Rob Shaw: Eby blows a hole in his Captain Canada costume with China deal
Buying new coastal ferries from a hostile government, that will use no Canadian steel, aluminum or skilled workers, is a decision the premier is probably already regretting.
By: Rob Shaw
For months, the B.C. NDP government has had a consistent message: Elbows up. Team Canada. Buy B.C. Support local. Transform the economy. Fast-track projects. Create jobs. Build, baby, build.
The David Eby government has clung to the narrative in an obsessive way since almost losing its majority in the October election; a kind of life raft of stability in turbulent political times.
Which made last week all the more confusing, after the government-owned BC Ferries Corporation announced a multi-billion-dollar deal to purchase new ships from the government of China.
“Customers expect us to go source the best possible deal,” BC Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez said when announcing the contract with the state-owned Weihai shipyard.
“When it comes to things like trade policy, industrial policy, geopolitics, we would really defer that to the federal and provincial governments and expect them to manage and work those issues.”
Criticism was immediate and intense that public money would go to a brutal authoritarian regime that is actively hostile to Canadian interests. Concerns have resonated from the B.C. legislature to the House of Commons in Ottawa.
“I share the concern, and I share the outrage,” said Mike Kelloway, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of transport. The minister herself, Chrystia Freeland, told Parliament days earlier that she is also worried about the China deal. Ottawa contributes $36 million annually to BC Ferries. Both ministers, however, fobbed the issue back to the province.
The Eby government has been rocked by the decision, which it tacitly endorsed but did not appear to appreciate the significance of.
It was announced by BC Ferries while Eby was on an Asian trade mission, visiting a South Korean shipyard. Seafood producers accompanied Eby, in part to try to diversify markets due to crippling Chinese tariffs. Eby deliberately did not visit China.
A deal with China also contradicts years of comments from Eby that the country is a hostile force interfering with Canadian elections (including Vancouver’s 2022 municipal race), contributing to the province’s money-laundering problems and facilitating the export to B.C. of chemical precursors that are used to manufacture fentanyl and worsen the ongoing toxic drug crisis.
“Taxpayer money … is now subsidizing jobs in China, a country that has kidnapped Canadian citizens, and has unjustly tariffed our farmers and our fisherman,” said Aaron Gunn, the Conservative MP from North Island-Powell River.
The federal government has blocked Chinese companies from investing in critical national security infrastructure, such as telecommunications. But no such measures appear to apply to the west coast ferry service. BC Ferries said it checked with Ottawa before signing the deal.
Experts in the field said the BC Ferries deal helps China assert dominance in the passenger shipbuilding sector, which it is using to increase capacity to construct military troop carriers.
BC Ferries has defended the decision by saying no Canadian shipyards mounted credible bids to construct its four large new ships.
North Vancouver-based Seaspan (which is actually owned by an American parent company) said it is at capacity building vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard and military, and that it “cannot compete with low-wage countries that have lower employment standards, lower environmental standards and lower safety standards.”
Although it had previously built vessels in Romania, Poland and Germany, the ferry corporation said it would at least double costs compared to China. It has not released the value of the contract; however, NDP government officials said the next-lowest bid to China would have added $1.2 billion.
Labour officials in British Columbia, who are normally NDP allies, have castigated the government for the move.
“This decision, in this moment in Canada’s history, will forever be a stain on BC Ferries,” said the B.C. Building Trades.
“This short-sighted choice will send hundreds of millions of dollars out of our province, profiting a brutal authoritarian regime instead of enriching local communities,” said the B.C. Federation of Labour.
Both said the B.C. government had an opportunity to partner with Ottawa and grow the Canadian shipbuilding sector, to manufacture the BC Ferries boats. It would have required an investment in port facilities and skilled trades, but both levels of government have been promoting exactly those kinds of moves in the past few months to try and boost the national economy in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“Chinese state-owned yards — no tax, no rules, no accountability,” said B.C. Conservative transport critic Harman Banghu.
“They don’t pay fair wages. They use slave labour —Uyghur Muslims in forced camps. In Canada, we pay good wages because we believe in dignity, human rights, and building a future for our families.
“But this NDP government led by David Eby chose dictatorship over democracy. No Canadian steel. No Canadian jobs. No apprenticeships, no revenue, no legacy — just billions sent to a regime hostile to our values.”
The move also has implications for the Eby government nationally as well, as it attempts to oppose a new oil pipeline from Alberta that several premiers, and the prime minister, said is in the country’s national economic interest.
“So the B.C. NDP government wants to block Canadian energy exports from the west coast, while buying 15 ships from a heavily subsidized Chinese state owned shipyard for an undisclosed amount,” former Alberta premier Jason Kenney posted on social media.
B.C. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth has said most people will just be happy to see BC Ferries procure new vessels, to help address growing lineups at terminals and cancellations due to aging vessels. He expressed concern, but said he’s helpless to direct BC Ferries because it is technically an independent company (with its sole shareholder being the provincial government, millions in annual provincial subsidies and two corporate boards stacked with NDP insiders).
Eby has not commented on the decision publicly. It seems to go against everything his government has ever said, or professed to stand for. And it certainly evaporates his Captain Canada persona from the last few months.
What he does next, may be a defining moment of his premiership.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics. He now reports for CHEK News out of Victoria. He’s the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast and YouTube show Political Capital, and the weekly political correspondent for CBC Radio’s All Points West and Radio West programs. You can reach him at rob@robshawnews.com
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Definitely not a good look for the NDP, pretty hypocritical for sure.
Not a fan of the protectionist rectoric coming from the critics though. If Canada had a flourishing shipbuilding industry then sure it'd be worth paying a modest premium for a Canadian made ship but quite frankly we don't. We'd have to spend probably 10s of billions of dollars and another decade to get there, if I were a taxpayer in BC I'd be pretty pissed about wasting all that money in that scenario, plus I assume BC ferries is buying the ships because it needs them and probably can't afford to wait another 15 years for a new ship.
Maybe a middle ground would be buying the ships from South Korea.
In the decades after the Second World War, Canada funded capital investment in shipyards and ensured a steady supply of ship orders to keep them busy. Maintaining the domestic manufacturing and technical capacity is far more important than getting the best possible price per ship. Taxpayer dollars spent at home become tax revenue. Taxpayer dollars spent overseas become domestic debt.
COVID should have been the wake up call that the global trade status quo cannot hold. We can't keep neglecting our own productive capacity and funding our adversaries with IOUs. It's insane that Canada, with its huge coastline and vast supply of iron and technical expertise, does not have a world-leading shipbuilding industry.