Earlier this year, BC Ferries awarded a contract to build four new vessels in its fleet to a Chinese shipbuilder, sparking controversy.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
When we last left the decision by BC Ferries to award a contract to build four new vessels in its fleet to a Chinese shipbuilder, politicians of all persuasions couldn’t denounce the move vigorously enough.
It was a scandal, we were assured. The federal Conservatives decried the fact we were off-shoring jobs to an adversary. (Who is going to tell them that China is our second-largest trading partner and our exports help feed their people?)
Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland, meantime, was “dismayed” by the announcement, as was B.C. NDP Premier David Eby. So, so much dismay. There was more dismay, in fact, than there usually is at the end of a Toronto Maple Leafs season.
Amoebas come with more backbone than our political class.
The one person who has demonstrated some spine throughout this contretemps has been BC Ferries president Nicolas Jimenez. In private moments, he has surely quivered with rage at the duplicity and fake outrage and false equivalence he’s witnessed as the debate around the contract has raged on.
Opinion: We have to do business with China – get over it
Last week, Mr. Jimenez made an appearance at the Made in Canada: Ferries and Rail Summit in Hamilton, Ont. He reiterated that the ferry corporation received no bids from a Canadian shipyard for the four-vessel contract, and pointed out that, beyond the industry’s current obligations to the national shipbuilding strategy – which consists primarily of building coast guard and navy vessels – there simply isn’t the capacity to do much more.
The folks screaming at the skies over this issue argue that the four BC Ferries vessels could easily have been built in Canada tomorrow. I mean, with “elbows up” and all that, shouldn’t this have been a priority? The answer: only if we could do the work at a competitive cost and within a reasonable time frame, and that capability does not exist in this country. According to Mr. Jimenez, it would take 10 to 15 years – and perhaps even longer.
Canadian shipbuilding unions in Canada have complained that if cost is the number-one criteria for a bid to succeed, then it will always be impossible to compete with countries like China that pay far lower wages in manufacturing. Conveniently ignored is the fact that BC Ferries has, over the last many years, been getting its ships built in Europe, including in high-income countries such as Germany. Their yards are so huge, they have magnitudes of scale that smaller operations can’t match. They get deals with suppliers because of the volume of product they are ordering, which drives down costs.
The one person, writes Gary Mason, who has demonstrated some spine throughout this dispute has been BC Ferries president Nicolas Jimenez.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
“In Canada we don’t have that kind of scale,” Mr. Jimenez said on the Jas Johal Show in Vancouver. “So, I think the Canadian industry is going to need to look at how they can partner more globally to bring scale into the country, if it can’t be done organically.”
These are complex matters that require thoughtful consideration. All of the grotesque politicking that has taken place around this so-called scandal is the opposite of what is necessary if we are going to try and design an industrial strategy to become a consequential shipbuilding nation. Mr. Jimenez also points out that if Canada’s shipbuilders think they can become serious players in this area by just adding replacement ferries to their contract lists, they are deluding themselves. It still wouldn’t be enough work to sustain a legitimate, internationally competitive shipbuilding program.
Politicians pounding their desks and making all sorts of noise about this matter have no idea what the true state of the industry is in Canada. All they see is an opportunity to bamboozle the public with bogus, jingoistic arguments. And I’m not just talking about opposition politicians: Virtually everyone who has spoken out on this issue has put political expediency over the harder, more honest path of explaining to people why this was the right call if the interests of the end users – ferry passengers – are going to be placed first.
After all, who was going to pay for the billions more it might have cost to have these ferries built in Canada? Just add it to B.C.’s growing provincial debt? Make cash-strapped travelers pay even more for their ferry travel?
Funny: that’s not something any of the politicians want to talk about.
We are in perilous times. Friends now act like our enemies. In some respects we are more alone as a country than ever before. Canada needs to become serious, in a hurry. We need to act like our very existence is at stake.
That takes deep, honest conversations, not cheap sloganeering. It’s time we grew up as a nation.