The ferry between Matane, Baie-Comeau and Godbout, on the North Shore, has been suspended since Tuesday. The most recent episode in a long series of outages that have occurred for several years, this new interruption has aroused the anger of users.
Posted at 7:34 p.m.
The passengers contacted on the spot do not hide their weariness, like Dany Collin, who takes the ferry every year. “He has problems all the time. We are not surprised when it stays at the quay, we are surprised when it leaves! “, he laments.
The ferry was unable to operate either daily trip on Tuesday and Wednesday. Passengers and vehicles were on the bridge around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday when the postponement of the crossings was announced. “They told us to wait until noon to get more information and find out if the ferry could leave at 2 p.m., but it never left,” says Dany Collin.
The Société des traversiers du Québec (STQ) says it has determined the origin of this breakdown after scheduled maintenance overnight from Monday to Tuesday. “The update attempt made by the external team caused a problem with the interconnection of various electronic components,” explains Simon Laboissonnière, communications manager at the STQ. The problem has been identified and we are waiting for the component to be replaced. »
This breakdown is far from being the first for the ferry F.-A.-Gauthiermade famous by the very large number of malfunctions observed since its delivery in 2015. In particular, it had experienced a 13-month interruption in service between 2018 and 2020, and its replacement, the ship Apollo, had been scrapped after only 17 days of service. The successive breakdowns of the F.-A.-Gauthier earned him the Lemon Award last year, given by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for flagging wasteful government spending.
The ferry was put back into service just over three weeks ago, after a mandatory technical shutdown during which the ship Saarema-1 ensured the connection between Matane and the North Shore.
A “public service” in question
Living about an hour’s drive from Matane, Dany Collin had to send someone to pick him up by car. Others were not so lucky, like Marie-Ange Barriault, who was returning from a sailing trip with her son and who had to rent a hotel room for the night.
Suffering from diabetes, she could not take her medication. More than the breakdown itself, it is the lack of initiative by the Société des traversiers du Québec that she deplores: “After 24 hours of navigation, we were exhausted. They threw us out, without even offering us a coffee or a meal […] We were able to arrange to order at the restaurant, but I think of all the people who can’t afford to do that…”
“They took us for garbage,” adds Dany Collin. Passengers will be reimbursed for their ticket, but no catering or accommodation solution has been offered by the STQ.
The explanation given by the employees on site is essentially due to the lack of means. “They told us it was a public service and they couldn’t do anything about it. But when a plane breaks down, we pay for hotels, we pay for meals. There, they just asked us to disembark,” sighs Marie-Ange Barriault. To reach the North Shore, she had to take the ferry between Rimouski and Forestville, located about two hours from Godbout by car.
Joined Wednesday in the middle of the afternoon, the STQ communications manager indicated that the replacement of the missing part on the F.-A.-Gauthier would take place during the evening. Whether Thursday’s crossings will continue remains uncertain, the company announced on Twitter.