Article content continued

The New Democrats also recognized — per Horgan’s acknowledgment again this week — the challenges facing the domestic shipbuilding industry in B.C.

For instance, in the case of the contract that went to the Dutch and the Romanians, no yards from B.C. submitted a bid on construction. Point Hope Maritime here in the provincial capital did secure the contract to maintain the innovative new vessels — both will operate as diesel-electric hybrids — after B.C. Ferries takes delivery in 2020.

Those and other challenges were blended into a broad-based review of the ferry service, headed by Blair Redlin, who served as deputy minister of transportation under the last NDP government. He reported out to Trevena at the end of last month.

Then this week B.C. Ferries issued a request for proposals for the design and engineering work for replacement of the five C-class vessels, which went into service between 1976 and 1981.

It is the first step in what is expected to be a three-year process leading to the award of a contract or contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The extended time frame dovetails with the NDP wish to give B.C. yards a better shot at securing those contracts. But Horgan, for his part, acknowledged there is much work still to be done.

“B.C. Ferries has just put out their request for expressions of interest,” he said. “We’ll take a look at that over the summer and see what we can do to effect a positive outcome for workers here in B.C. and, again, to get back to a place where a maritime province has an ability not just to maintain ships but to also improve and increase our ability to move people up and down our coast.”