Vancouver should brace itself for significant change if Vancouver Shipyards Company wins a portion of the $35-billion in federal contracts for new warships and other vessels this fall, a company executive says.In an interview shortly after the company submitted its bid, John Shaw, a vice-president at the parent company Seaspan Marine Corp., said winning the contract would mean expansion of training and apprenticeship programs, and a search for more than 2,000 new employees.
“We would be rebuilding an industry. … We’re at a point where we would have to train a whole new generation on shipbuilding,” Mr. Shaw said. “It would be a huge change here.”
The federal government has requested proposals for a $35-billion procurement program that includes combat ships – new armed Arctic patrol ships and replacements for the navy’s destroyers and frigates. It also involves non-combat vessels – a polar icebreaker, support ships for the warships, Coast Guard vessels and fisheries science ships. Federal officials have said contracts for the combat ships would be awarded to a different bidder than the contract for the non-combat vessels.
Three bids were submitted by last week’s deadline on Thursday, but the federal government has not yet decided if a consortium put together at the last moment meets the qualifications. The consortium is made up of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., of Quebec; Upper Lakes Group, of Ontario; and Daewoo, of South Korea. Vancouver Shipyards is also competing against Irving Shipbuilding Inc., of Halifax.
Vancouver Shipyards spent in excess of $1-million to prepare the bid submitted last Tuesday. The documents filled 30,000 pages in 125 binders, shipped to the federal government in 22 boxes. The bid sets out how the company would upgrade equipment and facilities at the company’s Vancouver and Victoria shipyards, new processes to improve productivity and where the company would find enough people for production and management of the massive projects, Mr. Shaw said.
The company worked with local universities, the B.C. Institute of Technology and the provincial government to ensure that programs would be in place to provide the appropriate training, Mr. Shaw said.
The Vancouver shipyard, which employs 287 people, could provide as many as 3,433 jobs at the peak of the 30-year construction program if the company is awarded the $26-billion contract to build the warships, according to a consultants report.
However, most of the material for the inside of the warships would come from outside the province. The combat systems for the warships, which account for about half of the cost of the vessels, would be primarily from Ontario and Quebec, Mr. Shaw said. B.C. does not have the high-tech industries to provide the material.
Thales Canada, an Ontario-based subsidiary of a multinational company that develops command, control and computer-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, was involved in writing Vancouver Shipyards’ bid.
The bid also included the work of Imtech Marine, a multinational company that specializes in navigation and communication equipment as well as heating, ventilation and air conditioning, Alion Canada, a subsidiary of a U.S.-based company that works on designs and engineering, and STX Canada Marine, also a subsidiary of a U.S. based company that does naval architecture and marine engineering company.
The B.C. government has been criticized for coming late to support the Vancouver Shipyards’ bid. “They scrambled aboard at the last minute,” New Democratic Party critic Bruce Ralston said Sunday. The NDP have been urging more vigorous provincial lobbying for the contract since last year.
Mr. Ralston welcomed the promise of apprenticeship programs that he said the Liberals previously “trashed.”
The Liberals had replaced established job-training programs with shorter training for specific trades. Although the students found jobs, the programs did not graduate Red Seal journeymen who could work in a range of positions, he said.
“The system they put in place is not working and they need to rebuild it,” Mr. Ralston said. NDP Leader Adrian Dix has said a spinoff benefit from a successful bid would be to build capacity for the industry to bid on B.C. Ferries tenders for construction of new passenger vessels.
A news conference has been scheduled for Monday in the shipyard to announce government support for the shipbuilding industry. Premier Christy Clark last month announced $550,000 in support for development of a new marine training centre. She also organized support of the Western premiers on Vancouver Shipyards’ B.C. bid.
Vancouver Shipyards is now anxiously waiting to see if the Quebec consortium has qualified for the shipbuilding competition.
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Source: Globe & Mail
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