National Defence committee  I'll take that one. In 2009, that letter you spoke about predated the national shipbuilding procurement strategy at that time. All of us, quite frankly, were trying to figure out how to survive the next day. Once NSPS came out and the government, not us.... To be honest with you, if you had asked us, I would probably have said, as the shipbuilders would say, “We'll just do it all.”

National Defence committee  Canada has already made that decision, and made that decision for us. Back in 2010 and 2011, when the national shipbuilding procurement strategy, the NSPS, was started, the government looked at it and asked if it should repeat the past, which would basically be to say it would give these ones three ships, these ones five ships, these ones one ship, and these other ones two ships, and then in eight years everybody would be bankrupt and lay everybody off.

National Defence committee  One of the things that we on the west coast like about the non-combat package is that it is a combination of ships that will be built that actually look a little bit more like commercial. We would have been very pleased and happy to build combatant ships, I assure you, but the non-combat package actually lends itself to alternative commercial work.

National Defence committee  Good afternoon, and thank you. I'm pleased to be here along with Irving Shipbuilding as one of the two long-standing and long-term strategic partners selected by Canada back in 2011, through a competitive process, to build the next generation of combat and non-combat maritime vessels for the Canadian government under what is today called the national shipbuilding strategy, or NSS.

Transport committee  No matter whether I'm reading a newspaper, a balance sheet, or a report, I want it to be factually correct. I want that in anything that I see, read, or understand. I don't hold Transport Canada or the federal government to anything different than I hold for our shareholders and our company.

Transport committee  I have a lot to worry about in running a diversified portfolio like Seaspan, with a multi-billion dollar shipyard project that's about to commence. What I would like to know is that there is action behind enforcement. To be honest, do I need to know everything that Transport Canada does and how they do it?

Transport committee  Right. Again, a word that was used earlier was “consistency”. We believe in that. We should all be treated the same.

Transport committee  If I put on my old hat of being in the international trade, the one thing that would worry shipowners and operators is that certain countries—for example, the United States—certain states, or certain provinces in Canada have their own regulations outside of the international regulations, which becomes very problematic.

Transport committee  Oh, that's absolutely correct, yes. I was referring to this kind of blitz comment, but the inspections, yes, they're going on.

Transport committee  That's exactly what I would support, and you are correct.

Transport committee  It's currently all the ferries in our ferry fleet and, I would say, the six largest vessels in our boat class. They all have the delegation of authority from Transport Canada. I would say it was a little bit of a rocky start at the beginning, because I think Transport Canada and the classification societies were probably trying to find their footing.

Transport committee  Yes, because they are under the tonnage requirement for delegation of class.

Transport committee  The vessels that I was alluding to and concerned with are all small transport vessels, mostly tugs doing barge towing and log towing, so they're much smaller.

Transport committee  You got it. They have a two- to four-person crew, and I would say none of them meet the criteria for classification.

Transport committee  That's correct.