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Old 02-28-2012, 09:06 AM
 
Location: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
11,155 posts, read 29,186,696 times
Reputation: 5479

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It is a bit of long read but it gives all the back ground information info the issue.



There are signs the worst fears of federal public servants and Canada’s military will not be realized in a budget the Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, has promised will be “moderate” and “not Draconian.”

Word circulating within government is that the budget will cut around $5-billion from federal operating costs. The size of the federal bureaucracy will be reduced by around 25,000 to 30,000 jobs (out of more than 350,000) but that will be done over a period of three years — and around half of those positions will be eliminated by attrition.


If this proves to be the extent of the cuts, it will come as something of a relief to unions that have been bracing for double that number of job losses. It seems certain that Conservative austerity measures won’t come close to the 45,000 positions made redundant by Paul Martin in his 1995 budget (although his generous early retirement and early departure packages meant there were few involuntary layoffs, which may not be the case this time around.)

Nowhere will the relief be more palpable than in the Department of National Defence, where there have been fears that the Royal Canadian Navy’s submarine program is in danger of being deep-sixed. The good news for them is that sources suggest the submarine fleet will survive Mr. Flaherty’s budget axe.

Yet, the budget is not yet set in stone and perhaps Mr. Flaherty should think again. There is a good argument to be made that he could save hundreds of millions of dollars by shutting down a program that has been plagued by poor judgment and bad luck for more than a decade.

The Liberal government bought four second-hand subs for $750-million from the British in 1998 and renamed them the Victoria class — HMCS Victoria, HMCS Windsor, HMCS Chicoutimi and HMCS Corner Brook.

Since then, billions more have been spent trying to “Canadianize” the subs, including thousands of dollars blown trying to stop pigeons roosting in them, such is the length of time they have been in dry-dock. At various times over the past 10 years, the whole fleet has been out of commission.

The history of Canada’s submarine fleet would be laughable, were it not so tragic. People in government at the time remember the surprise expressed by Liberal ministers that the Defence department accepted the British military’s statement of quality assurance, without doing their own due diligence. That the buyer should have been more wary quickly became apparent.

The Chicoutimi caught fire on her maiden voyage from Faslane in Scotland in October 2004, with the death of one sailor and smoke-inhalation injuries to nine others. The sub has been in dry-dock ever since and is scheduled to return to service in 2013, although some stories have suggested 2016 is more realistic and others that she may never again be operational.
Corner Brook was operational for a time, spending 463 days at sea before being taken out of the water for maintenance between 2006 and 2011.

When she was returned to service, she hit the seabed in an accident blamed on human error. This is the sub with the large gash that appeared in pictures obtained by the CBC recently — shots the Navy downplayed as being no worse than a fender-bender. She is not expected to be operational before 2016.

Windsor was active for a period but has been up on blocks since 2007 and is not expected to be back in the water until next year.

HMCS Victoria is the Navy’s current golden child, since she is actually able to go under water, after spending more than six years in a Vancouver Island shipyard.

In all this time, the fleet has hardly been crucial to our defence. According to people familiar with its role, it has spent time at sea monitoring fishing fleets and acting as “prey” for U.S. forces, who don’t have diesel-electric subs of their own and like to use ours for hunting practice.

Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister, recently lamented the decision to buy the British diesel-electric subs, which are not capable of diving below ice in the Arctic. “In an ideal world, I know nuclear subs are what’s needed under deep water, deep ice,” he mused.

That we do not live in an ideal world was quickly made apparent by Government House Leader Peter Van Loan, who all but disowned the fleet in a response to a question in the House. “There is no plan to replace the diesel-electric fleet purchased by the Liberals,” he said.

But if there is no plan to replace the fleet, is there a plan to scrap it?
Before buying the cut-price British subs, the Liberal government considered getting out of the submarine business altogether — something the Danes have more recently decided to do, instead spending the money on surface ships with ice capability.

Canada has gone for long periods with no submarines in the past and Art Eggleton, the former Liberal defence minister, has been quoted as saying it would make no difference to our security if we no longer had them.

The uniforms are alive to the threat and it seems no coincidence that General Walter Natynczyk, the Chief of the Defence Staff, joined Victoria for undersea training exercises recently, making the case that submarines are a vital and necessary part of the military machine. “From a sovereignty standpoint, from a stealth standpoint and from a strike standpoint, this is one of the most potent capabilities that the Canadian Forces has,” he said.

The facts do not back up that statement. The Navy defines “full operational capability” as having a weapons-ready sub on each coast. It has yet to put one sub to sea that meets that standard, a decade after the first one was received.

The hope is that two boats will be fully operational within two years, with a “swing boat” available to take over when one goes for refit. That may prove wildly optimistic. Submarines may be a useful addition to our battery of defences — but only if they work. And not at any cost.
These subs have proven themselves to be lemons, they are already past mid-life and the odds are against us having even three boats with operational capacity at any one time.

Gen. Natynczyk characterizes the HMCS Victoria’s undersea trials as “the end of the beginning.”

There would be nothing Draconian about Mr. Flaherty deciding that, for Canada’s submarine program, it is simply the end.
Sinking Canada's troubled submarine program at budget time may make fiscal sense: John Ivison | Full Comment | National Post
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Old 02-28-2012, 09:43 AM
 
Location: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
11,155 posts, read 29,186,696 times
Reputation: 5479
Ok know that you know the issues I think Canada should be looking into buying some Virgina Class or buy some Los Angeles Class 688I and then pay to get them upgraded and Re-Fitted since we need to operate under thearctic ice pack.

With the increased Russian naval presence up there that we have not seen since the Cold war I think we really need to be able to get up there and well buying them from you makes sense because the subs fit our needs and we would pay to have our sailors trained by s the best at submarine warfare and alot of experince of how to operate them in the arctic and how to deal with the Russians under the icepack.

Australia is going with Virgina class subs but I don't think they would be as good to use for the arctic as the Los Angeles Class 688I which were made to work up there and as they are being slowly taken out of US service maybe we could purchase them and then pay to send them to one of your ship yards to get them major overhaul and have it Upgraded to modren standards.

I mean we need some help and why not go to the best where we share the same intersts in protecting North American waters our navies work together already and we could send them to go to be trained and serve in active duty on a USN that we end up picking to go with.

So please tell me that our goveronment is making a big mistake to spend 4-5 nillion on a subs that are 3/4 through their service life and still will take years to even get them operational and they are not even able to patrol the area that we are having problems with the Russians entering our waters...Since U.S. is free to move about under Canadian waters but Russian subs are not and that violates our arctic sovereignty and is an act of aggression to our saftey and security as a nation.
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Old 02-28-2012, 09:48 AM
 
Location: Maryland about 20 miles NW of DC
6,105 posts, read 5,967,911 times
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The USA would be of little help to Canada. All of our boats are costly nuclear-electric submarines. If they wanted a new Seawolf-class attack submarine a single boat would probably cost more than the entire Canadian Navy or should I say the naval part of Canada's unified Forces.
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:01 AM
 
Location: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
11,155 posts, read 29,186,696 times
Reputation: 5479
Quote:
Originally Posted by mwruckman View Post
The USA would be of little help to Canada. All of our boats are costly nuclear-electric submarines. If they wanted a new Seawolf-class attack submarine a single boat would probably cost more than the entire Canadian Navy or should I say the naval part of Canada's unified Forces.
we jujst spent 65 Biliion on ship building new Frigates, Destoyers and Support ships along with the largest polar class Ice breakers ever to be built.

We would buy the subs but pay to have a lifetime service contract with the USN which would mean that npot only does the DOS get the bliions to purchase 4-5 of them (I say the L.A. 688I is the best and they are slowly coimg out of service) and Refit them but also a secure a 25-30 year service contract which would cost alot but we need to be able to atleast help pay to patrol our waters
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:06 AM
 
3,045 posts, read 3,183,854 times
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Man seriously you expect anyone to want to read all of that? Do you think anyone in the United States cares about Canadian subs? I'd be surprised if more than half thought that Canada had any.

Make a post that's much, much smaller and you'll get better results.
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:11 AM
 
25,619 posts, read 36,539,680 times
Reputation: 23291
Canada just needs to become a US territory. They are unofficially anyway.
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:27 AM
 
25,024 posts, read 27,827,387 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bulldogdad View Post
Canada just needs to become a US territory. They are unofficially anyway.
No thanks. Most of the population is drunk on nanny statism, even the so-called right-wing. Let them stew in their own pot
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:30 AM
 
25,619 posts, read 36,539,680 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed View Post
No thanks. Most of the population is drunk on nanny statism, even the so-called right-wing. Let them stew in their own pot
And this is different than in the USA?
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:49 AM
 
25,024 posts, read 27,827,387 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bulldogdad View Post
And this is different than in the USA?
They are worse. Canadians, on average, are more drunk on government than the average American
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Old 02-28-2012, 10:50 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,581,341 times
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As an American with experience with used British sports cars I wondered why Canada would buy submarines with electrics by Lucas, the Prince of Darkness. I actually wondered why they would buy submarines at all. The most economical thing might be to just scrap these money eaters and have the shipyards building something else like bigger and better ice breakers, rescue and oil spill control ships. I understand why Canada would want to retain the infrastructure to build their own medium size ships but never understood submarines.

Now if they wanted to develop the technology required for drilling, developing, servicing and pumping oil underwater in the Arctic than knowledge of how not to build a submarine could be very useful.

If Canada is making all the "nanny state" errors claimed by our RWA's why is their currency gained so much in value the cross Canada trip we took to Alaska 45 years ago is now way too expensive? Even a visit to Newfoundland is out of our price range. It seems to me that "nanny states" is a better deal for Canadians than the crony capitalism insured by the US treasury is for Americans.
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