Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

Opening remarks

No. I think that's essentially it. We lose out on those jobs. That's the importance of having a bold industrial strategy so we're not going to lose out on these because we lost that capacity or hadn't maintained or built it. It needs to be brought into that larger capacity, looking beyond just defence to commercial ships, ferries and things like that as well.

Opening remarks

Thank you for the invitation to speak with you all this morning, and thank you in particular for spotlighting the decision by BC Ferries to purchase its next four major vessels from a shipyard in China instead of building them right here in British Columbia. As you said, my name is Sussanne Skidmore, and I am the president of the British Columbia Federation of Labour. We comprise more than 80 affiliated unions, representing more than half a million workers from every part of British Columbia and literally every sector of our economy. As many of those workers can tell you, ferries in British Columbia are every bit as much a part of our highway system as any bridge, tunnel or stretch of asphalt. Both the southern and northern legs of the Trans-Canada Highway include ferry crossings. Ferries get goods to market and people where they need to go, from the inland ferries crossing rivers and lakes to the marine networks operated by BC Ferries serving our islands and coastal communities. A large chunk of our economy is literally riding on the ferries, so when we talk about “buy Canadian”, when we talk about “buy B.C.” and when we talk about nation-building projects, British Columbia's…

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to address you. I'm Brynn Bourke, executive director for BC Building Trades. We are a council of 20 craft construction unions representing over 45,000 construction workers across British Columbia. I’m here today to speak first and foremost for our members in the shipbuilding industry, and in particular for the people who wanted and needed this work and watched it go offshore. We represent over 2,500 hard-working tradespeople who earn their living building and maintaining vessels in British Columbia: 1,300 members from Marine & Shipbuilders CMAW local 506; 429 members from UA local 170; 100 members from UA local 324; 350 members from IBEW local 230; over 500 members from IBEW local 213; and over 150 members from IUOE local 115, the operating engineers. I want you to understand that the history of shipbuilding in British Columbia goes back over 100 years. Our members built almost every single ferry in this province before 2000. In fact, the Queen-class vessels currently being replaced with this procurement were built in British Columbia. The Queen of New Westminster and the Queen of Cowichan were built in Victoria…

Opening remarks

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to put our voices forward on this project. Clearly, BC Ferries has made another bad decision in going offshore. We've reached out to some of our shipyards to find out what their thoughts were. Canadian shipyards would not have bid on this project. The shipyards would have reviewed the procurement and looked at the likelihood of being successful. Based on their level of competitiveness, they would have declined the process because Canadian shipyards are too expensive to compete on a world market for new ship construction, especially when competing with China, Korea and other shipbuilding nations that have wages significantly lower than those of Canadian workers. They are nations that possess national incentives such as subsidies, or the shipyards are owned by the government of that country, which is the problem with China, of course, and Korea. The capabilities and facilities are committed to the national shipbuilding strategy. There's an insignificant market for Canadian shipbuilders to maintain large commercial shipbuilding operations unless supported by the NSS. There is a severe lack of skilled labour in Canada to build these…