Have we even tried airing it out this game ? <| sep |> BC Ferries is under contract with , and receives payment from BC Ministry of Transportation to provide essential transportation services for people living in areas not served by a land link . They do not operate as an independent marketdriven provider . Which is good because many small routes never have and never will be profitable . But they get money for it from MoT , much like the contractors who get money from MoT for building and maintaining highways around the province . Just because a route is not strictly profitable on a persailing basis doesn ' t mean it is them being idiots and purposely turning a loss for fun , it means they ' re likely doing it to provide transportation services . If BC ferries only operated sailings that were guaranteed to be profitiable , there would be only a few routes and they ' d only run certain days and times which would make the lives and economies of the areas served pretty crappy . Most people think of ferries as a vacation travel service because that ' s the only time they use them , but it ' s far more useful to think of it as a key part of provincial infrastructure , with a user fee to help offset the fact that ferries are an incredibly expensive form of transport .