*Moderator’s Note: This article was originally published in the 1 September 2014 issue of Canadian Sailing. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author. Canada has been a trading and exporting nation since its founding almost 150 years ago. Over $130 billion of Canadian exports are carried by […]
Canadian maritime strategy
9 posts
*Moderator’s Note: This Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute op-ed [link to original] appeared in The Globe and Mail on 13 May 2014. It is reprinted here with the permission of CDFAI. Lest we forget. On Parliament Hill last week we marked the end of our Afghanistan mission. We also […]
The editorial piece by Eric Lerhe in the Canadian Naval Review [“Time for a Canadian Pacific Pivot?”] raises a real dichotomy between what is no doubt desirable and what is possible, or, in today’s financial climate, remotely likely. True, our Canadian export and marketing strategy is becoming very much altered […]
It was probably some speechwriter in Ottawa who fed his political master the catchy phrase for describing Canada as a country ‘from coast, to coast, to coast’. The introduction of this phrase fragmented the image of Canada’s coastline into three segments that has likely impeded Canadian maritime policy formulation. Successive […]
This week’s announcement that the contracts to modernize and refit the twelve Halifax-class frigates will be split unequally between two shipyards (East: Halifax Shipyard, seven ships, $549M; West: Victoria Shipyards, five ships, $351M) has avoided the bitter dispute that erupted over the earlier decision to modernize the Victoria-class submarines only […]
This debate is a pleasure to read, but also somewhat frustrating. In speaking of “relevant” operational tasks, it seems to me that Eric Lerhe misses the whole point of the part-time naval reservists. When Capt. Walter Hose founded the naval reserve (NAVRES) in the 1920s, it was highly unlikely he […]
A wide-ranging discussion about the future of Canada's troubled submarine fleet is taking place at the highest levels of the Conservative government, say political and defence sources. The Privy Council Office and the Prime Minister's Office are examining whether to "scrap them altogether, upgrade the existing boats or buy new," […]
Airedale presents an argument heard all too often in Canada, not just in academic common rooms or their virtual equivalents such as this forum, where there is a certain expectation to set up false dichotomies for the purpose of debate, but also in places of political and military power where […]
The problem [of acquiring nuclear submarines, as suggested by Keith Spicer,] is not so much the acquisition cost as it is the cost of training, infrastructure and operating the boats. The political aspects cannot be ignored either. The result I suspect is that the nuclear submarine becomes as onerous to […]