Quebec shipyard not happy with “Ships Stay Here” campaign

A spokesperson for Davie Shipbuilding strongly takes issue with comments that the Quebec company is stealing work from Halifax.

“It’s being portrayed as if Quebec will steal jobs, contracts from Irving,” says Fred Boisvert, vice-president of public affairs for Davie. “Where if you look properly, closely, there’s nothing like it happening at all.”

Federal procurement officials are currently discussing options on whether to split contracts for planned maintenance work on seven Halifax-class frigates between the Irving Shipyard in Halifax and Davie, near Quebec City.

The prior contract for that work was owned solely by Irving. Sharing the work with Quebec could lose the Halifax Shipyard hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years.

“The loss of this work would be a loss for the Nova Scotian economy and families across the province,” reads a statement on Unifor's website. “Logistically and economically, it makes sense to keep the work in Halifax.”

Irving Shipyard is also the primary beneficiary of the national shipbuilding strategy contracts for Arctic Offshore Patrol vessels and surface combatant ships back in 2011. But union officials fear a two to three-year gap between those contracts could result in hundreds of layoffs without the maintenance work.

Boisvert says that’s all a bit rich. No one in their right mind could believe there are production gaps at Irving, he says, given the sum total of $65 billion in federal contracts the shipyard has secured.

“Guys, guys, you got $65 billion,” he says. “I mean, please, you won’t get a tear from me. You’re flush with contracts. You’ve got 20 years stability in terms of that shipyard.”

Davie has laid off some 1,000 workers itself over the past year due to dwindling federal contracts. “We’re bleeding people here,” says Boisvert.

Regardless, the potential loss of work is being rallied against by shipyard employees and Halifax's municipal government. As workers protested outside City Hall yesterday, Regional Council unanimously voted to voice its opposition federally to the planned contract split.

“We're talking families and lives here,” said councillor Stephen Adams, who brought forward the motion.

Union officials, meanwhile, have created a public awareness campaign spinning off of the advertising slogan used for the national shipbuilding strategy seven years ago—changing “Ships Start Here” to “Ships Stay Here.”

But Boisvert says the union is wrong to conflate the maintenance jobs with the national shipbuilding strategy and fires back at comments from Halifax CAO Jacques Dubé that those jobs were meant for Halifax.

“No, I’m sorry. They were not. They just were not.”

Boisvert says it’s in the taxpayer’s best interest for shipbuilding to move away from the semi-monopoly of Irving's Halifax operation and Seaspan's shipyard in Vancouver.

“There are a lot of contracts to be delivered by Irving and so far, I’m sorry, after seven years of that strategy...there’s not a single ship delivered and operational as we speak.”



The Halifax shipyard launched the first of six Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships last month, though work on the HMCS Harry DeWolf won't be completed until next year.

Both Irving and Davie have received huge government investment to modernize their facilities and keep operations afloat. Irving received a $304-million forgivable loan from the province and a substantial tax break from the municipality several years ago for its shipyard. The province of Quebec also recently announced it was pumping $188 million of public money into the Davie shipyard in Lévis.

The department of National Defence has said that the government will announce any changes to its frigate maintenance contracts in the coming weeks.

“We’ll see what the federal government decision will be,” says Boisvert, “but Davie is ready to get up to speed and get to work.”