Digby-Saint John ferry scheduled for retrofit in 2024

Article content

The Digby-Saint John ferry won’t be moved to the Magdalen Islands next spring, but it’s expected to be temporarily out of service at some point in 2024.

Transport Canada confirmed the MV Fundy Rose is scheduled to be drydocked next year. Ferries are required to be drydocked twice every five years in order to maintain certification, according to Transport Canada spokesperson Hicham Ayoun.

“The ferry operator is expected to take the vessel to dock outside of peak season,” he said in an email. “The suspension of the service outside of peak season to allow for required drydocks is consistent with past practice on this route.”

Transport Canada referred all questions about the timeline and length of drydocking to Bay Ferries, which operates the federally owned MV Fundy Rose through a government contract.

Bay Ferries declined to comment Wednesday.

Saint John-Rothesay MP Wayne Long said he expects seafood companies will adjust accordingly like they have in the past to a temporary ferry service disruption. This is despite a recent public uproar over a plan to temporarily redeploy the MV Fundy Rose to the route between Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Que., and Sirois, P.E.I., next spring.

The MV Madeline II – which typically serves that route – is scheduled for six to eight weeks of drydocking during that time.

Officials with Transport Canada were considering the MV Fundy Rose as an option to continue service to the Magdalen Islands, which are only accessible by road through ferry.

But business leaders spoke out against the plan, citing the multimillion-dollar economic impact of temporarily losing the Digby-Saint John ferry and the uncertainty around the redeployment timeline.

Last Friday, Transport Canada Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced the MV Fundy Rose would stay put in the Digby-Saint John route. Other options would instead be explored for continued service to the Magdalen Islands, he added.

“Now that we know what we’re dealing with, now that we know we aren’t faced with a double whammy of being redeployed and then a Fundy Rose retrofit, everybody is breathing a sigh of relief for sure,” Long said shortly after Rodriguez’s announcement.

The Digby-Saint John corridor has been periodically without a ferry over the years. For almost two months in 2021, the MV Fundy Rose wasn’t in service while maintenance was underway on the loading structure at the Saint John ferry terminal.

In late 2019, the MV Fundy Rose underwent scheduled drydock maintenance for several weeks, and it was also out of commission for repairs at the start of 2018 for a handful of weeks.