Marine Atlantic Holds 2014 Annual Public Meeting

Marine Atlantic held its 2014 Annual Public Meeting this afternoon (November 5th) at the Sheraton Hotel Newfoundland in St. John's, NL. Marine Atlantic's Chair of the Corporate Governance Committee Sharon Duggan was joined by the President and CEO Paul Griffin, and Vice President Finance Shawn Leamon in presenting the 2013-14 financial statements and an overview of the Corporation's activities.

The Annual Public Meeting is designed to provide an update on Marine Atlantic's fiscal year initiatives and investments, with this year's meeting focusing on the period April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014.

"This past fiscal year marked the fourth year of the Government of Canada's unprecedented five-year funding commitment to Marine Atlantic," said Sharon Duggan. "We have continued to make investments and infrastructure upgrades to improve our service with a focus on three pillars of positive change, fleet renewal, shore-based infrastructure renewal and business process change. I am pleased to say that we are seeing positive results with customer satisfaction rates increasing and recognition from external third parties who are experiencing this change directly. With these continued improvements, we are well on our way of becoming a modern and efficient organization offering a high level of customer service."

The main highlights of this year's meeting included corporate and shareholder investment, project and financial updates, and an update on renewal activities which have led to improvements in on-time performance, reliability and customer satisfaction rates which have increased to 87 per cent, almost a 20 per cent improvement since 2010.

Financial highlights included the Corporation's total expenditures of $258.9 million; $153 million was received via subsidy from the Government of Canada and $105.8 million was generated via customer tariffs and related revenue. Over $35 million was invested in asset renewal, while new initiatives helped reduce growing expenditures on fuel and maintenance.

"Everything that we do at Marine Atlantic has safety, reliability and efficiency at the core of our decision-making process to strengthen our customer service process," said Paul Griffin. "Since last year's update, we have started or continued a significant amount of infrastructure work at all three of our terminal properties, and introduced or renewed a number of business processes. From new buildings and docks, technology upgrades, improved maintenance practices, strengthened financial processes and new employee programs, we are working every day to strengthen the level of service experienced by our customers."

Marine Atlantic is a federal Crown Corporation that reports to the Government of Canada through Transport Canada.

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Media Contact:

Darrell Mercer

Corporate Communications

Telephone: (709) 772-0073 or (709) 727-2405

E-Mail: [email protected]