NDP veteran no longer chair of BC Ferries governance board | Daily Hive

The Queen of Surrey sails the Horseshoe Bay–Langdale route on a spring day. The vessel has been hit with mechanical issues, forcing cancellations on Sunday, Sept. 21, 2025. (Tomas Frank/Shutterstock)

Three members of BC Ferries’ board of directors have been cycled off after their terms “expired,” including longtime BC NDP veteran Joy MacPhail, who is no longer chair of the ferry company’s governance board.

In a new bulletin, the BC Ferry Authority announced that Cathy McLay, the board’s current vice-chair, will serve as acting chair until a permanent replacement is appointed.

In addition to MacPhail, the terms of Eric Denhoff and Dennis Blatchford were also not renewed. But their positions have already been filled.

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The authority has appointed two new directors, including Jessica Bowering, a lawyer and senior counsel at Hawkings Lang and Price. She is described as bringing legal and governance experience, including through her work with two B.C. healthcare unions and the Alberta government.

The other new board appointee is Marlene Kowalski, an accountant who has served in senior financial roles with Vancouver Island University, Vancouver Community College, and the Fort McMurray Airport Authority.

However, MacPhail’s departure is particularly notable given her prominence within the BC NDP, both during and after office. She held several key cabinet roles throughout the 1990s under previous BC NDP governments led by premiers Michael Harcourt, Glen Clark, and Ujjal Dosanjh.

Before being appointed BC Ferries’ board chair in 2022, MacPhail was chair of ICBC’s board of directors. She assumed the BC Ferries governance role during a period of heightened criticism over the ferry company’s declining service standards and performance coming out of the pandemic. Shortly after her appointment, Mark Collins was fired as president and CEO, and ICBC president and CEO Nicolas Jimenez was later hired as BC Ferries’ new president and CEO.

Joy MacPhail. (Adler University)

The authority’s bulletin credits MacPhail, now 74, with helping steer BC Ferries onto a stronger course by improving services, setting short- and long-term performance targets, and advancing major capital projects aimed at improving fleet capacity and reliability.

However, the largest capital project announced and confirmed during MacPhail’s tenure was also one of the most controversial in the history of BC Ferries: the decision to build the first four new Summit-class vessels — the largest ships in the entire BC Ferries fleet — at a Chinese shipyard owned by the Government of China. At the time of last year’s decision, the ferry company maintained this was a necessary move for both cost and timeline reasons to replace rapidly aging vessels with poor reliability.

“The BC Ferry Authority Board of Directors would like to specifically acknowledge outgoing Chair Joy MacPhail for her transformative tenure and her fearless leadership. Joy’s extensive experience was critical in the implementation of billions of dollars of new capital assets for the ferry system, which will allow the company to maintain its resilience as ridership continues to grow,” reads the bulletin.

“Recently the BC Ferry Services Board and the BC Ferry Authority Board charted a new course for coastal ferries to meet future demands on the system. We continue to build on that strategic vision in the service and investment planning for the upcoming performance term.”

MacPhail currently also serves as the chair of the board of directors for Nch’Kay Development Corporation — the for-profit economic development company owned by the Squamish Nation, overseeing assets such as the Senakw rental housing project.

The BC Ferry Authority’s board of directors is made up of nine members, including four directors appointed by the provincial government, one director nominated by the trade union representing BC Ferries workers, and four directors nominated by coastal regional districts.

Among the current board directors representing coastal regional districts is Claire Trevena, who represents the Central Vancouver Island and Northern Georgia Strait Appointment Area.

Trevena is notable for her previous role as B.C.’s minister of transportation and infrastructure, beginning in 2017 — shortly after the BC NDP returned to lead government — until 2020, when she chose not to seek re-election. As the minister overseeing the file, Trevena, along with then-premier John Horgan, decided to cancel the 10-lane bridge project to replace the George Massey Tunnel. At the time, that bridge project was just months away from the start of major construction and had been scheduled for completion in 2022.

Nearly a decade after the bridge project was cancelled, and four years after the 10-lane bridge was originally expected to be complete, major construction has still not started on the replacement plan: a new eight-lane immersed tube tunnel targeted for completion and opening in 2030. All signs point to the new tunnel costing exponentially more than the cancelled bridge project.

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