Maritime Bus service will continue to connect Campbellton and Moncton, and Fredericton and Edmundston, thanks to an eleventh hour provincial decision to allocate funding to support the regional bus carrier. That’s good news for New Brunswickers living outside the major cities, even though the government’s announcement on the funding is misleading.
Since VIA Rail suspended service at the beginning of the pandemic, Maritime Bus has been the only regional transportation alternative for New Brunswick’s northern cities and towns. But partway through the pandemic, the bus carrier asked for support from the Maritime provinces in order to weather the financial losses due to the dramatic drop in ridership. Only New Brunswick refused, and so in December, Maritime Bus raised the stakes, announcing it would have to cut routes connecting northern and southern New Brunswick, if it did not get financial support.
Premier Blaine Higgs was initially cold on the idea, telling reporters that Maritime Bus losses were not COVID-related, and also that the carrier was already in financial straits before the pandemic. But since then he seems to have changed his mind, as he has agreed to allot federal funds meant for COVID relief to the bus company.
All in all, Maritime Bus will receive $720,000 to help get it through the pandemic. Half will come from the Regional Development Corporation’s Rural Economy Fund. The other half, according to a provincial press release, will come from, “the public transit category of the Safe Restart Agreement.”
Unfortunately that statement from the Department of Environment and Local Government is misleading.
The federal government did indeed establish a public transit fund under its massive Safe Restart program, but New Brunswick did not apply to this fund and received nothing from it.
Other small provinces applied and received funding, including $16 million for Nova Scotia, $8 million for Saskatchewan, and $33 million for Manitoba. But in New Brunswick, Premier Blaine Higgs insists that the fund was meant for big cities only, and so the province asked for and received nothing.
So New Brunswick’s contribution to Maritime Bus is not coming from the “public transit category” of the Safe Restart agreement, as the department of local government says in its release.
It is actually coming from the Safe Restart fund set aside for municipalities, a $41 million fund, also coming from the federal government, meant to provide relief for municipalities.
New Brunswick has already used this municipal fund to help cover public transit losses, giving $1.6 million to transit agencies in Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton in 2020. And now another $360,000 from the municipal fund will go towards public transportation, in the form of Maritime Bus financial support.
The province says the total $720,000 in funding is contingent upon Maritime Bus guaranteeing the continued operation of its northern New Brunswick routes until the end of 2021.