There are several statements in Stingrays posts about Canada which are clearly (to me) firmly tongue in cheek and intended as banter with John Fedup and others. It is not only the Yanks who sometime struggle with our common language
oldsig
Royal Canadian Navy Discussions and updates
- Thread starter stephen weist
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oldsig
I am being perhaps slightly antagonistic to get a discussion started, but in a good natured way. I've been doing some reading and I am becoming more flummoxed regarding Canadian attitudes.
I just find it somewhat isolationist by our northern cousins, that many see Canada as only having concerns around its immediate boarders and within its own territory. Even with those obligations and others under NATO and NORAD, it struggles to adequately prioritise, fund and realise those capability, let alone its capabilities that it should have as a (former?) G7 nation and power.
It just seems from 1999 Australia and Canada have diverged on two different paths and will continue to diverge.
Australia has completely restructured itself, embarked on a huge number of concurrent procurement programs and has seen those through to conclusion, despite a number of different governments and the largest number of leader changes in any modern democracy and a global financial crisis.
Just on this, and I know John means no harm. But this is not what happened or has happened. Those responsibilities were dumped, by other nations on Australia and NZ.
Australia, purely by virtue of its geographic location away from every other major power, seems to have burdened itself with the responsibility for all former anglo-colonies and possessions and general order in the absence of two of the worlds major powers becoming internally focused (Brexit and Trumpism). As well as Antarctica. They were dumped on Australia. Former German colonies, British Colonies that the British suddenly lost interest (or control) over, or decolonised french possessions, or something we were forced to buy off Singapore (Christmas Island)
Australia's participation in the FPDA (Singapore and Malaysia)
Essentially stewardship (social, economic, military) of former colonies:
- Fiji (Our perpetual thorn)
- Samoa (Which was more NZ than AU).
- Solomons
- Nararu
- Vanuatu
- Kiribati
- Tuvalu
- Tonga (our other thorn)
- Singapore
- Malaysia
- Brunei
The pacific boat program included 22 boats:
Pacific-class patrol boat - Wikipedia
- PNG
- Fiji
- Federated states of Micronesia
- Tonga
- Solomon islands
- Cook Islands
- Kiribati
- Marshall Islands
- Palau
- Samoa
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu
Even teeny tiny NZ has two countries which it is free association with:
- Cook islands
- Niue
- and also Tokelau as a dependant territory which is sometimes considered a country.
Making the Case for Canada’s Engagement with Oceania
https://thecic.org/en/gone-awol/
Why can't Canada assist these nations in their maritime responsibilities?
My argument is that doesn't seem to be happening. That although Canada participated in InterFET, it seemed to have a completely different response on how future missions might be like. While Australia has made leaps and bounds in capability, Canada has gone backwards, no doubt even more reliant on NATO capabilities to fill its own gaps than before. With NATO likely changing in form, and Canada participating in missions outside of NATO that is a problem, particularly with the US playing a smaller role in NATO in the future.
My understanding was the JSS was going to be a proper amphibious ship, like HMAS Canberra, now it is an adapted AOR after the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibious_Assault_Ship_Project was cancelled once those requirements were pushed out of the JSS concept.
An interesting paper on Canada's East Timor experience can be found here.
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.n...5/The_Limits_of_Human_Security.pdf?1413011405
Say New Caledonia's independence vote gets violent, would Canada be able to self deploy an amphibious battalion of peacekeepers, or would they be reliant on Australia again? Canada would seem to be an ideal source, because they aren't French, many would be (somewhat) bilingual, and with modern operations with the US/UK/AU would be able to integrate into a multinational response. You can pretty much carbon copy that for several African colonies as well.
Again it comes back to what are the key needs of the Canadian defence force and its maritime capabilities. What are the essential capabilities for Canada? Comes back to how Canada sees itself and sees the world. Does it have global concerns or not.
For a G7 country, one with a population over 50% larger than Australia's and benefits from being included in what was NAFTA and easy trade with the EU, even at 1%, there doesn't seem to be a clear priority and concern about loss of capability.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
As I have said on numerous occasions our pollies are able to ignore defence issues because the electorate allows them to do so. Defence acquisition’s primary purpose is for buying votes via regional job creation. Even less would be spent except pressure from allies forces the pollies to make a token effort. Canada’s current mission to Mali is all about junior trying to look good at the U.N. (complete failure as our effort is minimal and after Afghanistan the electorate won’t support another large boots on the ground in some backwater).
Your post is an excellent summary on the Pacific territories but I will take issue with this quote regarding the German New Guinea colony.
At the Versailles conference post WW1 Australia was represented by PM Billy Highes a no nonsense Trade Union operative.
He lobbied hard for Australia to gain control of that territory and to govern East New Guinea (West New Guinea, now Iran Jaya, part of Indonesia, was part of the Dutch East Indies) as a whole in conjunction with Papua, an Australian colony.
When the imperious Woodrow Wilson questioned him why a pissant country like Australia should get such a prize Hughes answered with one of the more memorable uterences in Australian folklore, “I speak for 60,000 Australian dead Mr President, how many do you speak for”
And that’s how Australia gained administrative control over German NG as a Trust territory under the League of Nations and post WW2 the UN.
Please excuse the OT, couldn’t help myself, growing up in PNG n’ all.
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Todjaeger
Potstirrer
My POV from south of the border, is that Canadian pollies do not really ignore defence, so much as use it as a weapon against each other depending on party affiliation. Again, the Sea King debacle is unfortunately a rather good example of what I mean. A replacement for the nearly 30 year old CH-124 Sea King as well as a SAR variant of the Sea Knight, the CH-113 Labrador had been ordered with contracts signed (complete with penalties for cancellation) which was followed by a change in gov't as well as a change in ruling party. The new gov't promptly cancelled the replacement, requiring the payment of ~CAN$500 mil. in cancellation and penalty fees forcing the Sea Kings and Labradors to continue in service despite the aircraft growing older, accumulating more flight hours and progressively requiring more work to keep airworthy while at the same time the defence budget was reduced and the cost for the same amount of work to keep the helicopters airworthy rose due to parts for that specific helicopter model being out of production and therefore requiring custom production. At the same time the costs to operate began to really rise, as well availability decreasing due to issues with the helicopter, there was no new replacement programme initiated until the gov't of the day basically had to admit that the situation could not continue and a replacement helicopter really was needed. Since the then GOTD had a different PM, but was from the same party as the then gov't that cancelled the Sea King and Labrador replacement, the new replacement programme was tweeked so that the cancelled replacement helicopter would be excluded from the new replacement programme selection, to save face for the preceding leadership of the ruling party.
When procurement decisions are being made by leadership to score points against or undermine their opponents, or in an attempt to deny that bad decisions made by political allies were in fact bad decisions, then the fact that the arena of competition is defence and/or defence procurement is unimportant, rather the area has just become another venue for political figures to compete against one another. At least until things have gotten so far that the security of the nation has not just been put at risk, but lives have been lost, kit and infrastructure damaged or destroyed. Once that happens, the Canadian public might realize what the leadership has been up to, and then might take the appropriate measures.
A situation not entirely unknown in Australia - see the successive smear campaigns against the Collins project by elements within both major parties for political gain- but one which has so far not led to the derailing of a mostly bipartisan agreement that Defence IS one of the principal responsibilities of Government.
oldsig
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I cannot recall another example where a needed defence procurement programme was killed for political reasons after contracts had been signed, over 10% of the total planned programme cost was paid in cancellation and penalty fees, and when the successor gov't finally admitted that a replacement was needed and could not be postponed any longer, took steps to prevent the new replacement programme from selecting the same platform what had been selected previously and then cancelled.
Yes, Australia certainly has examples where kit procurement and defence decisions made by prior opposition gov'ts have been bagged, sometimes unfairly. There are also certainly examples where kit procurement selections have been made based upon what is to the political advantage of the then major party in power (Yes, I am talking about you, Bushmaster...) rather than the piece of kit that ticks the most boxes or would best serve Australia. Neither of those situations really seem to rise to the same level as the Canadian Sea King replacement debacle, or some of the other procurement decisions and processes Canada has been involved with.
I don't know. Helen Clark's cancelling of the RNZAF F-16 deal in 1999, subsequent scrapping of the A-4K Skyhawks, AerMacchis and ACF, National govt of 2009 not reinstating AerMacchis because of cost comes pretty close. The Clark cancellation was for purely far left political ideology reasons.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I remember that, but I cannot recall a significant post-contract penalty having to be paid. Similarly I do no recall a situation where a successive Labour gov't then deliberately excluded a piece of kit from participating in a very much needed replacement programme because a prior Labour gov't had cancelled the prior after a preceding National gov't had selected the excluded kit.
With respect, some of the decisions seem based less upon political/social ideology and instead are more like automatic opposition to whatever the opposition party has proposed or selected, simply because one's political 'enemies' had decided upon it. By the same token it also seems like there had been support for decisions made by one's own party, even bad decisions, simply because they were made by people within the same party.
My personal view as someone from neither Canada or New Zealand but with cultural and familial ties to both is that in NZ, there has (or has) been a core group of people involved in politics and gov't that had a rather skewed worldview, as well as NZ's place in it, and made or influenced decisions accordingly. In Canada, it seems as though the decisions were based less upon any particular ideologies and more on what would either help one's political base, or harm an opponent's political base.
In NZs case its pollies, mostly on the left, who have had no real jobs before entering Parliament. They get involved in student politics at university and then move into the party structure, so they have no understanding of how the real world operates. Or they progress through the union movement, and again with little understanding of how the real world operates. Also identity politics has taken a hold in NZ amongst the left wing, so now the debate is not about policy but rather you are shouted down and abused because you dare to challenge their viewpoint.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Political warfare is probably the only warfare pollies here envision as necessary. The SeaKing debacle was pretty unique in its level of stupidity. Despite the 500 million dollar penalty, the vast amounts of money needed to maintain ancient kit, and placing service people in unnecessary danger, our pathetic electorate gave the $hit from Shawingan 3 more mandates as an award for his “performance “. Also, his first promise of many during his first campaign to be PM was cancelling Mulroney’s 7% GST tax. He kept the tax and lowered it by 2% which apparently was good enough! It really boils down to our pathetic whining electorate. When the next recession hits, the electorate will have no issue with junior reducing the fighter or frigate buy as long as there are social handouts. A sorry situation to say the least.
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Excellent points @StingrayOZ. I served in the Canadian Army when we still had air and army assets in Germany (and other parts of Europe), and it does seem that those missions gave purpose and direction to the CF. It does not seem coincidental that Canada has drifted somewhat aimlessly in the intervening years since we pulled out of Europe. I am encouraged by the increased pace of deployments, especially the Navy, which had its busiest year in 20 years in 2018, and the (so far!) guaranteed funding commitments, which is allowing DND for the first time since the early 90s to plan and commit to recapitalization of equipment. Also, and this is a huge improvement, DND does not lose unused funding anymore if it is not used in the year it was initially identified for use (known as "lapsing funds"). They are now allowed to "reprofile" the money to the next fiscal year, and there is no restriction to how many times they can do this. Finally, the procurement process has been completely overhauled, and we have seen the first positive outcome of this with the selection of T26 in a relatively timely fashion. Of course, only time will tell if any of this is successful, but locally here in Ottawa defence firms are engaged in a ton of hiring, and there is a sense this is the "real thing". I noticed this at CANSEC last May as well.
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Precisely right.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
I guess the next 12-18 month will be the confirmation of these changes and commitments. Furthermore, we can’t rule out possible derailment of plans in the unlikely event junior loses the next election or has to form a minority government. I think the latter may be more problematic as the Liberals would need the NDP to survive, not a defence friendly party.
Continued investment in Victoria class: Game changing mast installation underway on submarines
This, with BQQ-10, and other improvements (Lockheed Martin Partners with Royal Canadian Navy to Advance Torpedo Capabilities · Lockheed Martin), have given significant new capability to this class.
More: https://www.janes.com/article/78384/hmcs-windsor-completes-bqq-10-sonar-fit
and here: http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/Featured_content?blog/125
It will be interesting to see what the planned mid-life upgrade will entail. Options analysis is looking at low-cost conventional overhaul of existing systems, to major capability increase involving an AIP "insert" of some sort. This last may only be on one boat, as a test vehicle for new technology. It would be nice to see this project revisited: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:27015817
This, with BQQ-10, and other improvements (Lockheed Martin Partners with Royal Canadian Navy to Advance Torpedo Capabilities · Lockheed Martin), have given significant new capability to this class.
More: https://www.janes.com/article/78384/hmcs-windsor-completes-bqq-10-sonar-fit
and here: http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/Featured_content?blog/125
It will be interesting to see what the planned mid-life upgrade will entail. Options analysis is looking at low-cost conventional overhaul of existing systems, to major capability increase involving an AIP "insert" of some sort. This last may only be on one boat, as a test vehicle for new technology. It would be nice to see this project revisited: https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:27015817
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
The AMPS 1000 would have been interesting as a AIP solution. Alas Canada’s days for nuclear innovation are likely gone due to the Maple failure. Pretty hard to justify the cost for a future fleet of maybe 6 boats. Lithium ion is probably the safest, cheapest, and least risky solution for AIP now.
A fair bit of innovation still in the Canadian nuclear industry.
CANDU is still being developed: EC6 Reactors | SNC-Lavalin
Terrestrial Energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Molten_Salt_Reactor
Thorium Power Canada: http://www.thoriumpowercanada.com/technology/the-projects/
Not only should Canada be looking at acquiring submarines but they should also be nuclear.
For Canada this should be a no brainer. It has a history of nuclear power and it needs submarines that can operate under the icepack. Really the process for Canada acquiring new submarines should be very straight forward with the Virginia, Astute or Barracuda class subs all very mature designs in various stages of production.
Compare this to Australia that has to engage in a high risk program to develop a conventionally powered submarine that can perform the tasks of a nuclear boat. It will end up having to pay a lot more money for this large conventional sub than it would a nuclear boat and of course it still won't have the capability of the later.
I guess you could argue that the program to replace the Canadian submarines will not be as complex as the Australian program since there should be lot more options available to it when the time comes to replace the Victoria class.
Of course this will also depend on political will.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
I agree nuclear subs would be the best solution but we missed the boat on a nuclear sub acquisition. We should have latched on to the UK Astute program as the Americans need all their Virginia production for themselves. At the the start of the program Canada might have had a decent role in reactor manufacturing. Given the lack of of reactor sales for new Canadian designs and increased competition from former AECL customers along with anti nuclear sentiments, there are no nuclear subs in our future. A renewal of our sub fleet is questionable but the Australian or Japanese future subs are hopefully a possibility.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
There has never been a shortage of nuclear innovation in Canada but bringing it to market during the last 10-20 years hasn’t been great. Both China and India are investing heavily in molten salt and thorium technology and are the prime markets for future nuclear generation. I haven’t seen Ottawa throwing out dollars for nuclear research lately except for nuclear medicine (cyclotron facilities).