The BC Ferries vessel Island Nagalis arrives in Campbell River, B.C., from Quadra Island in October, 2024. BC Ferries provides passenger and vehicle ferry services for the province’s coastal and island communities.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Two cabinet ministers and the chief executive of the Canada Infrastructure Bank are being called to explain why BC Ferries’ decision to buy four new vessels from China was supported by a $1-billion federal loan.
The House of Commons standing committee on transport, infrastructure and communities voted unanimously Monday to launch a study of the purchase and the bank’s involvement.
A special summer committee meeting was held at the request of the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois.
The Conservatives called for a study of the purchase after The Globe and Mail reported last month that the bank is providing BC Ferries with $1-billion in financing to purchase the ferries, which will be built by China Merchants Industry Weihai Shipyards.
The infrastructure bank and BC Ferries entered into the loan agreement in March, but the bank only announced the loan last month after receiving questions from The Globe.
The bank is a federal Crown corporation that was created in 2017 with a budget of $35-billion to support infrastructure projects in Canada. One of the main ways it supports projects is by offering loans at below market interest rates, which is how it is supporting the BC Ferries project.
The Conservative motion adopted by the committee calls for a meeting to take place within 30 days that will hear from Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson, Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canada Infrastructure Bank CEO Ehren Cory and BC Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez.
Bloc MP and committee vice-chair Xavier Barsalou-Duval said he would like to hear from the main officials involved and said he has concerns that Ottawa is not properly funding the ferry system to Quebec’s Magdalen islands.
Ms. Freeland sent a strongly worded letter last month to B.C. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth expressing her “great consternation and disappointment” with the planned purchase.
The letter also called on Mr. Farnworth to “verify and confirm with utmost certainty that no federal funding will be diverted to support the acquisition of these new ferries.”
That same week, Ms. Freeland also criticized the BC Ferries decision in the House of Commons and suggested there was no federal connection when responding to Conservative questions in the House.
Ms. Freeland’s office has not clarified whether she was aware of the federal loan from the infrastructure bank when she made the comments in the letter and in the House.
“The Liberal government and the infrastructure bank are actually complicit in offshoring Canadian jobs, and this is a very serious issue,” said Conservative MP and infrastructure critic Leslyn Lewis during Monday’s meeting. “This is especially outrageous at a time when our steel workers and industry are under attack from unjustified U.S. tariffs.”
Ms. Lewis said the issue raises the question of whether there are other infrastructure bank investments that support outsourcing work to other countries.
The provincial government has responded to the controversy by stating that BC Ferries is an independent company that makes its own operational decisions. It is primarily funded by the B.C. government but it also receives about $37.8-million a year from Ottawa for ferry operations.
BC Ferries provides passenger and vehicle ferry services for the province’s coastal and island communities.
Liberal MP Will Greaves, who represents the Vancouver Island riding of Victoria, said his party supports the study but said it was disappointing to see other parties playing politics over what he described as a critical piece of infrastructure in British Columbia.
“I encourage my colleagues to stop using BC Ferries and B.C. coastal communities as a punching bag to make points that we have heard before,” he said.
BC Ferries has said that no Canadian shipyards bid on the project and that the decision to buy the vessels from China will help it keep costs down as well as ease pressure to raise fees for travellers.
Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan has said Canadian shipyards can’t compete with low-wage countries that have lower employment and environmental standards.
B.C. Premier David Eby has also criticized BC Ferries’ purchase decision, while pointing out that Ottawa spends more supporting ferries on the East Coast than the West Coast.
Ferry service between Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia is managed by a federal Crown corporation called Marine Atlantic, which receives about $150-million a year in federal funding.
When BC Ferries announced its plan on June 10, it specifically mentioned Marine Atlantic’s history with the same Chinese shipyard.