Ferries announced plans to discontinue the Princess of Acadia service effective October 31, 2006 citing a 25% decrease in passenger totals since 1998. The announcement met with widespread opposition, with a group of local business owners, concerned citizens and ferry company employees organizing a "Save The Ferry" committee to help save the service. Over 130 jobs would be directly terminated as well as hundreds (possibly thousands) indirectly. The federal government, which still owns the vessel and terminals, as well as the provincial government of Nova Scotia and municipalities on both sides, looked at possible solutions. The Nova Scotia government and Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency offered a combined $6 million to subsidize the service, with additional funding expected from New Brunswick. A number of subsequent government agreements since 2006 have provided operating subsidies to help keep the ferry in service. The most recent subsidy agreement in 2014 came shortly after an announcement that the federal government would purchase a replacement vessel for Princess of Acadia. This new vessel, Fundy Rose was acquired in late 2014 and entered service between Saint John and Digby in July 2015. Gulf of Maine Bay Ferries operated ferry service across the Gulf of Maine from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Bar Harbor, Maine, and from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Portland, Maine, using a high speed catamaran ferry service using the marketing name "The Cat". This ferry route was initiated in 1955 by the Government of Canada at the insistence of tourism operators and fish exporters in southwestern Nova Scotia. Throughout the 19th century and early 20th century, steamship service from Yarmouth to New York City, Boston and Portland, Maine, had been provided by various operators, lastly the Dominion Atlantic Railway, subsequently Canadian Pacific Railway. The resurrected service in 1955 saw new ferry terminals constructed in Yarmouth and Bar Harbor and used the newly commissioned ferry MV Bluenose, named after Nova Scotia's famous racing schooner Bluenose. The service was operated by Canadian National Railways (later Canadian National Railway) and in 1977 was included in the CN reorganization which created CN Marine. In 1982 a newer vessel MV Stena Jutlandica was purchased and renamed MV Bluenose (replacing the previous vessel). In 1986 CN Marine became Marine Atlantic which continued to operate the service, although it was scaled back to a seasonal May–October operation by the mid-1990s. Since the Gulf of Maine service operated to the United States, the vessel