The Case for Building BC Ferries in China

Islanders look at any issues around BC Ferries wondering two things. Will service improve? And how much more will fares go up?

From that perspective, the decision to buy four new ferries from CMI Weihai shipyard in China makes sense. Especially given the fuzziness of the arguments against the deal.

No Canadian shipyards responded to the requests for bids, in part because the three main shipyards — two of them foreign-owned — are operating at capacity building taxpayer-funded ships for the navy and coast guard as part of the federal government’s 2010 shipbuilding strategy.

Politicians claim to be dismayed by the decision to build the four new ships — the largest in the fleet, each with room for 2,100 passengers and crew — in China.

Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad said the government should have ordered the ships to be built in B.C., an odd position for a free-market party. Rustad didn’t say whether all taxpayers, or just ferry users, should pay the extra costs.

BC NDP Transport Minister Mike Farnworth and Premier David Eby said they were unhappy, but not enough to do anything about the contract. And they didn’t explain why their government, which owns BC Ferries, declined to rule out ships from China if that was a concern. (The corporation has supposedly been independent since 2003 legislation by the Gordon Campbell BC Liberal government. It’s not.)

Farnworth did note that even building the ferries in Europe — not B.C. — would add $1.2 billion to the cost.

The oddest intervention came from federal Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland, who released a letter Friday afternoon warning of her “great consternation and disappointment” about the Chinese-built ships.

Freeland and the federal government have no legitimate role in this debate. She notes the federal government helps fund BC Ferries, but Ottawa provides about $35 million, or three per cent of ferry revenue. Three per cent does not let you dictate to BC Ferries management.

Freeland lectures the provincial government about the security threats posed by China-built ships and huffs about buying from China “in the current geopolitical context.”

What context, exactly? Canada sparked a trade dispute, pre-Trump, by imposing 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese electric cars on Oct. 1. Two weeks later, the government imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum. China retaliated with its own 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola oil and meal, as well as 25 per cent on seafood and pork.

Complex and damaging. But what does it have to do with BC Ferries?

Freeland’s government could have made it impossible for Chinese shipyards to sell to Canada by imposing prohibitive tariffs. It didn’t. Instead it’s slagging BC Ferries.

And in a glaringly hypocritical way. Last year Marine Atlantic, the federal Crown corporation that provides ferry services in Atlantic Canada, celebrated the arrival of a new ferry built in the same Chinese shipyard that will produce the new BC Ferries vessels.

And Freeland’s government continues to promote trade with China.

There are real concerns about building in China — human rights abuses, forced labour, unfair trade practices, political interference in other countries, including Canada. BC Ferries claims it has taken measures to avoid abuses.

And there are reasons to hope future ships could be built in Canada — once governments have figured out who will pay for the much higher costs. The federal government has decided, rightly, that taxpayers should subsidize Canadian construction for ships for the military and coast guard, but hasn’t introduced the same for BC Ferries or other builders.

Most ferry users — and the communities that rely on them — are just looking for better, more affordable service, even if that means building ships in China.

In 1975, a car and driver could cross from Victoria to Vancouver for $5. If ferry fares had kept pace with inflation, the cost would be $29 today. But in fact the fare, for most sailings, is $105.

If politicians want BC Ferries to build ships in Europe or Canada, they need to assure ferry users they won’t be stuck with the bill.