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New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

  • Thread starter Thread starter GAP
  • Start date Start date
Never never, ever more expensive land:

More cost overruns, delays coming for new navy, coast guard fleets​


By Lee Berthiaume The Canadian Press

Federal bureaucrats are warning that more cost overruns and delays are on the horizon for the delivery of new ships to Canada’s navy and coast guard, as “significant challenges” batter Ottawa’s multibillion-dollar shipbuilding program.

That includes uncertainty around the cost of building 15 new warships for the navy, which was already slated to be Canada’s largest-ever military procurement with the government’s estimated $60-billion price tag.

Top procurement, navy and coast officials are blaming the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain problems, labour shortages and rising costs for steel and other material for the latest setbacks, the full impacts of which are still being assessed.

“Simply put, ships are not being built fast enough and are costing more as a result,” Defence Department procurement chief Troy Crosby told a parliamentary committee in recent testimony.

The frank assessment comes as the Liberal government faces pressure from the NATO military alliance and others to spend more on defence, raising one possible area for large new investments without having to undertake a significant policy rethink.

Yet whatever opportunity for increased spending the problems represent will be cold comfort to the navy and coast guard, as each passing day increases the threat another one of their aging ships will join the growing list of vessels forced into retirement before a replacement is ready.

Extra sunk costs are also growing as more taxpayer dollars are shovelled into projects that have already received billions in additional funding without any commensurate added benefit to Canada.

Federal officials told the standing committee on government operations and estimates that they are now assessing the specific impacts with Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax and Seaspan Shipyards in Vancouver.

Irving is building six Arctic patrol ships for the navy and coast guard as well as the fleet of 15 new warships that will serve as the navy’s backbone for the next 40 years. Seaspan is building several research vessels for the coast guard and two navy supply ships.

Every one of those projects had seen delays and cost overruns since the shipyards were selected in 2011 for their respective work packages, which officials blamed on a lack of experience in government and industry.

While the government and shipyards have since learned many hard-earned lessons, Public Services and Procurement Canada assistant deputy minister Simon Page said the procurement plan is facing “significant challenges.”

“We now have to deal with the additional costs shipyards are charging and the new schedules,” he said. “We are working closely with third parties to review everything and make sure … the costs are justified. We are working with them to ensure performance.”

Crosby for the first time acknowledged “uncertainty” in the cost of the navy’s new warship fleet, after having stood by the government’s $60-billion estimate in recent years. That includes having dismissed a $77.3-billion estimate from the parliamentary budget office.

In fact, Crosby specifically referenced the PBO’s finding last year that a one-year delay in building the vessels represents a $2.2-billion shortfall due to inflation and other escalating costs.

The coming delays will also add pressure on Canada’s aging navy and coast fleets, each of which has lost several ships in recent years as breakdowns and other issues have forced decades-old vessels into retirement before their replacements are finished.

Those include the navy’s two support ships and three destroyers, as well as several coast guard vessels.

Canadian Coast Guard commissioner Mario Pelletier said in a recent interview his agency plans to use charters as it waits for a new ocean research vessel to replace the CCGS Hudson, which was forced to retire after 59 years in service in January.

The new offshore oceanographic science vessel is one of those projects that has been hit hard by delays and cost overruns, with its original $100-million budget having skyrocketed to almost $1 billion last year.

At the same time, Pelletier said the coast guard needs its first of six medium icebreakers in the water by 2030. While the vessels are likely to be built by Chantier Davie, the government has yet to officially add the Quebec-based company to the shipbuilding program [emphasis added, those ships were promised in 2019, note that "first"--by which time all the current medium ones will be around 50 years old.

Officials told the parliamentary committee that negotiations with Davie are continuing, but would not say when they would be finished. Davie was selected for addition more than two years ago, but negotiations to finalize the deal have been shrouded in mystery.
And whenever will Seaspan build the "up to 16 Multi-Purpose Vessels to support a variety of missions, including light icebreaking, environmental response, and offshore search and rescue" that PM Trudeau announced in 2015? https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2019/05/22/prime-minister-announces-renewal-canadian-coast-guard-fleet

What about "new Mid-Shore Multi-Mission Ship [how many?], which would complement the work of the large fleet in shallow areas and deliver mid-shore science activities" that Davie isalso expected to build? When if busy with medium icebreakers (and one of the two polar ones)?

Surely a lot of those CCG vessels could be bought abroad quickly and much more cheaply than here (where most will not be built until well into the next decade)--and without the various security, Canadianization etc. concerns that are deployed to favour RCN shipbuilding in Canada.

Mark
Ottawa
 
Ah Davie.. .sigh. If only their actual production quality was anywhere near as good as their self promotion.
 
OK whats the difference between MARS and NWO? Remember I am infantreee so short words please ;)
NWO is the new trade name to align it with the UK and US names (also to stop being a stupid acronym). Same trade as MARS.

In meetings I troll the NWOs sometimes, "That sounds like something a MARS officer would say, I thought you were NWO's now. New name new thinking. Let's try a different approach. ". It's a cheap shot I know but I get my way a lot... lol
 
NWO is the new trade name to align it with the UK and US names (also to stop being a stupid acronym). Same trade as MARS.

In meetings I troll the NWOs sometimes, "That sounds like something a MARS officer would say, I thought you were NWO's now. New name new thinking. Let's try a different approach. ". It's a cheap shot I know but I get my way a lot... lol

Because NWO isn't a stupid acronym ?
 
NEW WORLD ORDER! NEW WORLD ORDER!!!!!!
"True Faith" is still one of my favourite new wave earworms, and 'Blue Monday' is always a good one.

Of course, then there is WWF and some Razor Ramone action, plus the whole tin foil hat action, so it's possibly the worst trade acronym ever.

At least people generally like Mars bars, and they are weirdly delicious deepfried, and historically the God of War.... NWO had some cool hair (at the time) I guess.

Edit to add; Completely off topic, but 'Control' was an awesome biopic about Joy Division, but still think '24 hour party people' is a better movie about that whole scene.
 
Because NWO isn't a stupid acronym ?
NWO actually describes what their core job is. The application and management of violence at sea aka Naval Warfare. MARS describes every single naval officer that goes to sea as a core part of their trade.

I'll leave "stupid" as a personal opinion.
 
NWO actually describes what their core job is. The application and management of violence at sea aka Naval Warfare. MARS describes every single naval officer that goes to sea as a core part of their trade.

I'll leave "stupid" as a personal opinion.

Meah I just think the acronym is as silly as MARS. Only a Naval officer would be concerned about something as trivial as that.

Should keep it simple:

Naval Officer, Combat
Naval Officer, Engineering
Naval Officer, Combat Engineering
Naval Officer, Logistics

Ect ect...

Stupid was your word.... I was just repeating it.
 
Meah I just think the acronym is as silly as MARS. Only a Naval officer would be concerned about something as trivial as that.

Should keep it simple:

Naval Officer, Combat
Naval Officer, Engineering
Naval Officer, Combat Engineering
Naval Officer, Logistics

Ect ect...

Stupid was your word.... I was just repeating it.
That is literally what the names are.

Naval Warfare...Officer
Marine Systems Engineering... Officer
Naval Combat Systems Engineering... Officer
Naval Logistics... Officer
 
That is literally what the names are.

Naval Warfare...Officer
Marine Systems Engineering... Officer
Naval Combat Systems Engineering... Officer
Naval Logistics... Officer

Right... I just made every one a Naval officer first and your occupation second. And I got rid of silly acronyms.
 
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HMC Dockyard Turks & Caicos ?
Or rebuild CFB Bermuda. Or both. The old US bases are empty lots, I'm sure the governments of both islands would prefer someone make use of them instead of leaving them as eyesores (the former CFB Bermuda became 9 Beaches resort, but that's apparently permanently closed).

It might help with retention to offer pers tours/taskings/postings in the Caribbean. We might also get more people to go to the arctic by offering a guaranteed posting to the Caribbean afterwards.
 
Or rebuild CFB Bermuda. Or both. The old US bases are empty lots, I'm sure the governments of both islands would prefer someone make use of them instead of leaving them as eyesores (the former CFB Bermuda became 9 Beaches resort, but that's apparently permanently closed).

It might help with retention to offer pers tours/taskings/postings in the Caribbean. We might also get more people to go to the arctic by offering a guaranteed posting to the Caribbean afterwards.
Bermuda is not in the Caribbean.
 

Maybe the path is not from 6000 sailors and aviators in a Nimitz to 0 sailors in a USV but rather how to exploit those USV technologies to spread those 6000 sailors and aviators over a larger number of hulls.


Edit: After all the origins of the UAV are found in the auto-pilot systems of passenger jets. The pilot is a supervisor.
 
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