Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has blasted the Liberal government for handing “$1 billion of your tax dollars to a Chinese state-owned company.” His outrage refers to a Canada Infrastructure Bank agreement that will finance four BC Ferries vessels to be built in China at a subsidized rate.
The loan, at nearly half commercial rates, will be funding four major vessels to be built by China Merchants Industry Weihai Shipyard. A CIB spokesperson confirmed the facility ahead of its formal announcement, noting the electric hybrid ferries “wouldn’t likely be purchased” without Ottawa’s cut-rate financing.
That disclosure undercuts Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland’s letter to BC Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth, in which she expressed “great consternation and disappointment” over the offshore contract, citing Beijing’s 100% tariffs on Canadian canola and peas and “ongoing concerns regarding threats to security, including cybersecurity, from China.”
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CIB chief executive Ehren Cory counters that the deal expands fleet capacity and cuts emissions, but the advance news release omits any mention of the Chinese yard.
BC Premier David Eby and Farnworth quickly distanced themselves from the procurement, insisting ferries “should be built here at home.” Internal BC Ferries filings show the below-market loan will be partly booked as government assistance.
The controversy also reopens long-standing questions about the CIB itself. Launched in 2017 with a $35 billion envelope to crowd-in private investment, the bank spent its early years underdelivering before accelerating under former CDPQ head Michael Sabia. Today, however, much of its portfolio resembles direct subsidization of public operators.
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