The Conservative governments recent announcement that they will spend 14 million dollars to enable the cruise ship industry to drain our already precarious energy grid system is just reckless and a bad investment.

The cruise ship industry is a nightmare for climate and environmental resources. A lot of countries and communities are actively reducing/banning cruise ships to their ports. The impacts include:

• Water
• Waste dumping
• Pollution
• Overtourism

The cruise ship industry has low economic value. In 2024, there was only 15 million dollars in direct benefit to PEI.

The tourism industry as a whole in 2024 generated $520.7 million in direct visitor spending.

The cruise ship industry has a high environmental impact for just 2.8% of the revenue generated.

This is not even getting into the fact that PEI’s grid system can’t handle the energy demands we have now. How will this increase in demand effect our rates and our grid?

Why are we so quick to spend money in low-value industry instead of investing in… our people, our environment, our home?

References

https://cruising.org/resources/contribution-cruise-tourism-canadian-economy-2024
https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/small-ship-cruising/travel-guide/cruise-ships-and-overtourism
https://www.islands.com/2122354/cruise-ports-ban-affect-travel-2026/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-funding-green-shipping-cruise-ships-electrical-grid-9.7194906
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-maritime-electric-application-temporary-rate-increase-9.7033885
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-maritime-electric-winter-rotating-outages-9.6996660