Liberals feel pressure over shipyard jobs
The Liberal government is under pressure to provide more work to two of the country’s main shipyards or employees at those companies may face layoffs.
Davie Shipyards could lay off hundreds of workers in Levis, Que., if the government doesn’t okay the construction of a second supply ship for the Royal Canadian Navy, company and union officials warn.
At the same time, the union representing workers at the Seaspan Shipyards in Vancouver is warning that some employees it represents are facing layoffs because of downtime in the federal government’s shipbuilding program.
Seaspan is building three offshore fisheries patrol vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard as part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy. But there will be a lull between the end of construction on those ships and the start of work on a fourth federal government vessel, prompting the union to sound the alarm.
Tim Page, vice-president of government relations at Seaspan, said the company is trying to drum up new work from the federal government and other commercial sources to bridge the gap.
“We do anticipate a production gap and while clearly not welcome, swings in a shipyard’s workforce is not unusual around the world,” Page said.
“We’re doing everything we can to mitigate that gap through work that we’re competitively and aggressively competing for in both the commercial and the government environments.”
Quebec’s government has taken a more aggressive approach, and is putting pressure on Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to change the National Shipbuilding Strategy to include Davie.
Sources close to Davie say the Quebec government and unions are also trying to mobilize Quebec Liberal MPs to pressure their government to change the shipbuilding strategy.
In 2011, when Irving on the east coast and Seaspan on the west coast were selected under the shipbuilding strategy to construct new federal government fleets, Davie was passed over in part because it was in financial trouble. But the firm is now back on its feet and wants a share of the federal shipbuilding action.
Over a recent 18-month period Davie built a supply ship for the navy, which it is leasing to the federal government. Davie now wants to produce a second supply ship for the military and has also proposed providing a new icebreaker and a multi-purpose vessel.
The Liberals have rejected Davie’s proposal, and Department of National Defence sources say there are currently no plans for the acquisition of a second interim supply ship.
The federal government is going to invest almost $100 billion over the next 20 to 30 years on renewing its fleet, said Davie chairman Alex Vicefield, and though Quebec represents 50 per cent of Canada’s shipbuilding capacity and 23 per cent of the country’s tax base he argues it is receiving less than one per cent of federal spending on shipbuilding.
Vicefield also called the current National Shipbuilding Strategy broken, and warned that federal ship fleets are rusting out and that the current strategy only covers a certain number and certain types of ships.
There are many more vessels that need to be constructed, the argument goes, and Davie should be given a chance to bid on those.
The federal government has also put out requests for information about smaller icebreakers.
According to a company representative, Davie has such vessels ready to go.