Four new ships for BC Ferries' fleet will be coming from a Chinese shipyard, news that has caused a bit of a political firestorm in the last few days.
Why not build them right here in Canada? Here in B.C., even, where we have our own shipyards?
Well, the main reason is that none of our shipyards bid on the project.
Local shipyards aren't short on skilled workers, but they're not that big. Seaspan, one of the biggest, is in fact already working on multiple contracts to build ships for the Canadian Coast Guard and Navy, including support ships, science vessels, and polar icebreakers.
The truth is, our shipbuilding industry, especially here on the West Coast, just doesn't have that much spare capacity.
On a global scale, it's quite small, and most of the business it does is local, serving industries like our domestic military and industrial needs. Meanwhile, China has about 60 per cent of the world shipbuilding market.
If we want to build the next generation of ferries for B.C., we can't just think about it in terms of making three or four or five ships locally.
We have to think in global terms.
Both our provincial and federal governments are looking for big, nation building-scale projects right now to reinvigorate Canada's economy.
If we want to build ships for B.C., we need a shipbuilding industry that serves a worldwide market. China may have lower labour costs, but South Korea and Japan 鈥� nations with comparable standard of living and GDP per capita to Canada 鈥�, are the second- and third-biggest builders.
If we want a piece of the global shipbuilding market, we'd have to invest in technology, training, research, and facilities. We'd have to make meaningful partnerships between governments, private industry, and labour unions.
Getting Canada a good-sized slice of the global shipping business would be a big swing. It might be worth doing 鈥� creating a job-providing, high-tech industry would be good for the country.
But we can't just spin up our industry from where it is, to where it could be, in a day. We can't wish it into being. Until we have a real industry with a lot more capacity than our present shipyards have, it's no wonder we have to go shopping abroad for ferries.
