Grand Manan has been facing significant ferry issues that have been causing disruptions and concerns for the local community. Mayor Bonnie Morse has been vocal about the challenges the islanders have been experiencing due to multiple breakdowns of the ferry service. She said thee breakdowns have resulted in extended delays, leaving passengers, including sports teams and families, stranded on the mainland for hours on end. 

"Over the past two months that we've had three breakdowns, essentially, in a very short time period," said Mayor Morse. "I think as islanders, we expect that you're going to miss a trip every now and then. But we're talking multiple trips for the duration of a day. Two of those happened on a Sunday, which for the economy isn't necessarily one of the bigger travel days, but we have a lot of sports teams. We did the numbers here a while ago. We think maybe even up to half of the kids in school are participating in either basketball or hockey. It's really taken off. But that means a lot of travel for a lot of teams and a lot of parents. The first breakdown, we ended up with over 10% of the population of Grand Manan was stranded on the mainland. There were over 300 people just because of the number of sports teams that were travelling. It took two ferry crossings to get everybody home, but because it took so long to have the ferry repaired and back online, the ferry made it crossing from Blacks Harbour at 9:30 in the morning, and it didn't make another one until nine o'clock at night."

Such disruptions not only inconvenience the residents but also pose logistical and financial challenges, especially for those who rely on the ferry for essential travel, such as medical appointments. Morse emphasized the importance of having backup plans, such as maintaining the readiness of the Grand Manan 5 ferry during the winter months to prevent prolonged service disruptions. 

"One of the things we've been talking about with both DTI (Department of Transportation and Infrastructure) and Coastal Transport (who run the ferry service) is the need to have the Grand Manan 5, which is our summer ferry, to have that in a readiness mode so that in the winter, if we have a longer term breakdown like this, it's able to get back to find faster."

The need for a more reliable ferry service is compounded by the fact that the population of Grand Manan has grown but, at the same time, many services on the island have left. That means the growing population of islanders needs to take the ferry to the mainland more frequently. 

"We were up 10% in the last census, and we've had more people move to the island since then. But we've also lost services on the island, like the dentist, like the bank. With more people who are requiring to travel for things that they didn't use to, we're seeing that this capacity on the ferry, it's running full or fuller a lot more frequently than it used to. Last year, we had an increase of three weeks. We're hoping that the same thing is going to happen this year again. But really, when you look at the numbers and the stats on the ferry, we need more capacity, whether it's through additional crossings."

There have also been discussions about the potential need for a new ferry due to the aging infrastructure and increasing demand for transportation services on the island.

"Ultimately, the time has come. We need to start talking about a new ferry. We started those conversations with DTI, but it's a long process because it's a big investment, which we get. But the Grand Manan 5 is 34 years old. So by the time you get through the process, we're reaching the end of the usable life of that ferry without a significant reinvestment in it, potentially."