Harper government gave Seaspan shipyard $40M contract on election day

This sort of shit gives the government haters a lot of ammo, tho I doubt they would be in favor of privatizing the military, which is the customer (of private firms here)

I don't know what it is that makes governments of all stripes do this sort of thing. In BC the govt decided we needed a new convention center. Cost to be 500 mil. At around the 500 mil spent mark, the govt decided to strike the committee to look into actually signing contracts for this work. Final cost: 900 mil. And this is a govt that brags about keeping taxes low, being business friendly (you bet they are) and one of first things they did on taking office is cut bus passes for poor seniors. Savings: 250k. Same deal with the BC place roof. Now we're building the Evergreen Skytrain line, a year late, way over budget, with the govt still insisting they are on time and one budget. Christ, at least do these projects with govt workers who get good wages, instead of farming it out to private firms that also can't seem to stick to a budget and the profits just disappear among the companies' owners. Of course why stick to a budget when your customer just bails you out every time you want some more money, there are no consequences for going over.

Our allies will never trust us now.