Construction of a $3.25 billion polar icebreaker at Chantier Davie in Lévis

A general view of the Davie shipyard is shown in Lévis, near Quebec City, Friday, Dec. 14, 2018. (The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot) (Jacques Boissinot/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

On Saturday morning, the Canadian and Quebec governments announced with great fanfare that Chantier Davie, based in Lévis, had been awarded a $3.25 billion contract to build a polar icebreaker. The ship must be delivered by 2030 at the latest.

The announcement was made by federal minister and Quebec City MP Jean-Yves Duclos in the presence of a number of dignitaries, including Quebec Premier François Legault.

Another polar icebreaker, worth $3.15 billion, will also be built on the country’s west coast, at the Seaspan shipyard in Vancouver.

These investments are part of the plan to renew the fleets of the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy. Duclos explained that it is the Canadian Coast Guard that is acquiring the two polar icebreakers through the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSPS).

“There are currently 800 jobs at Davie. We expect that to rise to 2,000 within the next five years,” Legault told a press scrum after the announcement.

“We’re going to add between 1,000 and 1,200 direct jobs here at the shipyard, and then we’re going to add 1,000 indirect jobs. It’s good timing, because with Mr. Trump, there’s a major risk that jobs will be lost in the manufacturing sector as a result of the tariffs that will be put in place and the reduction in our exports to the United States,” he said.

Premier Legault even suggested that “other contracts could be added in Lévis.”

As for the recruitment of workers, this is a happy problem for the Minister of Education and MNA for Lévis, Bernard Drainville, who says that the training of the workforce has already begun.

“We’ve just created an accreditation of vocational studies (AEP) in shipbuilding, and the first students will start in September. We’ve created a short course specifically for shipbuilding in anticipation of the labour needs we’re going to have here,’ said Minister Drainville.

He even sees a future in this field in Quebec.

“The Navigators school service centre [in Lévis] offered an introductory session to the naval trades, and they were overwhelmed with registrations! There were more people registered than there were places available, which means that young people are saying to themselves, ‘Go into this, you’ll have a great future,’” according to Drainville.

Legault and Drainville are not the only ones thinking big, especially against the backdrop of a trade war with the United States that could lead to job losses and thus force Quebec and Canada to strengthen their economies.

“Today, we can see that economic security and national security go hand in hand,” added the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne.

“We are demonstrating the excellence of our workers, and only with what has been achieved here will we be able to sell it around the world (...) What you see today in Quebec, you will see across the country. We’re going to give ourselves the means to achieve our ambitions,” continued Champagne.

“The National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) is a long-term, multi-billion-dollar program designed to renew the fleets of the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy (...) while creating jobs for the middle class and maximizing economic spinoffs across the country,” added Duclos.

He also pointed out that, to speed up production of the polar icebreaker in Lévis, “Chantier Davie will also call on its Canadian-owned Helsinki Shipyard in Finland.”

“We’re talking about a partnership with a NATO ally, Finland. We are putting Quebec at the centre of NATO procurement. Imagine what we achieved this morning. It’s historic! Quebec City and Lévis are becoming the hub for building icebreakers for NATO around the world,” Champagne said.

The polar icebreaker built by Chantier Davie will be 139 metres long and will be of polar class 2, which means that the ship can break ice in the High Arctic and carry out oceanographic research throughout the year, just like the one to be built by Seaspan.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 8, 2025.