Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Prairie canuck]

I don't understand the focus on amphibious forces. We just don't have those land force protection needs. We just need old fashioned transport for getting heavy forces to Europe or around the Pacific. That's more suited to an auxiliary role with ferries.

I think some kind of flat top with naval air power is more relevant to Canada. Something like the old HMS Ocean for the RN.

The Serco offering is logistics, AOR, and ferry services primarily.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I don't understand the focus on amphibious forces. We just don't have those land force protection needs. We just need old fashioned transport for getting heavy forces to Europe or around the Pacific. That's more suited to an auxiliary role with ferries.

I think some kind of flat top with naval air power is more relevant to Canada. Something like the old HMS Ocean for the RN.

'Amphibious' and 'Amphibious Assault' are two different species.

We could do the former assuming there are enough of the right small ships/landing craft/choppers to offload us from the bigger vessels to whatever dock or 'across the beach' facilities exist.

The latter? Even the USMC seems to be getting out of that business...

 

[ytz]

'Amphibious' and 'Amphibious Assault' are two different species.

We could do the former assuming there are enough of the right small ships/landing craft/choppers to offload us from the bigger vessels to whatever dock or 'across the beach' facilities exist.

The latter? Even the USMC seems to be getting out of that business...

Just saying I don't see the value in ships with a floodable well deck for us. And the obsession over that is usually based on the idea what we need Sealift anyway so might as get amphibs. At least that is my read on how a lot of the discourse goes. And I would argue that the CAF is better off with some kind of flat top that lets us do more sea control and limits ship-to-shore capacity with just enough for NEOs, disaster response, etc. Leave the moving of heavy army gear to a proper RORO vessel.

 

[Maxman1]

The Mistral class offers a lot of capabilities, including ASW.

 

[Furniture]

Further to that Idea I would add a fifth Ice Strengthened Baltic class Ferry to the Newfoundland Run as a hot Idle spare that regularly transits the Atlantic right to Riga. Do those exercises at the End of the Argentia Newfoundland Runs in the Fall. Heck while I am at it the Feds should standardize the Atlantic Ferries between Digby-Saint John, the Two Pictou- PEI Ships and the Mag Island Ferry. The Digby Ferry could easily carry the equivalent of an entire Armoured Recce Squadron and kit. Anywhere.

First it's Wood Island to Pictou... the mainland always comes last when describing a ferry.

Second, Northumberland Ferries is not part of Marine Atlantic. The Marine Atlantic ferry was from Borden to Cape Tormentine, and was shut down in 1997 when the "link" opened.

Finally(and most importantly), neither the Wood Island nor Pictou ferry terminals/harbours are large enough to take a ship capable of routinely doing the Sydney to Argentina route. Reality has to be part of the planning for anything, and planning to use a Wood Island ferry for anything beyond inshore waters is planning to fail.

 

[GR66]

The Mistral class offers a lot of capabilities, including ASW.

And for a Navy the size of ours it's putting a lot of eggs in one large, vulnerable basket.

I'd prefer to see the RCN with more, smaller platforms to cover more area rather than a handful of larger platforms. Maybe not as glamourous, but while racehorses get the attention it's the workhorses that do the yeoman's service.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Just saying I don't see the value in ships with a floodable well deck for us. And the obsession over that is usually based on the idea what we need Sealift anyway so might as get amphibs. At least that is my read on how a lot of the discourse goes. And I would argue that the CAF is better off with some kind of flat top that lets us do more sea control and limits ship-to-shore capacity with just enough for NEOs, disaster response, etc. Leave the moving of heavy army gear to a proper RORO vessel.

The backbone of Britain's amphibious operational capabilities.. the leased Danish RORO ferry

 

[DBNSG]

First it's Wood Island to Pictou... the mainland always comes last when describing a ferry.

Second, Northumberland Ferries is not part of Marine Atlantic. The Marine Atlantic ferry was from Borden to Cape Tormentine, and was shut down in 1997 when the "link" opened.

Finally(and most importantly), neither the Wood Island nor Pictou ferry terminals/harbours are large enough to take a ship capable of routinely doing the Sydney to Argentina route. Reality has to be part of the planning for anything, and planning to use a Wood Island ferry for anything beyond inshore waters is planning to fail.

So about the rest of the Idea. Thanks for the Ferry designation rule btw I did not know that . The Feds should upgrade all the Fed owned docking facilities as well as the Ships. When China pulls their big move the West will need all the tonnage and capability it can get

 

[Furniture]

So about the rest of the Idea. Thanks for the Ferry designation rule btw I did not know that . The Feds should upgrade all the Fed owned docking facilities as well as the Ships. When China pulls their big move the West will need all the tonnage and capability it can get

To be fair, it's not a rule, just a custom I have noticed over the years. As both an Islander, and having lived around other islands/ferries.

The rest makes sense to me. The Feds already subsidize the service, so make it part of a GoC fleet to support the CAF in times of need.

 

[dimsum]

The Mistral class offers a lot of capabilities, including ASW.

Yup. It offers subs one nice big target to….target.

 

[Maxman1]

And for a Navy the size of ours it's putting a lot of eggs in one large, vulnerable basket.

I'd prefer to see the RCN with more, smaller platforms to cover more area rather than a handful of larger platforms. Maybe not as glamourous, but while racehorses get the attention it's the workhorses that do the yeoman's service.

Yup. It offers subs one nice big target to….target.

First, it would never be operated alone without at least one escort frigate. Just like how we aren't going to send a JSS out alone, same as when we had the Magnificent and Bonnaventure.

Second, name a smaller platform that can carry 450 troops long term, 900 short term, plus vehicles, or 40 Abrams-sized MBTs, all while having an embarked air wing and a 69 bed hospital.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

The idea of a "Big Honkin Ship" made sense 20 years ago for the CAF when Peace Support/Peace Enforcement Operations otherwise known as 'Operations Other Than War' were in vogue. There are other more pressing acquisitions to attend to.

 

[Rifleman62]

The Line

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Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more​

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Greg Quinn: Trudeau's 'vibe bribe' will get the wrong kind of attention abroad​

Oh, so Canada actually has some money to spend, just not on defence? How interesting.​

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By: Greg Quinn
In my years in the British diplomatic service, I had a chance to experience politics in many countries, including, of course, Canada. Along the way I’ve drawn some conclusions. One of them is that elections are funny things — they tend to make political leaders forget inhibitions about policies they’d previously opposed while suddenly finding money that had presumably fallen down the back of the sofa.
Which is exactly what appears to have happened in Canada recently with the prime minister’s announcement of the temporary removal of GST/HST, from 14 December this year until 15 February next year, plus a $250 per person give away.
The cost to the federal government of the GST/HST holiday will be some $1.6 billion. If Parliament ultimately agrees to issue $250 cheques to eligible persons that will cost another $4.7 billion (although it is important to note these have yet to be approved). Needless to say the Parliamentary debate on the removal of GST/HST was predictably acrimonious with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre saying: “This isn’t a tax cut … This is an inflationary two-month temporary tax trick that will drive up the cost of living.”

The Liberal Government House leader Karina Gould fired back strongly saying: “As members of Parliament, we now have an opportunity to come together to provide much needed relief and support to people right across this country … The fact that the Conservative leader would rather play politics than support Canadians, I think, is very indicative of who he is and what he really stands for.”​

Anyone still doubt Canada is in a pre-election phase?
Personally, I think giveaways such as these are bad economic policy, but Canada isn’t the first (and won’t be the last) country to do such a thing.
I’m not here to debate the merits of these give aways one way or the other. What I would like to talk about is how they give the lie to any suggestion that Canada is unable to provide the funding it should to meet its international obligations — specifically with regards to meeting the two per cent of GDP expenditure on defence. This is, to remind readers, not some unreasonable demand from afar, but what Canada and this prime minister have repeatedly and publicly pledged to do.
Affordability has often been used when the Canadian government has explained why it is not able to put more money into defence — money to build up capabilities, buy ships and planes or even provide basic equipment (such as effective winter sleeping bags — quite useful in a country like Canada) or working personal firearms to its servicemen and women.
But yet suddenly the prime minister has found a significant amount of cash to help Canadians at what some might suggest is a somewhat politically expedient moment.
No doubt Canada’s NATO partners, especially those facing the biggest potential threat from Putin’s Russia, will also have noticed this sudden ability to fund a major project, after many claims of problems with finances and vague promises of future spending. Future spending which, incidentally, even the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Office questions. Though I’ve now left the foreign service of my own country, I can tell The Line’s readers that Canada’s sudden cash giveaways have been noticed, and talked about, by many in all the NATO capitals.
Fundamentally, Canada and its leaders are going to have to make some difficult choices about tradeoffs and what they can afford — financially and politically. As I said in my piece for The Line on 09 August: “The bottom line is simple — what does Canada (and the Canadian people) want its role in the world to be? … Canadians owe themselves, and frankly owe their allies, an honest discussion about [the] kind of role Canada actually wants to play in the world … and whether they’re willing to actually pay the bills required to play that role.”

That really is still the nub of the issue. Be honest about what Canada’s priorities are. Be honest about how much of a role Canada wants to play in the world. Don’t pretend to be something Canada isn’t. Just fess up and tell people the truth — they will respect Canada more for doing so. As opposed to constantly hearing the platitudes and disregarding these as vague promises. That doesn’t gain Canada any credit or influence, it just causes exasperation and a lack of trust.​

Admitting Canada doesn’t want to prioritize its international defence obligations would be a sad day. Canada was a founding member of NATO. It stood side-by-side with its allies all through the Cold War — just as it did in the First and Second World Wars. It has a justifiably proud military history, and one which can easily be seen in the many museums across Canada.
NATO allies, including my own U.K., want Canada to still be that reliable ally. We want it to be a country we know we can rely upon when we face struggles and threats — as we do now.
And then we have president-elect Trump and what that might mean for the defence of Canada. For many in the U.S., Canada has been getting a free-ride on defence and they want that to change. So being seen to splash cash on what many see as little more that attempts to curry favour in advance of an election — as opposed to spending money on defending Canada and its allies — will not have gone unnoticed.
Canada should be a reliable military ally. That is what its servicemen and women want. That is what its allies want. But we need a demonstrable commitment to that, instead of the usual claims of financial hardship, which clearly don’t apply when an unpopular PM needs to bribe his voters.

Greg Quinn OBE is a former British diplomat who has served in Estonia, Ghana, Belarus, Iraq, Washington D.C., Kazakhstan, Guyana, Suriname, The Bahamas, Canada, and Antigua and Barbuda in addition to stints in London. He now runs his own government relations, business development and crisis management consultancy, Aodhan Consultancy Ltd.​

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[Cdn_Merchant_Navy Guy]

As was mentioned elsewhere, these "buoy tenders" aren't small nor especially easy to construct vessels. It's a 100m long, 9,000t and Polar Class 4 ice strengthened vessel with an order of potentially up to SIXTEEN vessels in total. That isn't something that would be or really could be contracted to a smaller yard, given this is a bread and butter program that will be keeping Seaspan busy for quite a few years.

The RCN very well could decide to contract another 1-2 JSS once the order book for Seaspan dries up, similar to what the German's did with the Berlin class. There was a third ship procured around a decade after the first two that incorporated many design improvements.


I've seen folks elsewhere put forward the idea of Canada founding its own Royal Fleet Auxiliary, with the idea of getting the pair of Wave class vessels for fairly cheap and using them to help found the force. You could also try to buy Asterix to found the force alternatively but Davie is going to charge out the nose for such a purchase. This would give the RCN an auxiliary force of 2 JSS and 2 Wave, giving a lot more variety to assisting NATO/regional allies in various operations alongside providing additional redundancy to our own operations. Once the Wave class age out, contract a replacement pair of vessels largely off the shelf from abroad to replace them and keep on trucking.

Ideally, a hypothetical RCFA would be drawing off manpower pools that wouldn't be entirely interested in joining the Navy proper as it is drawn from industry and are classified as civilian employees under DND.

Like the RFA, the USN has Sealift Command. Both are a Military/Civilian hybrids. Both presuppose a significant global naval requirements that might demand such commands in the first place. Canada doesn’t (at least not yet).

The primary idea behind a Sealift organization is rooted in the specialized knowledge that these mariners bring to the wider fleets, such as: The requirements and understanding for efficiently and safely loading / unloading cargo (read supplies/stores/ammo/containers); The shipping and handling of different liquids fuels (such as the maintenance of tanks, pumps, inert gas systems, cleaning for possible swapping of different fuels – LSG to jet or avgas, etc).

Think of them as a fleets composed of specialized “warrant officers”. They don’t want to helm destroyers, but they know how to handle the logistics, materials and vessels needed to keep the fleet moving.

Both the US and UK have well established institutional merchant training schools, merchant shipping, reserve training connections, and broad memory of merchant/navy cooperation. My experience with RFA and Sealift Command types is that many of them are more “navy” than Navy.

I’d worry less about the idea of a “RCFA” pulling prospective members away from the navy and maybe explore the idea of a naval reserve that taps into the existing merchant institutions Canada retains.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Both the US Sealift Command and the RFA are suffering manning issues, for different reasons. Canada eviscerated it's merchant marine years ago and they suffer the same shortage of trained personal as the RCN does. Despite offering far better pay and work conditions.

Frankly I see building a institute in a place like the Philippines that trains sailors for Western navies and fleet auxiliaries as the only way to bump up our numbers in the long term.

 

[Furniture]

Both the US Sealift Command and the RFA are suffering manning issues, for different reasons. Canada eviscerated it's merchant marine years ago and they suffer the same shortage of trained personal as the RCN does. Despite offering far better pay and work conditions.

Frankly I see building a institute in a place like the Philippines that trains sailors for Western navies and fleet auxiliaries as the only way to bump up our numbers in the long term.

Rather than go hire cheap foreign labour, why don't we find out why Canadians aren't interested in the jobs?

Is it working conditions? Pay? Barriers to entry? Lack of exposure to the field?

I bet we could get more people into the marine industry if we actually did the work to figure out why people don't want to be in it.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Rather than go hire cheap foreign labour, why don't we find out why Canadians aren't interested in the jobs?

Is it working conditions? Pay? Barriers to entry? Lack of exposure to the field?

I bet we could get more people into the marine industry if we actually did the work to figure out why people don't want to be in it.

There is a huge effort to do just that, with various levels of the sector and government involvement, and it mainly comes down to the reason why other sectors of the economy are suffering too: not enough young people ...

Canada tries to combat aging marine shipping workforce with online 'ocean school'​

Transport Canada says 43% of marine workforce set to retire over next 10 years​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/canada-aging-marine-shipping-workforce-1.7154806#:~:text=According%20to%20Transport%20Canada%20in,over%20that%20same%20time%20period.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Rather than go hire cheap foreign labour, why don't we find out why Canadians aren't interested in the jobs?

Is it working conditions? Pay? Barriers to entry? Lack of exposure to the field?

I bet we could get more people into the marine industry if we actually did the work to figure out why people don't want to be in it.

Believe me a lot of smart people are trying just that. The reality is that people in the West are not interested in disconnecting with society anymore. You could change things, by completely revamping the education system and changing the teachers out for tradespeople. But even that won't start to show results for another 20 years. I did mining exploration in the 1980's, having a working stove and tent that did not leak , plus a radio telephone for work/emergences was a "good camp". The camps I saw before I retired where fricking palaces to what I endured. The pay way better, but they still struggled to get people, even with everyone getting enough internet to play games on in Buttf*cknowhere.