Like it or not this is why Canada isn’t competitive on the world stage, we can tout higher wages, better safety, higher standards but in the end the only thing that matters to 99% of buyers is price. The fact that Seaspan’s only customers are federal contracts is pretty telling. They won’t even bid on these ferries because they can’t compete.
AustralisBorealis64 on
Um, because BC doesn’t have a ferry building industry? Nor a federal government willing to subsidize a ferry building industry?
ZonicTheNicotineHog on
Lots of ferries in the news lately eh.
Both-Platypus-8521 on
Last great spirit class ferries were built by a consortium of shipyards on time and on budget and are still moving, unlike some offshore built ones. Just when the NDP got involved with catamaran dreams it went down the tube.
yerich on
The top ship exporting countries are China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, the UAE, Finland and France. Besides China and the UAE, I would assume the labour costs and the standards in those countries are pretty high. I wonder what other factors make Canadian shipbuilders so uncompetitive on the world stage.
6 Comments
Like it or not this is why Canada isn’t competitive on the world stage, we can tout higher wages, better safety, higher standards but in the end the only thing that matters to 99% of buyers is price. The fact that Seaspan’s only customers are federal contracts is pretty telling. They won’t even bid on these ferries because they can’t compete.
Um, because BC doesn’t have a ferry building industry? Nor a federal government willing to subsidize a ferry building industry?
Lots of ferries in the news lately eh.
Last great spirit class ferries were built by a consortium of shipyards on time and on budget and are still moving, unlike some offshore built ones. Just when the NDP got involved with catamaran dreams it went down the tube.
The top ship exporting countries are China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Germany, the UAE, Finland and France. Besides China and the UAE, I would assume the labour costs and the standards in those countries are pretty high. I wonder what other factors make Canadian shipbuilders so uncompetitive on the world stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PacifiCat-class_ferry?wprov=sfti1#Fate_of_the_PacifiCats
Wonder if we should just have kept these fast ferries. They were sold for pennies