CDR: What lessons has the Royal Canadian Navy learned from operating the Victoria-class, and how do you foresee the Navy applying those lessons to the new class of Canadian Patrol Submarine?
VAdm Topshee: Availability — that would be the number one lesson I take from the Victoria-class. It doesn't matter how good the submarine is, if it can't get out of the harbour, it's of no use to anyone. So for us, this is all being driven by two things: one, we need to replace the Victoria-class as quickly as we possibly can. And two, whatever that solution is, it needs to have a maintenance package that ensures an availability that's greater than what we've achieved with our current submarines. So, how will we achieve that? Well, the first thing is that we have committed that this is intended to be a military off-the-shelf procurement — buying a submarine that is in production. So not a design, not a concept, but something that actually exists and buying it as is. We have about 215 qualified submariners in Canada — we are not going to adapt a submarine to them, we are going to adapt them to the submarine that we buy because we are too small of a force to do it any other way. Whoever builds that submarine, we need to make sure that they build a maintenance enterprise in Canada, on both coasts, to sustain submarine operations. 70% of the value of the submarine contract is not the acquisition, it's the in-service support here in Canada, and that is where well see the Canadian jobs, the Canadian technology growth, and the Canadian benefits. So that's really our focus. From my point of view, very selfishly, getting that right ensures that we get boats that can do the job and will be available when we need.
