A Rookie Mistake, & Why No Bridge?

Jeff Green | Apr 05, 2023

Frontenac County is a strange animal. One of its peculiarities is that in addition to three contiguous townships with uninspiring names, (North Frontenac, Central Frontenac, and South Frontenac) there is a 4th township which is made up of islands on Lake Ontario, that borders City of Kingston, not Frontenac County.

While the three contiguous townships come at county business from different perspectives, because of their size and what the Ministry of Health calls, their ‘rurality index’, the three townships share a road system, an OPP detachment, and many other community connections.

Frontenac Islands is connected to Kingston, to Gananoque, and to New York State, but shares little with the rest of Frontenac County, except that the mayor and deputy mayor are members of Frontenac County Council.

This reality was played out last month when the number one transportation issue for Wolfe Island residents, who make up the majority of Frontenac Islands population, came to the Frontenac County table.

In 1964, the Province of Ontario took over the Wolfe Island Ferry service, and the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has funded and operated the service ever since. It is a free service for Wolfe Islanders and visitors alike.

It is an expensive service to operate, but without it, the 1400 permanent residents would have no direct access to the mainland. It is not an important service to them, it is an essential service.

The ferry service, like all transportation infrastructure, needs an upgrade. The Wolfe Islander III was bigger and better than the Wolfe Islander II, but it is now old and needs replacing, and several years ago now, the province decided to invest in a new all electric ferry, the Wolfe Islander IV, with space for more people and more vehicles

The project’s cost has ballooned, not so much because of the $50 million cost of the ferry, but because of another $150 million for dock upgrades in Marysville, on Wolfe Island, and in the City of Kingston.

As far back as 2017, the ministry was looking to cut some of the construction costs for the new dock. They proposed to keep running the Wolfe Islander III, in addition to the Wolfe Islander IV, in order to alleviate the need for a 50-car parking lot at the Kingston dock, because the ferry service was going to be so robust.

Suddenly, just weeks before the now long-delayed Wolfe Islander IV is set to finally start ferrying people across the lake, the ministry revealed they will only be running the Wolfe Islander IV, and, according to Frontenac Islands Mayor Greenwood-Speers, the ferry may run on a 90-minute schedule instead of a 60-minute schedule.

So, for $200 million, the province may not be providing a sufficient ferry service after all. The long-term implications for a community that depends on the service for the well-being of its residents, and what should be a rosy economic future, are quite serious.

Before anyone starts wringing their hands for the poor province, being stuck with a $200 million cost, and the subsequent operating costs for another 20 years, remember two things. First, the province is made of money. Over the next 20 years they will spend around $5 trillion dollars, so $200 million is not a lot, and secondly, if they wanted to save money, they could have insisted on putting up a bridge instead of building a ferry.

Over a 20-year period, a bridge would cost a lot less than building and operating the ferry service will. And after, 20 years, the bridge would still be there, but with a ferry service, the Wolfe Islander V will need to be built.

The bridge vs. ferry debate is an old one on Wolfe Island. When interviewed in 2015, Jan Hasseler, the first mayor of Frontenac Islands, said “anyone who studied math even a little bit can tell that a bridge is cheaper in the long run, and it would not take that long to pay off, but someone has to invest in the first place.

The just completed Wabaan Crossing bridge over the Cataraqui River, which is 1.2km long, cost $180 million, and the distance between the Kingston and Marysville dock is 5km.

The province did not go there, however, and for Wolfe Island residents and Mayor Greenwood Speers, the cost is irrelevant. All that counts is reliable service for existing residents and the potential for growth on Wolfe Island.

As part of her effort to change the Province's plans, Frontenac Islands Mayor Judy Greenwood-Speers came to Frontenac County Council for support.

Instead of offering up unequivocal support to a colleague dealing with the Province, North Frontenac Mayor Gerry Lichty made an unfortunate comment, saying he did not want the county to seem “ungrateful” when the province was spending so much money in Frontenac County.

Even though the matter was then clarified and Lichty ended up voting to support Frontenac Islands, the comment made the press.

Lichty made at least two mistakes. First, he did not just put his hand up in support of Frontenac Islands and its mayor and council. The township is in a dispute with the province over what their mayor says is a broken promise, and Lichty should have taken her word for it.

Secondly, if he wanted to look into it further, to make sure Frontenac Islands wasn’t being greedy, he needed to do his homework by contacting Mayor Greenwood-Speers or County Chief Administrator Kelly Pender before the meeting, before saying anything in public.

Instead, in his comments, he quoted social media reports, instead of his own colleagues. Not a good look.

The other mistake was to support, in any way, the Ministry of Transportation.

When Frontenac County was created in 1998, the Ministry of Transportation downloaded Hwy. 38, and Hwy 509/506 to South, Central and North Frontenac, along with a few dollars that have long been spent.

The townships have spent millions since then, maintaining and upgrading those roads, and more needs to be spent all the time. The Ministry of Transportation (MTO), i.e. the Province of Ontario, has saved millions of dollars by dumping those arterial roads onto the backs of the North Frontenac ratepayers.

The only roads that the MTO maintains, that are relevant to the people that Mayor Lichty represents, are Hwy. 7 and Hwy. 41, (north of Hwy 7) and they only do that because Hwy. 7 goes to Ottawa and Hwy 41 goes to Pembroke.

North Frontenac residents, in fact all mainland Frontenac County residents, have nothing to be ‘grateful’ for that ever came from the Ministry of Transportation except higher than necessary municipal taxes.

No harm was done by Mayor Lichty’s little rookie mistake at Frontenac County last month.

However, it is always good to remind ourselves that the Province of Ontario is not always on our side, and that seemingly minor decisions made in Toronto can cost money to people living in Ompah and Plevna for decades.