If you can row a boat, you’re our kind of people!

In what can only be described as a case of strange timing, the BC Ferry Corporation has reduced the qualifications to be a Chief Officer on its vessels sailing along the British Columbia coast.

CKNW Radio reported on its 9 am newscast on Monday morning , that over the summer starting in July, the Ferry Corporation changed its employment qualifications. Requiring applicants applying for Chief Officer positions to provide only a mate local voyage certificate, no longer needing to hold the much harder to achieve Masters local voyage certificate.

A shortage of qualified skilled applicants due mainly to an increasing level of retirement of senior officers led to the decision, which reverses a position where the B. C. Ferry fleet traditionally looked for those whose qualifications were above and beyond the national standard.

And while the fleet is still staffed by those meeting the national mandate for sailing the seas, in the wake of the Queen of the North tragedy it’s not a surprise that they kept a low profile on the staffing process.

Now it may very well be that the new requirements are within the guidelines of the day and meet all national standards, but as far as optics go, this is one decision which will not do much to calm the emotions and the worries of those who travel aboard the vessels that travel along B. C’s coast.

With calls for a judicial inquiry into the sinking of the Queen of the North becoming louder, the latest decision at B. C. Ferries is bound to garner the corporation more than an enough in the way of attention.

It may very well be considered a nothing story, after all the fleet still sails under the federal standard expected. However, when it comes to its Ferries, the traveling public of BC is quite protective and very attentive.

The decision in place since June is a departure from the past that had those in charge of its vessels in fact more qualified for the job at hand than required, which might seem to some as overly cautious, but surely was a decision that has placed the Ferry Corporation in good stead with its public over the years.

Considering the lives that are at stake with each sailing, just meeting the standard of the day may not be considered just enough! And with the increased awareness reagrding ferry safety of late in the province, it seems like a decision that was not particularly well thought out or explained and one that will no doubt be questioned extensively.