BC Ferries has lowered its qualification requirements for its chief officers, one rank below captain, a change that a former safety director says jeopardizes safety.

The corporation said it had to ease the rules to allow younger people to move up the ranks more quickly because so many captains were retiring, and it now faces a worldwide shortage of chief officers.

Former BC Ferries safety director Darin Bowland warns that lowering standards for ships' captains will mean trouble.
(CBC)

But former safety director Darin Bowland said BC Ferries is being "completely reactive" and should have seen the retirements coming.

"If anybody actually looked at what's happening in the company, they would have known, you know, 'Three years from now, we're going to lose all these people. How are we going to deal with that effectively? OK, well, let's hire more people, but how are we going to train them?'

"To start lowering standards is a reactive tactic that is going to get them in a whole lot of trouble."

The change was made in June, just three months after one of the corporation's ferries, the Queen of the North, sank along the B.C. coast. Two people are missing and presumed dead.

Old rules exceeded government requirements

BC Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said until the new standards were put in place, the company's chief officers were actually more qualified than necessary.

"We were requiring our officers to have a higher ticket than what Transport Canada required," she said.

But Bowland argued that the Transport Canada requirements are the bare minimum, and that BC Ferries should be trying to exceed them.

Last week, he went public with an affidavit detailing his safety concerns about BC Ferries, and the reasons he alleges he was forced out of his job following the Queen of the North incident.

The affidavit had been part of his wrongful dismissal lawsuit against the corporation, which he recently dropped. None of the allegations have been proven in court.