The two winners of federal shipbuilding jackpots worth a combined $33 billion are expected to be announced on Wednesday.
Although B.C. Premier Christy Clark is optimistic that North Vancouverbased Seaspan, owner of Victoria and Vancouver Shipyards, will win one of the packages based on merit, industry watchers expect anger to flare in the losing region.
Politicians have been careful to distance themselves from the process.
Government Works and Public Services is in charge of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, which graded each shipyard on a points basis after submissions were made July 21. Public servants have been working in secret, with private sector firms acting as fairness monitors.
Clark spoke with Prime Minister Stephen Harper over the weekend.
“He was very, very clear when I met with him in Fort St. John that there has been no direction and no influence on decision-making at all on the political level,” Clark said Monday.
“So if the bureaucrats and the bureaucracy in Ottawa is working in the best interests of the taxpayers, I am sure they will make sure that the Seaspan bid comes out on top.”
Speculation is rife about who has information about the outcome and what the political fallout will be after the announcement is made.
“I’m still really hopeful that British Columbia is going to win. I think that the Seaspan bid was excellent,” Clark said.
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Seaspan is hoping to capture either the plum, which is the big military package valued at an estimated $25 billion, or the non-combat package, valued at about $8 billion.
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Seaspan and Irving Shipbuilding of Nova Scotia are vying for the military work.
It’s a three-way fight for the non-combat vessels.
Seaspan and Irving are up against Quebec’s Davie Yards in a consortium with SNC Lavalin and Daewoo of South Korea. All shipyards are considered strong contenders.
A shipyard can be chosen for one package of contracts only.
Officials close to the process have confirmed that a politician will not make the announcement of the winners. That means it is likely that one of the members of the federal shipbuilding procurement strategy group, possibly on its governance committee, would release the names of the winners, potentially in the late afternoon on the day of the announcement.
“It is nerve-wracking to say the least,” Jonathan Whitworth, Seaspan CEO, said Monday.
Seaspan is confident that it put in a “very, very good” bid,” Whitworth said.
The company has promised to invest between $100 million and $150 million in infrastructure if it wins one of the packages. Within the first three months, the company will fill two dozen jobs in the fields of engineering, design, and procurement, he said. Construction of the first vessels would start late next year or early 2013.
A consultant’s report for Seaspan put the economic impact of the combat contract at $328 million annually from 2013 to 2022, $792 million annually for 2023-2032, and $435 million annually for 2033-2041.
A total of 3,683 fulltime-equivalent jobs would be created in the first 10 years of the program, 8,465 in the next decade and 4,888 in the final nine years, that report said.
George MacPherson, president of the B.C. Shipyard General Workers’ Federation, said there are “a lot of butterflies going through people right now . they are extremely anxious waiting for a response.”
A win for Seaspan means there is a future for the industry, said MacPherson.
“It means they are going to have some steady work going forward.”
The federation has about 1,500 union members working at this time, MacPherson said.
Michael Prince, University of Victoria Lansdowne professor of social policy, said if B.C. doesn’t get one of the contracts it would be “quite shocking, quite stunning, not just for the government and the politics of the province, but I think the industry and I think the general economic leaders of the province would be quite distressed by that.”
Shipbuilding links with the Premier’s job strategy. “At home, this is probably the biggest opportunity that will be in Christy Clark’s career as Premier. I say that even if she gets reelected.
“We are talking megaprojects here,” Prince said.
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