Dear Editor:
Regarding your Dec. 28 story, Union Condemns SeaBus Contract:
There's clearly a double standard at work here. Thousands of Metro Vancouver residents do their shopping in the United States every day to save money. At the same time, many of those same people condemn TransLink for ordering a SeaBus from the Netherlands to save money.
It seems to me these are one and the same. In both cases, buying products and services in foreign countries costs jobs and tax revenue in Canada. Will the Canadian Auto Workers and NDP candidate Craig Keating come out against cross-border shopping, just as they have TransLink's decision to buy a new SeaBus elsewhere?
Would we want other countries to block our companies from bidding on goods and services? Because that's the natural response to those kind of restrictions.
The other thing about the SeaBus decision that bothers me is how a company thousands of kilometres away in a "first world" country that enjoys labour, tax and environmental standards and costs at least as high as Canada's can provide a new SeaBus at less cost than a company sitting right on the SeaBus route. It seems to me the local builder and its employees ought to be looking in the mirror, and not at TransLink.
David A. Rodger North Vancouver
