Canada's looking to buy new subs and new friends: are they in Europe or Asia?
A French nuclear submarine docking in Halifax in March.
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Slick websites, sponsored press junkets to far-flung shipyards and Canadian media outlets given 'exclusive access' to executives.
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The competition to build Canada's new submarines is heating up.
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The question for Prime Minister Mark Carney isn't just who gets to build them, it's also about whether in the changing global order we invest in Asian or European alliances?
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Carney is heading to the 2025 North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit, June 23-24 in the Hague.
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'If he doesn't go into that meeting without making some significant announcements on defence spending, I think there will be some significant coal raking (of Canada by NATO allies),' said Dave Perry, CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, on Tuesday.
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With an estimated cost of $60-$100 billion, the subs have the potential to be more expensive than either the River-class destroyers being built at Halifax's Irving Shipyard or the F-35 fighters, making them Canada's largest ever defence procurement.
'As of right now, not a single dollar's been budgeted,' said Perry.
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'If I were (the Prime Minister), I'd be making a budgeting announcement before the NATO meeting.'
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That announcement wouldn't be expected to include whose subs we're buying, just a commitment of dollars down the road to eventually buy them after a process that may see an open competition.
A lack of domestic experience building subs, along with the government's stated goal of having the first of them enter service before the Victoria class' anticipated 2035 retirement date, means we won't likely be building them here.
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Five companies backed by their respective governments (South Korea, Germany/Norway, France, Sweden and Spain) replied to a request for information issued by the government last fall.
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'Canadian military procurement has been unbelievably crazy for the last 20-30 years,' said Andrew Latham, a Washington D.C.-based Canadian defence analyst. 'It doesn't matter whether its ships or tanks, we just don't do this well.'
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