Work begins on shipyard expansion for new navy, coast guard vessels but maritime security options still debated

Construction began Friday on new facilities at Vancouver Shipyards, the first step in preparing it to handle some of the $8 billion in federal contracts awarded to owner Seaspan Marine Group as part of Ottawa's ambitious plan to upgrade Canada's maritime security.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark and federal politicians attended the sod-turning for the $200-million revitalization of the shipyard, located on the north shore of Burrard Inlet, The Canadian Press reported.

The work should be completed by 2015. The yard will add a thousand new employees over the next three years for the contracts to start building patrol vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard and non-combat vessels for the Royal Canadian Navy, Seaspan chief executive Jonathan Whitworth said. It's estimated the program will create another 4,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs in B.C., CP reported.

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Last October, Ottawa awarded a total of $33 million in contracts to replace Canada's aging fleet of navy destroyers, supply vessels, coast guard icebreakers and maritime patrol ships under the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy.

The lion's share went to Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding, which won the main $25-million contract to build navy warships, the National Post reported at the time. Quebec's Davie Shipyards had also bid for the work but was shut out.

The hard-won contract, which will also include work in Seaspan's Victoria yard, was a major break for B.C.'s battered shipbuilding industry.

The sector reached its nadir in the late 1990s with the construction of three advanced high-speed ferries for B.C. Ferry Corp.

The aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessels were supposed to vault the B.C. shipbuilding industry into a prosperous future but technical problems more than doubled the original cost of the program to $460 million from $210 million.

And the so-called FastCats never went into regular service because, among other things, tests showed they were costly to run, slow to load, vulnerable to floating debris such as logs and their high-speed wakes damaged shorelines, meaning they could only operate at top speed for relatively short periods while in open water.

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The FastCat scandal was one of the biggest factors in the 2001 defeat of the then-NDP government. The incoming Liberals later auctioned off the ships for just over $19 million and they eventually ended up in the Middle East. The government then gave the contract for three new conventional ferries to a German shipbuilder.

With long coastlines to the east, west and north, the Conservative government has made maritime security an important policy issue. But like previous governments, it's found turning that policy into something tangible is complex and costly.

Canadian navy's aging ships have been required to do everything from anti-pirate and sanctions patrols off Middle Eastern and African coasts, to supporting the NATO effort during the Libyan intervention, to helping enforce fishing restrictions in Canadian-controlled waters.

The coast guard's fleet of patrol vessels and icebreakers are not ready to be the pointy end of the Conservatives' robust pronouncements about safeguarding Arctic sovereignty as climate change opens northern waters to navigation for longer periods during the year.

Defence analyst Michael Hennessy told the Toronto Star last summer it's not clear what impact the program to build new ships will have. Designs have not been finalized and it's possible the government might decide it's cheaper to use radar and underwater listening devices to track activities on the water instead of ships, he said.

CP reported Friday that Irving is pressuring Ottawa to sign the contract for design work on eight new Arctic patrol ships by the end of January, or else face disruption in the construction schedule.

University of Victoria professor David Zimmerman noted that while the Canadian navy has shrunk a long way from being the third-largest in the world after the Second World War, it's still valued by its allies.

"The Canadian navy is one of only a handful that can really operate around the globe," Zimmerman told the Star.

"We have these logistical supply ships which are incredibly old but allow us to operate anywhere. We can deploy off the coast of Sudan in support of anti-terrorist operations, off the coast of Pakistan to help with disaster relief or off the coast of Libya if need be."

An article earlier this year in the armed forces' Canadian Military Journal urged policymakers and military planners to adopt best practices used by other seagoing nations such as Australia, the Netherlands and Norway when it comes to maritime security, drawing on economic, social, environmental and political factors that affect Canada's overall security.

"By using the experience from other countries for whom the sea matters, Canada can adapt its approaches to maritime security to cope better with the changed battlespace of the post 9/11 era," the article concluded.