Duty?
WeDon’tNeedNoStinkin’DutyVille
Remember those dock-destroying, fuel-guzzling ferries that British Columbians paid the Germans to build to make sure British Columbians didn’t.
Build them, I mean.
Well.
Way back when (i.e. 2005) we talked about the nut-cutting that was required to make the thing work
financially:“….the only way that Mr. Campbell’s right hand, (no)arms length man on the issue, Davey ‘Jones Locker’ Hahn, can make this work financially is to get the federal government to waive that pesky $125 million import duty that is supposed to kick in if you don’t build the Ferries in Canada…”
Well,
all know how that turned
out:“Jim Flaherty, Canada’s Minister of Finance, has announced a waiver of Canada’s 25 percent import tariff on imports of all general cargo vessels and tankers, as well as ferries longer than 129 meters…”
And, guess what!
It looks like private companies are now taking fullest advantage of the new rules that can save them big bucks by going offshore for their biggest of big ships.
And sometimes, perhaps because they have government contracts, they might even do it in…
Secret.
Chris Montgomery, who really knows about these things, has the
story:
Yesterday, I wrote a post about a mysterious Canadian company that had placed an order for a container/vehicle ferry with the same German shipyard that built BC Ferries’ big new vessels a few years ago.
My main point was that it was very odd for such a big contract to be announced without naming the party that was doing the buying.
The German shipyard should have been boasting all over the place, not just in quiet interviews, given the dismal state of the European economy and of shipbuilding in general right now. And boasting aside, these are normally just straightforward announcements made through the industry press….
{snippety doo-dah}
…As many of my clever readers helpfully pointed out, there’s a news story written in German that deals with the contract announcement (but doesn’t name the buyer either). Roughly translated, part of the piece points out the new ferry is intended for use between Montreal and Newfoundland. So again, FedNav fits the bill.
In any case, that still doesn’t explain the secrecy.
Unless it was mostly about Canadian sensibilities over the past year, when Ottawa was busy cancelling the import duty on imported vessels — including ferries over 129 metres. This new one is planned for 210 metres.
Because at the same time that was going on, the country was beginning to hear about the billions of dollars worth of shipbuilding money that Ottawa was about to sprinkle around the country.
Maybe as all of those very political headlines were being written, it just seemed smarter to fly under the radar…
Now, stepping back for a moment…
Why, I wonder, would the Straussians who currently rule us, who also love to con us whenever possible, want to keep on keepin’ on with a program that is designed destroy an indigenous shipbuilding industry while they simultaneously throw around billions of our money in shipbuilding contracts?
Hmmmmm…..
Could it have anything to do with blowing up….
Unions?
.
