Ferries A-Go-Go

48^o 45' 0" North 123^o 28' 59" West

There's nothing worse than being screwed by your own money.

In this case 2000 jobs and an entire indigenous industry are being sold down the river for $500 million.

Even Liberal MLA for North Vancouver/Seymour Daniel Jarvis agrees that the decision to build ferries in Europe rather than in B.C. is 'stupid'

"To me it doesn't make sense, and would be blatantly stupid," (Jarvis) wrote. "There are no valid reasons to indicate that B.C. shipyards are not capable. "The two biggest ferries that we have, and for that matter the whole B.C. Fleet, were built by the private sector and organized labour in B.C."

If only it were just stupidity, plain and simple. But the recent statements of Gordon 'The Great Obfuscator' Campbell that 'subsidies don't work' suggest something different is afoot.

Like flat out lying.

Take this statement from BC Ferries Corp. quisling Mark Stefanson:

"The yards in Canada no longer have the capability to build the large vessels that we need."

Which is total crap because capacity expands and contracts with....you guessed it - contracts. Just ask all those non-union construction contractors gearing up to cash in on the Olympic bonanza.

And therein lies the rub according to Transport Minister Kevin Falcon.

"It's not like they're not capable of winning the business (contracts)," he said. "What we're not going to do is guarantee them every single piece of business, because once you start doing that, you automatically take away any desire to have to be competitive."

That last word is where the Big Lie finally surfaces.

Because, according to the Really Big Book of Neo-Con CodeWords (5th edition, abridged) that every Minister in the Campbell Government gets at his/her swearing-in ceremony, 'competitive' = 'non-union'.

Don't believe me? Check it out on pg 38. It's right below 'compassion' = 'only for suckers' in the neo-con lexicon.

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Update July 27th 8:00am

David Shreck has some interesting things to add to this story, particularly with respect to legal wrinkles.