B.C. Ferries’ announcement that its four new vessels will be built in China has made waves, with the ripple effects reaching all the way to Ottawa.
Canada’s transport minister, Chrystia Freeland, has said she’s disappointed with the decision and the Conservatives, both federally and in B.C., have gone further, saying the deal should be scrapped entirely.
But no Canadian companies bid on the contract, and B.C. Ferries says it would have cost at least $1 billion more to have the ferries built in Europe.
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Sechelt Mayor John Henderson says the political rhetoric ignores the needs of people in his community who rely on the ferries as their highway system.
“We need these built, we need them built yesterday,” Henderson said. “As ferry-dependent users, we don’t really care [where they’re built], because we need them.”
Henderson acknowledges the new vessels will service the larger routes, and not smaller communities like his, but they will help improve the overall reliability of B.C. Ferries’ aging fleet.
“To stop this process and start it again in a new fashion, we’re not talking months, we’re talking years, and we don’t have years.”
Andrew Leonard, the mayor of Bowen Island, says his residents are affected when B.C. Ferries ships that are well past their lifespan break down and are out of service.
“The trickle-down effect is that does cause chaos in the Horseshoe Bay terminal,” said Leonard, which can in turn disrupt the smaller ferries heading to Bowen Island.
That’s why, he says, the political debate about where the ferries will be made is “disconnected” from the needs of local residents.
“I’m not sure how big of a deal it is if there’s not Canadian capacity to build those vessels,” Leonard said.
North Vancouver’s Seaspan, B.C.’s largest shipyard, did not bid on the contract because it’s busy building ships for the Royal Canadian Navy.
“I think going forward, there’s a huge opportunity to work with the federal government to ensure our shipbuilding industry has the opportunity to build these ferries right here in Canada,” said Premier David Eby.
Eby also points out that B.C. Ferries is getting short shrift when it comes to federal cash for ferries, compared to ferries in Atlantic Canada.
B.C. Ferries received $35.6 million from Ottawa last year. Based on 22.7 million passengers that year, that amounts to $1.50 per passenger.
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Trevor Heaver, a UBC professor emeritus who specializes in transport economics, says the federal government’s relationship with Marine Atlantic — a federal Crown corporation that operates ferries between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia — is different than that with B.C. Ferries, a private company owned by the B.C. government.
“[Marine Atlantic’s] relationship with the federal government is completely different than B.C. Ferries because Canada has an obligation under Confederation to support those ferries,” Heaver said.
The federal government agreed to provide subsidies for ferries when Atlantic provinces joined Confederation in 1867, whereas Ottawa’s funding for B.C. Ferries was negotiated by former premier Bill Bennett in 1977.
Nonetheless, Eby is using that disparity to bolster his argument that B.C. is consistently forgotten by Ottawa, while central and Atlantic Canada reap the rewards.
The premier also points out that one of Marine Atlantic’s newest ships was built in the same Chinese state-owned company, CMI Weihei Shipyards, without a similar backlash.
“In fact, a [Marine Atlantic] ferry was built at the exact same Chinese shipyard as the B.C. Ferries [ships] are going to be built and their ferry[is] paid for in its entirety, whereas the West Coast only qualifies for a loan.”
It follows criticism from provincial and federal Conservatives, who say the loan contradicts statements from Freeland that no federal money would subsidize the contract with China.
Kiel Giddens, the B.C. Conservative labour critic, says a key piece of legislation passed to respond to tariff threats — Bill 7 — gives the power to overturn procurement decisions to prioritize a made-in-Canada approach.
“We think [the NDP] government should actually be cancelling this contract and bringing some of these jobs back home,” Giddens said. “If not full capacity here, design your procurement in a way that it will be possible for some Canadian jobs and the rest with Canada’s allies.”
Heaver says demanding that the ships be made in Canada — even at a higher cost — ignores the principles of global free trade.
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“We have fundamentally to accept that we can’t do all things,” Heaver said. “And that we rely on a competitive process to use resources most efficiently for the benefit of consumers.”
Some ferry users who spoke to CBC News at the Swartz Bay terminal in North Saanich say the upgraded vessels can’t come fast enough.
“I’m always concerned about value for dollars,” says Erroll Winter, who lives on the Lower Mainland. “Certainly I’d like [the contract] to go toward Canadian builders if it’s possible, but I’m also torn between the costs of the ferries. They’re already very expensive.”
“Ideally, I think they should be built here,” said Pat Lintaman, who lives in Victoria. “But I think they’re playing catch-up. It was a timing issue. We need those ferries now.”
