Mr. Speaker, it is great to hear that we are acknowledging the skills and abilities of our shipbuilding industry but it is cold comfort to watch B.C. Ferries take its shipbuilding overseas and to watch Halifax struggling to build its Coast Guard vessels.
Where is the government's commitment to ensuring that this kind of shipbuilding actually happens in Canada, not in Germany, not in Poland and not somewhere else?
In my province of British Columbia we have watched the shipyards close because we have not had the kind of focused attention on the shipyards that would help them stay competitive in the market. In B.C. they could not even bid on the B.C. Ferries contract.
It is fine to talk about the strategy but where is the government's commitment so we can actually build ships in Canada on the scale of B.C. Ferries?