Procrustes, 05 July 2020. There has been a longstanding debate in Canada about the extra costs (i.e., the ‘domestic premium’) for building warships in Canada. Certainly the best exponent of the view that this premium is minimal and that comparing Canadian prices with the ship prices of foreign suppliers is […]
National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS)
22 posts
The largest part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy is the construction of the Canadian Surface Combatants (CSCs). The proposed 15 CSCs are to replace the retired Iroquois-class destroyers and the current fleet of Halifax-class frigates. In January 2015 the government announced that Irving Shipbuilding had been named the prime contractor […]
On June 10, the Joint Support Ship (JSS) Build Contract was awarded to Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards Ltd. (VSY). This $2.4-billion contract will undertake the full construction phase for the replacement of the RCN’s two, previously decommissioned, Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment (AOR) vessels. The award directly supports both a significant Strong Secure […]
Procrustes, 17 June 2020. See: "Part 1 - Future Domestic Orders" The second component of Dave Perry’s observation is not so obvious and would seem to fly in the face of one of stated goals of the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS), namely to seek out export markets for Canadian shipbuilders.[1] […]
Procrustes, 16 June 2020. Can the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) stand a ‘mini-bust’ without the load-leveling principle wholly unraveling? That is, if skilled workers have to be laid off at Irving, Seaspan, and perhaps now Davie, for a significant period of time, can they be recalled in time to restart […]
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 […]
Procrustes, 08 June 2020. This is further to my earlier post about NSS contracts. An early unpublished, but apparently widely circulated, 2015 Price Waterhouse Cooper study concluded that these types of contracts create ‘perverse incentives’ for shipbuilders to drive up their labour costs to maximize their profits. It is worth […]
Procrustes, 08 June 2020. Shipbuilding contracts generally tend to be shrouded in mystery, and normally stir few passions. However, Canadians deserve slightly more information than they are receiving about the contracting procedures governing the NSS. What do we need to know? What types of contracts are being used? What is […]
If you cast your mind back, you may remember discussion 10 years ago about a policy to build new ships for the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the fleets of the navy and coast guard received little attention. Ships got older […]
Trevor Wekel, 30 May 2020. As a proud Canadian, I am saddened by the state of our Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard. Years of neglect have led to difficult times for our men and women in uniform. Our navy has access to a single resupply ship, Naval Replenishment Unit […]