Procrustes, 11 August 2020. The recent confirmation that the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) will conduct and deliver yet another report on the mounting costs of Ottawa’s preferred bid winner for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program in October 2020 could lead to a reversal of course on this slowly evolving […]
CSC cost
8 posts
Procrustes, 23 July 2020. Are cost overruns the norm in Canadian naval shipbuilding? If so, why? The Canadian warship procurement system is centrally oriented to keeping Canadian shipbuilders in business. Ottawa’s cost concerns and the navy’s scheduled delivery goals are only secondary considerations. The operating assumption is that, once construction […]
Procrustes, 15 July 2020. Is Ottawa going against an international cost-reduction trend in putting all its surface warship eggs in a one, large, expensive Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) design basket? Herein lies the age-old quality versus quantity debate concerning naval fleets. In one sense, the impulse toward a capable, general-purpose […]
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 […]
Procrustes, 17 May 2020. In reading through various discussions of the likely capabilities to issue forth from the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) bid competition, one might be struck by an odd thought. Are defence planners in league with industry officials in trying to sneak in a potential ballistic missile defence […]
The latest Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) report, “The Cost of Canada’s Surface Combatants: 2019 Update,” issued on 21 June 2019, has revised the latest cost for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project at $69.8 billion over 26 years; $8 billion more than the 2017 PBO report estimation. This consists of […]
The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) released a report on 1 June 2017 called “The Cost of Canada’s Surface Combatants.” The PBO report reviews the costs of the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program to construct 15 ships to replace the capabilities of the Halifax-class frigates and Iroquois-class destroyers. It uses several […]
Yesterday there were numerous reports (here, here and here) of the Canadian government potentially adopting a new approach to the CSC project that would require potential warship designers and combat systems integrators to team up and present a combined bid to government. Additionally, unspecified Canadian equipment would have to be […]