Richard Brown, Minister of Innovation and Advanced Learning, said his department played a major role in securing the contract for 3 of the 7 tugs that will be built at East Isle Shipyards that the Federal Government announced this morning.
“My department has been negotiating with Groupe Océan, the company that will purchase 3 tugs, since late spring 2007,” said the Minister. “We made an offer to finance one tug in 2007, and we recently issued two loan offers to the company to finance the purchase of 2 additional tugs.”
Brown says he has been urging the Federal Government to approve funding from the Structured Financing Facility, which provides low-interest loans to purchase ships built in Canada, to help secure the tug contract for East Isle Shipyards.
“East Isle Shipyards has been waiting for the approval of SFF funding to secure financing for the tugs since the spring of 2007,” he said. ”SFF is an extremely important initiative for the Canadian shipbuilding industry because it levels the playing field for Canadian vessels competing against government subsidized companies from other countries.”
Brown said it is essential for both levels of government to work together to support the Canadian shipbuilding industry to protect the highly skilled jobs required by the industry.
“East Isle Shipyards is a major employer in eastern PEI,” he said. “The shipyard jobs are highly skilled and we need to keep those workers in our Island work force.”
“The Prince Edward Island Government’s commitment to assist East Isle Shipyards has remained in place through periods when the Structured Financing Facility funding was not available,” said Brown. “That support enabled the shipyard to build a solid business despite funding delays and the cancellation of various federal shipbuilding incentives.”