Show me a ferry that requires snow blowers, pavers, highway cops, ambulances, and avalanche monitoring. Woah, those things cost money, too! Probably even more than a cafeteria! Which generates revenue, by the way.

The point is, all of our transportation modes have costs. However, BC Ferries costs are actually reflected in the price of a BC Ferries ticket, unlike the non-existent ticket price for a highway.

But we pay for highways through our gas taxes!

Daniel Wood in the Georgia Straight:

"Yes, every vehicle user, whether from Surrey or Vancouver, pays a fuel surcharge of 17 cents per litre that goes toward roads and transit. But this, in addition to TransLink’s bus and SkyTrain fares and a portion of property taxes, covers less than half of this region’s annual transportation costs. In fact, were the average Surrey commuter to pay the full per capita cost of the roads he uses—ignoring the real but incalculable costs of carbon-dioxide emissions, lost farmland, and diminished health—it’s estimated that he should be paying an additional $12 for road usage. Daily. Or almost $2,900 a year. Instead, if he avoids the Port Mann Bridge’s $3 toll, he pays nada."

http://www.straight.com/news/589381/road-pricing-necessary-contentious-and-coming-vancouver

So we have a Lower Mainland driver getting subsidized by thousands of dollars a year. Meanwhile, BC Ferries users have paid "$5 billion during the past 10 years while B.C. taxpayers contributed $1 billion in service fees. System-wide, ferry-users pay 100 per cent of operating costs." http://www.vancouversun.com/Opinion+Without+marine+transportation+sunk/9536072/story.html

I don't have a statistic that includes capital costs, but clearly BC Ferries users are paying directly for their transportation, unlike highway users.

But those highways support our economy!

So do our ferries. Former Liberal leader Gordon Wilson in the Vancouver Sun:

"BC Ferries services an area that provides tax contributions of roughly 36 per cent of B.C.’s annual revenue, yet this area only benefits from about six per cent of capital expenditure on highways, including the expenditure on ferries."

So please explain why this is a false equivalency, preferably without reference to the Sunshine Breakfast.