Murray Brewster · CBC News · Posted: Jun 15, 2020 2:45 PM
The Liberal government has awarded a $2.4 billion contract to finish the overall construction of the navy's long-awaited supply ships.
Today's announcement moves forward a Joint Support Ship program over a decade-and-a-half in the making. It also appears to signal the federal government remains committed to its multi-billion shipbuilding program despite record levels of pandemic-driven federal deficit spending.
The contract, with Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards, is for the construction of two replenishment vessels, Public Services and Procurement Canada said in a statement.
Now that the construction deal has been signed, the overall price tag of the program — including design — is expected to be $4.1 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $3.4 billion.
Seven years ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) predicted the cost would end up where it has — an estimate that was roundly criticized and dismissed by the Conservatives, who were in power at the time.
"The government announcement today did not have a whole ton of detail, so it's hard to do an exact comparison, but I certainly think that PBO estimate from a long time ago has held up pretty well over time," said Dave Perry, an expert in defence procurement and vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
The first supply ship is to be delivered in 2023, and the second vessel is supposed to arrive two years later.
The yard started construction on certain portions of the first ship in 2018, while final design work was still underway — something that alarmed and even baffled some defence and shipbuilding experts.
With the federal deficit expected to swell to over $252.1 billion because of COVID-19 relief measures, many in the defence community had been speculating that existing spending plans for the supply ships would be curtailed or scaled back.
In a statement, federal Public Services Minister Anita Anand suggested the Liberal government is committed to staying the course.
"This contract award is yet another example of our ongoing commitment to the National Shipbuilding Strategy, which is supporting a strong and sustainable marine sector in Canada," she said.
Perry said he takes it as a sign the Liberals intend to proceed with their defence construction plans in the face of fiscal and economic uncertainty.
"It is an indicator that, despite being business under some very unusual circumstances, it is still government business-as-usual under COVID," he said.
In the same government statement, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan pointed out that an enormous amount of preparation work has been done already and he's pleased the project is moving forward.
"An impressive amount of work has already gone into the construction of these new ships, and I look forward to their arrival in the coming years." said Sajjan.
A senior executive at Seaspan said work to adapt the design from the original German plan (the Canadian ship is based on the German Navy's Berlin-Class replenishment vessel) was completed last year and work on the superstructure of the first Joint Support Ship — started in 2018 — has been proceeding apace, even through the pandemic.
"It is well advanced," said Amy MacLeod, the company's vice-president of corporate affairs. "We are ready to continue. We're very, very happy with the quality of the ship, the progress of the ship, the momentum that we have and the expertise we have gained."
The shipyard did not pause construction due to the pandemic — but it did have to figure out ways to carry on under strict physical distancing rules.
"We, like everybody else, had to understand how to run a business in a pandemic," said MacLeod. "We made a lot of changes on how we build our ships."
Turnstiles to enter and exit the yard were eliminated and the company went high-tech with a "heat map" that shows where everyone is working and how much space there is between individual workers.
"And where we couldn't ensure appropriate social distancing because of COVID, we stopped that work."
Perry said the gap between the construction of the two supply ships worries him to a degree. Seaspan intends to construct an ocean science vessel for the coast guard under a plan agreed to with the Liberal government in 2019.
Any delay or hiccup in the construction of that ship could mean the delivery of the second naval vessel is pushed back even further, Perry said.
News of the contract will come as a relief to the navy.
Having replenishment ships to refuel and rearm frigates would allow the navy to deploy entire task groups to far-flung parts of the world.
"With these warships, the Royal Canadian Navy will be able to operate with even greater flexibility and endurance," said Vice-Admiral Art McDonald, commander of the navy.
"These ships will not only form part of the core of our naval task groups, they also represent a vital and strategic national asset that will enable the Navy to maintain its global reach and staying power."
It was 1994 when the replacement program was first discussed. The deficit-slashing years of that decade meant the plan was shelved.
Resurrected in 2004, the Liberal government of former prime minister Paul Martin hoped to have the ships in the water by 2008 to replace the three-decade-old supply ships the navy had been operating.
Faced with cost estimates well over what they had expected, the Conservative government of former prime minister Stephen Harper shelved the Liberal plan on the eve of the 2008 federal election.
More than five years later, the navy was forced to retire both aging supply ships after one of them was crippled by a devastating fire.
The absence of replenishment capability led the Harper government to lease a converted civilian supply ship from a private company, Federal Fleet Services, which operates out of the Davie Shipyard in Levis, Que.
That plan led to a political and legal scandal when the former commander of the navy, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, was accused of leaking cabinet secrets related to the plan. The Crown withdrew the charge a year ago after a protracted pre-trial court battle.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supply-ship-navy-seaspan-1.5612770
6 avril 2022 | Local, C4ISR, Sécurité
Officials tell Global News that 'preliminary' work is underway on a possible classified cloud service. A similar process in the U.S. for military cloud services is worth billions.
11 février 2022 | Local, Terrestre
Créé en septembre 2021, Inkas Aerospace & Defense compte déjà un important catalogue de systèmes d'interception. Cette division est dédiée aux interceptions de la société canadienne spécialisée
24 mars 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
“This is information we don't want opposing forces to have as we're relatively a small force,” a spokesman said Friday. DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN The Canadian Forces won't be releasing information on the numbers of military personnel who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus because of security reasons. The military had previously confirmed three cases, including one involving a reservist who had been on a personal trip to Spain. The Canadian Forces had also stated that no personnel on overseas operations had tested positive for COVID-19. But going forward, the Canadian military will no longer be confirming any other cases publicly because of operational security, Department of National Defence spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said Friday. “This is information we don't want opposing forces to have as we're relatively a small force,” he added. Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance has warned that the “integrity” of some military units could be threatened by personnel contracting coronavirus. The Canadian Forces could be eventually called upon by the federal government to provide support if the pandemic worsens. The U.S. military has confirmed that more than 50 of its personnel have tested positive for COVID-19. The Canadian Forces has also ordered approximately 2000 COVID-19 test kits for military clinics across the country, Le Bouthillier said. The kits are expected in the next week. “The needs of deployed units for COVID-19 testing will be considered in the distribution plan,” he added. “In the interim, we are working in collaboration with our partners, through a combination of integral, allied and host nation supports, to ensure deployed CAF members are provided with the best available health care.” COVID-19 has also caused the cancellation of Exercise Maple Resolve, the army's main training event for the year, as well as a naval exercise off the coast of Africa. HMCS Glace Bay and HMCS Shawinigan, which were to take part in that naval training, are now returning to Halifax. The ships are expected to arrive in mid-April. Troops from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa who were supposed to take part in Exercise Maple Resolve will now be training in smaller groups, Le Bouthillier said. “We will mitigate this lost training opportunity through the aggressive pursuit of smaller training events and professional development,” he noted. “We will return to our normal managed readiness cycle when conditions permit.” “The current situation with COVID-19 is unprecedented and prudence demands we adopt a posture that allows us to best support civilian authorities should the need arise while safe-guarding the well-being of our personnel and the broader Canadian public,” Le Bouthillier stated. Maple Resolve was scheduled to take place from May 11 to 24 at Wainwright Alta. It normally involves approximately 5000 personnel and 1450 pieces of major equipment. The exercise gives participating personnel the opportunity to train with a wide variety of weapons, simulation technology, armoured fighting vehicles, and aircraft in order to hone their skills in a realistic setting, short of an actual operation. Another exercise that was to have taken place before Maple Resolve has also been cancelled. That training event, scheduled to run from April 5 to May 5, would have involved around 2,000 troops. Military personnel from the U.S., United Kingdom, France and Brazil had been scheduled to take part in Maple Resolve. Many other nations are also cancelling military exercises because of COVID-19. In addition, the Canadian Forces is also limiting public access to its recruiting centres across the country. The military is continuing to recruit but has asked new applicants to begin their recruiting process using its website. “For those applicants currently going through the recruitment process, please note that all face-to-face interactions will be restricted and by appointment only,” the Canadian Forces added in a social media post. “If contacted for an appointment, please note that we are implementing additional protective protocols including increased questions specific to individual circumstances in order to ensure the continued health of our recruiting teams.” https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canadian-military-will-no-longer-release-info-about-numbers-of-personnel-affected-by-covid-19