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Canadian Shipbuilding-Budgets Can Sink Warships
An opinion article from the writer only and not to be published anywhere but this forum.
Recent Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) and Auditor General (AG) reports into Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) paint a challenging picture for a multi-decade effort to build 52 large ships for both the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Canadian Coast Guard (CCG). The near consensus response from national skeptics is to “throw in the towel”, and accept that Canada will never be able to provide meaningful defence procurement strategies. “Abandoning Ship” and opting for an overseas buy and build may certainly seem tempting, but beware: modern naval shipbuilding is far more complex and expensive than meets the eye. What may seem like a bargain, rarely ever is. Instead, the decision to build a fleet at home or abroad comes with trade-offs, of which cost is just one.
Strategically, Canada is at best, a maritime middle power. Although often forgotten in central Canada, Ottawa presides over the world’s longest coastline, second largest continental shelf, and fifth largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) containing vast sea life and seemingly unlimited natural resources. To the north, the impact of melting sea ice, a global resource hunt, and tensions between the U.S., Russia and China are transforming the Canadian Arctic into a “geopolitical quagmire”. In the North Atlantic, Russian submarine activities are at post-Cold War highs. In the Indo-Pacific region, the site of growing Canadian trade and political ties, sees a Sino-American rivalry criss-crossing the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, all amid a regional submarine arms race, and anti-ship/Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) build-up. It would be ideal if there were an off-the-shelf warship Canada could acquire, ready-made for naval service in such a challenging global operational environment, but this is not the case. Foreign countries build ships to meet their own operational demands. German submarines such as the Type 212CD AIP submarine are designed for short range missions in shallow Baltic and Mediterranean waters. Likewise, the British Type-26 frigate is one of several warship types being built for protecting the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers and nuclear ballistic guided missile submarines.
Canada’s decision to adopt the Type-26 design for the CSC project envisions a more expansive and ambitious role. Meant to last for nearly 4-5 decades, the CSC will be the sole true warship for Canada well into this century. It adds new capabilities to deal with global tensions (i.e., Tomahawk cruise missiles) and replicates both Iroquois class destroyers (area air warfare-AAW) and Halifax class frigates (anti-submarine warfare-ASW) capabilities. Fitting these Canadian requirements into the British design has consumed costly time and money, but Canada is left with a CSC Type-26 frigate attuned to its needs now and in the future. The NSS’s 30-year approach of continuous shipbuilding to avoid “boom and bust” cycles may be new, but building Canadian warships, to Canadian standards and in Canadian yards is now a fact of life. Except for submarines and aircraft carriers, it has been official bi-partisan policy to build Canada’s large naval ships domestically. The desire to build local is hardly a Canadian preoccupation. All G7 nations have naval shipbuilding programs, as do smaller and mid-size allied powers.
Finally, building in Canada has other ancillary benefits. In a time of economic nationalism, domestic shipbuilding minimizes both the risk to rely on foreign supply chains and operational disruptions/costs from sending fleets overseas for major maintenance periods. The knowledge gained from building the Halifax class frigates paid off when it came to completing the equally technically challenging and costly refits here in Canada. The NSS is far from perfect, but neither are there easy or cheaper options. If we are serious about tackling international security threats, upholding global norms, advancing our Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR) efforts, managing super-power tensions, and defending our own sovereignty, we had better be prepared to pay the price no matter what the cost.
