The BC Ferries firestorm continues with eerily similar columns in the Province and Sun today.

In the Province, Mike Smyth puts the BC Ferries mess fully in new Transportation Minister Todd Stone’s court:

The corporate gouging of B.C. taxpayers and ferry passengers has been going on for years, with little action from the government other than impotent whining.

With B.C. Ferries now thumbing its nose at the government’s latest request to stop the executive pork-barrelling — while planning to cut $26 million in ferry services — I’d say the course is clear for rookie Transportation Minister Todd Stone:

Fire the boards. Amend the Coastal Ferry Act to prevent further obscene raises and bonuses. And put a stop to the madness once and for all.

I can’t argue with Smitty’s remedy on this one. The Act should be changed (and kudos to the NDP for raising that last week) and Stone needs to take firm action. Follow Washington State’s model and make the corporation report directly to either him or the Premier.

Meanwhile, in the Sun, Don Cayo looks at a 2010 study comparing BC Ferries and Washington State Ferries (as did Smyth in his piece) and finds little difference between the outcome of the BC Ferries’ overpaid executive team and the WSF’s more modestly paid team:

Bennion’s analysis does not delve very deeply into relative performance, but the information he does provide indicates BC Ferries is nothing special. It’s on-time departure record is noticeably worse than Washington’s (in 2009, 88.5 per cent leaving within 10 minutes of the posted time versus 92.9 per cent). And its overall trip reliability rating is just a hair better (99.7 per cent versus 99.6).

The study provides on-time departure numbers for 10 other ferry services worldwide, and BC Ferries trails the pack, though not by a lot. All of the trip reliability figures cited are well above 90 per cent, and BC Ferries’ is third-best.

My conclusion? Washington’s experience seems to establish that you can get pretty good management — though perhaps not stellar — for a lot less than B.C. is paying.

And the numbers in the study — not to mention the anecdotal evidence of many BC Ferries customers’ more-or-less chronic dissatisfaction with rate hikes and service cuts — may not support a case that BC Ferries’ top bosses are worse than their peers, but the only thing stellar about them seems to be their pay.

Cayo is right – paying BC Ferries’ top executives 3.5 times more than WSF’s team is NOT delivering substantially better service.