused to disclose the terms of the management agreement with Bay Ferries, citing to same principles of business confidentiality.
Baillie says he will continue to press Stephen McNeil and Bay Ferries Ltd. to be honest about the ferry deal. “Like it or not, we’re shareholders now and we want our information,” he said.
The 10-year agreement for subsidies with Bay Ferries is based upon break-even passenger counts of 60,000 passengers per year and could cost Nova Scotia taxpayers upwards of $100 million.
