I'm also not going to talk at length about the flaws in the national shipbuilding strategy. There is no use crying over spilled milk. I don't want to spend any time looking at mistakes that were made, at least not in any detail, but I'm happy to talk about what I think is wrong with the strategy or what decisions were badly made with regard to the strategy, most notably, choosing the shipyards first, before prime contractors; choosing shipyards as prime contractors; and then using a cost-plus basis for determining the financial obligations of the Government of Canada. Those were very serious mistakes. I can talk about those at length, if you would wish me to.
Instead, I want to look at a couple of suggestions I have to help get the Government of Canada out of what is a pretty serious set of problems.
The first subject I want to talk about here concerns the Canadian surface combatant procurement. I think the government made a very defensible decision to buy an off-the-shelf design for the Canadian surface combatants, but you risk denying the purpose of that decision if you now allow those ships to be seriously Canadianized. The purpose of going with an off-the-shelf design is to simplify the procurement. Modern complex warships are designed for specific systems provided by specific companies. If you start to replace the systems that were built into the design with new systems built in Canada, you're essentially creating a new warship; you are not buying an off-the-shelf design. You're doing a new design without starting from that basis. If you choose to buy an off-the-shelf design from a foreign company, you should take the view that you're in with that commitment and that there will be less Canadian involvement in the manufacturing of the different systems that end up in those ships.
If you wanted to have serious Canadianization, if you wanted to regard the Canadian surface combatants as an industrial economic generation project, then you should have allowed the design to take place in Canada. Having made the decision to buy an off-the-shelf design, you need now to say, okay, we're not going to have as much industrial economic benefit in Canada; we're going to get ships fast, that are proven, that will serve the needs of the Royal Canadian Navy. That's the choice. You can't have it both ways.
Right now you're doing what might be called a very Canadian thing in trying to find an awkward compromise in the middle with an off-the-shelf design that's not an off-the-shelf design. This could stretch the procurement for additional unnecessary years if you continue down that path.
Of course, the longer you continue down that path, the more likely you are to be making compromises on the capabilities of the ships, so you'd be compromising on the ability of the radar or the capability of the missile systems. You don't want to get into that kind of bind where you're compromising on capabilities because you're trying to mash together a combination of an off-the-shelf design with significant Canadian industrial benefits. This could turn into a disaster.
The second thing I want to talk about, now that I've dealt with the Halifax issue in that fairly blunt way, is the west coast issue, where you have Seaspan running into serious delays with regard to a number of different builds, some of which are extremely important, urgent. They haven't gotten to the really urgent ones yet, namely the joint support ships or the polar icebreaker.
The polar icebreaker was part of an election promise in 2005, and probably won't hit the water until sometime close to two decades later, at a time when the Arctic is becoming much more important for Canada. It's simply unacceptable to have a near 20-year delay for a vessel that is that important for Canadian sovereignty and Canadian capacity in the Arctic. Then you have the joint support ships, where right now the Canadian navy cannot mount a task group and won't be able to do so until ships are provided.
Someone has to make a tough decision as to how to actually move these things forward. I'm not suggesting that you tear up the umbrella agreement with Seaspan. I don't think that would be in anyone's interest. I do think the government should respect the agreement, even if there is no contract for these particular vessels yet.
I would encourage members here, and the government, to consider ordering a second refitted container ship from Davie, so that you get two ships out of Davie, while continuing to wait for the joint support ships to be delivered from Seaspan.
Something important happens if you do this. By having two refitted container ships turned into tankers, you can then flip the order on the west coast and get the polar icebreaker first. You respect the commitment to Seaspan, but you change the order by giving additional work to Davie for a ship that will be useful for the Royal Canadian Navy in future. You end up ultimately with four supply ships, two for each coast, which means one can be in port being maintained and refitted while the other is operational. I would suggest that is a nice way of solving the problem of the delays on the west coast, getting the capacity that the Royal Canadian Navy needs and providing some work for Davie, which I think is important.
Last but not least, coming back to Halifax, focus on getting the ships as fast as possible by sticking firmly to the decision that this government made to go with an off-the-shelf design. Don't let that decision be compromised now, because it will cause immense problems in the future.
Again, I'm happy to talk about any of this.
Thank you very much for your attention.