B.C., Ontario shipyards team up for huge contract
Seaspan, Heddle eye deal for icebreaker
OTTAWA — Canada’s cutthroat shipbuilding industry saw a surprise alliance Tuesday as two competing yards announced plans to team up to win a multibilliondollar contract to build a new polar icebreaker for the Canadian Coast Guard.
The surprise agreement between Seaspan Shipyards in Vancouver and Ontario-based Heddle Shipyards is a type of co-operation rarely seen within Canada, where shipyards often fight tooth and nail against each other for work.
The two companies, along with Quebec-based shipbuilder Chantier Davie, had each expressed interest earlier this year in competing for the contract to build the CCGS John G. Diefenbaker, which will become the coast guard’s flagship once it is finished But the pair now say they believe they can be stronger together, with Seaspan leading the charge for the polar icebreaker contract and Heddle offering to help it build modules and other components.
“With today’s announcement, Seaspan is partnering with a Canadian-owned and -operated shipyard to deliver economic and social benefits to Ontario and the polar icebreaker to the Canadian Coast Guard,” Seaspan CEO Mark Lamarre told the Canadian Press.
“If Seaspan is awarded the polar, Heddle will fabricate modules in its three Ontario shipyards, which will create and sustain predictable long-term work for Heddle in Hamilton, St. Catharines and Thunder Bay.”
The Diefenbaker was originally supposed to have been built by Seaspan along with several other coast guard ships and two naval support ships after Seaspan was selected as one of two shipyards in the federal government’s national shipbuilding strategy in 2011.
But the federal Liberal government took the icebreaker away last year when it reshuffled the shipbuilding program and later asked yards across Canada to explain how and why they should get the contract.