The National Shipbuilding (Procurement) Strategy (NSS) to build ships for the Royal Canadian Navy and the Canadian Coast Guard was announced in 2010. That’s 10 years ago. So where are the ships? Some have been built but, as we’re learning, it takes a long time from the announcement that a ship will be built to the actual operation of the ship - and the costs always go up. Why? One of the main reasons for cost increases is that the initial number that the government announces is just an estimate. Getting good data to make an accurate assessment of cost is difficult, particularly when you are building a ship of a new design. Industry and government make an educated estimate which changes over time as more details and capabilities are determined. Factors that were used to estimate costs will change over time - the price of steel will increase, the cost and complexity of technology changes, interest rates go up and down, the labour market changes, the purchasing power of the Canadian dollar goes up and down, and so on.
And why does it take so long to build the ships? After the government has been persuaded to spend the money, then you have to decide on the design and the shipyard. One of the reasons that ships have been slow to appear through the NSS is that the shipyards had to update their facilities after many years without contracts to build new government ships. Then the shipyards had to hire personnel. As well, the government had to find experienced procurement personnel and update processes. Ships are extremely complicated, and many pieces of the puzzle had to be re-built after years of atrophy in the shipbuilding sector.
If you want to learn more about building ships in Canada, then read the Naval Association of Canada Briefing Note #7, “Naval Shipbuilding in Canada: Why Does It Take So Long and Cost So Much?” at https://www.navalassoc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/BN7-shipbuilding-in-Canada.pdf
2 thoughts on “Building Navy Ships in Canada”
The Harry DeWolfe class is a Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) modeled after the Norwegian designed icebreaker NoCGV Svalbard. The AOPS is slightly heavier at 6,615 metric tonnes but only carries a BAE MK 38 25mm gun and 2 x Browning machine guns where as the Svalbard carries a Bofors 57mm gun (same as the CPFs) 2 X Browning machine guns and can carry 1 Sinbad Surface-to Air Missile System. New naval ships (to Canada) usually do take a long time when first being built. That’s just the nature of naval ship-building; the Harry DeWolfe being the first. Follow-on vessels normally come on stream much faster. If you believe the AOPS ships seem to be taking a long time, I give you the Canadian Surface Combatant Frigate program.
This makes me very angry. We have no national defence let alone offence. I gather these are to support the subs, which is not spelled out. Purpose should be spelled out.
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It appears the gov’t leaves the people out of their choices. And so they all have to go if in a democracy no one is included in these choices. This nonsense of No defence for a defence department has gone on since Diefenbaker. The people should send the leaders to war not the soldiers. If this is what they call national defence, they should be the ones who should be serving.