Ted Campbell recounts the ups and downs of the federal government’s plans for the Royal Canadian Navy over the last few decades:
A Chilean navy boarding team fast-ropes onto the flight deck of RCN Halifax-class frigate HMCS Calgary (FFH 335) during multinational training exercise Fuerzas Aliadas PANAMAX 2009.
US Navy photo via Wikimedia.
One of my old friends, commenting to another equally old friend on social media, said this: “Surely, the PM and his government must see the obvious — that as the oceans warm and the ice melts the Northwest Passage becomes navigable year round. He’s been sounding off about climate change ad nauseum so that would seem to be understood by him. As a teacher he must also know that European colonial powers sought a shortcut between east and west but were deterred by ice. That’s changed, which he acknowledges, and Canada’s claim of the.increasingly ice free Northwest Passage as sovereign territory is under threat. Absent Canada’s willingness, and any capability, to enforce it’s claim, Canada surrenders any legitimate right to ownership of the Northwest Passage and the resources in the territory it abuts. That a maritime nation bordered by three oceans needs a blue-water navy is axiomatic. And once the PM acknowledges that the Northwest Passage is about to become Canada’s Suez Canal he must recognize that it, too, needs to be protected and defended by the Royal Canadian Navy. But the navy can only do that if it has ships and sailors. If Canada doesn’t expend the effort to protect its shores and assert its claims someone else will.” Sound pretty sensible, doesn’t it? Climate change will, very possibly, open the Northwest Passage; it Canada cannot patrol and police those waters then others will exploit them; it’s the Navy’s job to patrol and police our waters … I have argued that the “constabulary fleet” that should do that ought not to be in the Navy, but that’s a different issue … for now.
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Way back when ~ I’m working from memory and I’m happy to have these numbers corrected ~ the Royal Canadian Navy said, in a document called “Leadmark,” if my memory serves, that, in addition to infrastructure (headquarters, schools, dockyards, etc) it needed:
- A fleet with global “reach” which meant more than a dozen “major combatants” (destroyers and frigates) plus four support ships so that, at any time, it could have one combat-ready task group in each of any two of the world’s oceans;
- A coastal (three coasts) patrol fleet consisting of a mix of submarines and another dozen “minor combatants” (corvettes and mine hunters);
- Organic air elements for those fleets;
- Auxiliary and training vessels.
Circumstances changed over time but the Paul Martin government finally committed to new helicopters for the fleet and thanks to his decision and to the perseverance of the Harper government they are, finally, entering service, only 25 years after Jean Chrétien abruptly cancelled the Mulroney government’s signed contracts for (then) new shipborne helicopters.
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What we, Canadians, do not have is a properly funded plan to build the real Navy that the country with the world’s longest coastline, that borders three oceans, needs and deserves.
Since I am pretty sure that, absent some catastrophic events, Prime Minister Trudeau has no interest in warships (or the Coast Guard) I can be fairly confident that while new ships will be built they will be too few in number for the jobs that need doing.
There are no votes in promising to rebuild the military. The Liberals will ignore it and the Conservatives would be wise to not make it much of a campaign issue … Canadians, an overwhelming majority of Canadians just don’t care. But the Conservatives need to get some first rate naval and shipbuilding people into a room and decide, for themselves, what the real costs are for what the Royal Canadian Navy really needs.
The expected warming of the Arctic Ocean and the potential opening of new shipping lanes through areas currently claimed by Canada should be a huge encouragement for the federal government to get serious about ensuring that the RCN, the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP are properly prepared and equipped to protect our sovereignty in this region. As in so many other climate change matters, however, the government loves to talk the talk but is manifestly uninterested in walking the walk. More new ships, submarines, helicopters, bases, and the military staff to crew/staff them would be a very expensive commitment that wouldn’t shore up votes in those critical marginal constituencies and would reduce the government’s ability so spend money in aid of getting re-elected (the Liberals are in power now, but the same sort of political calculus applies to the Tories as well).
Mr. Campbell is a Conservative and clearly harbours hopes that Admiral Andrew Scheer will be more willing to make the RCN a priority, but history does not support that hope. The last time (and possibly only time outside periods of declared war) that a Canadian government was serious about the military was before 1957. Canadians are hopelessly in love with the idea of being a peaceful nation and have never been willing to engage with that old Latin tag “Si vis pacem, para bellum“
