BUY CANADIAN? THEN BUILD CANADA’S SHIP-RECYCLING INDUSTRY
Ottawa has made another oil-export pipeline a national priority. Canadian ship recycling, manufacturing and lasting coastal jobs deserve the same urgency.
By John R. Roe
Veins of Life Watershed Society / Dead Boats Disposal Society
October 21, 2026
“We will build Canadian.”
Those were Prime Minister Mark Carney’s words on October 1, 2026, while promoting Pacific Link, the proposed oil pipeline his government has designated a project of national interest. He spoke about using Canadian steel and employing Canadian workers. [1] Prime Minister Canada
That is a promise worth holding him to.
Building Canada should mean more than building another route to send crude oil overseas. It should also mean building industries that recover valuable materials, manufacture useful products, protect our waterways and keep skilled people working here.
Ship recycling belongs in that conversation—not as an afterthought, but as a serious Canadian industrial opportunity.
By John R. Roe
Veins of Life Watershed Society / Dead Boats Disposal Society
October 21, 2026
“We will build Canadian.”
Those were Prime Minister Mark Carney’s words on October 1, 2026, while promoting Pacific Link, the proposed oil pipeline his government has designated a project of national interest. He spoke about using Canadian steel and employing Canadian workers. [1] Prime Minister Canada
That is a promise worth holding him to.
Building Canada should mean more than building another route to send crude oil overseas. It should also mean building industries that recover valuable materials, manufacture useful products, protect our waterways and keep skilled people working here.
Ship recycling belongs in that conversation—not as an afterthought, but as a serious Canadian industrial opportunity.
Buy Canadian in the speeches. A foreign option in the paperwork.
The federal government’s Medium/Large Vessel Recycling Services procurement, EVC01-202003/C, normally requires recycling work to be performed in Canada.
But its published notice also allows the contracting authority to consider bids involving recycling in another country when Canadian suppliers cannot perform the work, or when it cannot be done here in an environmentally sound and efficient manner. The destination must meet the notice’s international hazardous-waste conditions. [2] BidMaple
The clause does not prove that a particular vessel has been sent abroad. It does establish that the government has provided a route for that to happen.
And that raises an obvious question:
Why are we accommodating the shortage instead of putting equal effort into fixing it?
The federal government’s Medium/Large Vessel Recycling Services procurement, EVC01-202003/C, normally requires recycling work to be performed in Canada.
But its published notice also allows the contracting authority to consider bids involving recycling in another country when Canadian suppliers cannot perform the work, or when it cannot be done here in an environmentally sound and efficient manner. The destination must meet the notice’s international hazardous-waste conditions. [2] BidMaple
The clause does not prove that a particular vessel has been sent abroad. It does establish that the government has provided a route for that to happen.
And that raises an obvious question:
Why are we accommodating the shortage instead of putting equal effort into fixing it?
