The Two Boards

One thing that the public should understand first is that there are two different boards, with two different purposes. There is the Board of the Authority whose duties are as follows:

 

1. Hold, administer and sell the one (the Precious) voting share of BC Ferry Services Inc. (the one share to rule them all must be a heavy burden.)
2. The Authority paid the BC Government $1000.00 for the one voting share in 2003. (BC Government fire sale)
3. If the share is sold, (activated) then the proceeds go to the Provincial Government, and the Authority is dissolved. (You got to love privatization, nothing like selling off billions of taxpayers’ dollars investment at those crazy low, low prices!)
4. The Authority board must ensure that there are no conflicts of interest, and if they do then those conflicts must be disclosed. (I will have to look into that, sometime.)
5. The Authority board must appoint a new director in the event that one director, dies, resigns or is removed due to a conflict. (…or if one of them tries to throw the Precious into a Volcano, where it was forged.)  
6. The Directors of the Authority may establish their own procedures. (Procedures like who gets to hold the share, make sure the share does not get thrown into the recycling bin, you know that kind of stuff.)
7. The Directors must also manage the affairs of the Authority or supervise the management of those affairs. (Who’s going to order lunch? They probably will need a committee for that.) 
8. The Directors must develop purposes and duties for the Authority. (Must get boring taking care of one share, you could end up living in a cave and talking to yourself.)
9. Set meetings of the Authority. (To talk about how the Precious is doing.)
10. Create by-laws for the Authority. (A whole set of by-laws based on holding, administering and selling of the Precious, they should also add nurturing and loving.)
11. The Authority must make their office location public.
12. The Authority must be paid. (Everyone must be paid for doing work and taking care of the precious is hard work…I think.)  
13. The Authority may purchase insurance against any liability incurred by the person as a director. (What kind of trouble could you get into by taking care of one voting share?)
14. The Authority must have a website. (If you are having trouble sleeping their site helps)
15. The Authority must release an annual report. (How much they spent on taking care of the one voting precious share. It costs a lot to take care of a share.)
16. The Authority has to hold an annual meeting once a year. (This allows the Authority to tell the public how much it has cost to take care of the share and how it is doing.)
17. The Authority is to ensure that the Government does not interfere with BC Ferry Services Inc. (The Province gets to select two positions; hmmm we’re hands off…right.)

 

…and then you have the BC Ferry Services Inc. Board…

Up to recently, and a big thank you goes out to the Comptroller General and the Provincial Legislature for following the recommendations; we did not know what the BC Ferry Services Inc. Board was doing. The board minutes were not accessible under the Freedom of Information, and protection of the Privacy Act. Transparency and accountability were removed through legislation. Now they are.

The board has to ensure that BC Ferries is run in the most safe, efficient and cost effective manner.

They should be providing oversight and direction to Ferries Management to adhere to the guidelines of the International Safety & Marine code, to protect the safety of passengers, crew and the environment.

They should be following good business practices to ensure that the vessels are mechanically sound, and has sufficiently trained staff so that they meet the needs of the Ferry Dependent Communities, and meeting the terms and conditions of the Coastal Service Contract.

They also have to make sure that BC Ferries is meeting all the Federal and Provincial Regulations pertaining to the operation of the business, or they could get into trouble, under a particular nasty Federal law.

We know that they’re making Safety the Number One Priority at BC Ferries.

We do appreciate the fact that the BC Ferry Services Inc. Board show up at the Annual General Meeting of the BC Ferry Authority once a year to answer questions, when in fact it should be the Board of the Authority.

All the Authority has to do is tell the public that they still have the one precious voting share, and have not sold it and how much it has cost for them to take care of the “Precious”.

So there you have it, two different boards, and again another recommendation by the Comptroller Generals office that was followed up on by the Provincial Legislature, because up till then they were mostly the same people on both boards.