Consistently my office receives complaints about disruptions in service to the Wolfe Island ferry due to staffing shortages or abrupt mechanical problems that take the ferry out of service for hours.

Staffing shortages are due to the fact that the Ministry of Transportation is not appropriately retaining workers needed to staff the ferry because of Bill 124. Bill 124 has capped ferry workers wages well below the rate of inflation and well below the rate of private-sector marine workers. As a result, more people are leaving the ferry to go work on larger Lakers which offer better pay. MTO is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire temporary agency workers to fill in the staffing on the ferry.

The union representing the local ferry workers, the union representing ferry workers have created a petition demanding that the Ministry of Transportation end the service disruptions to the Wolfe Island and Glenora ferries by hiring more permanent workers and retaining them with fair, competitive wages, by repealing Bill 124, and having MTO end the expensive contracts with private temporary agency workers.