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Government Operations committee Within North America, the two main countries with a large ocean-going navy are the United States and Canada. The U.S., over the last several decades, due in part to their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have really let their navy become their red-headed stepchild. They're not givin
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Absolutely. I think it does. It comes down to the whole question of, is the 2% of GDP metric a good one for measuring a country's contribution to the alliance's security protocols. If we include the ability to actually build massive high-end warships, that is a major considerati
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee One of the most straightforward aspects is, well, should they break the ice at all? A lot of Inuit use iced-over water as their transportation routes as they go from point A to point B. Of course, that also feeds into how they hunt and how they gather local resources. Consultin
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee I don't think they feel that it's a need, but I think it's something we should absolutely go and consider, just to see if perhaps they have some additional insights or opinions on how the icebreakers should be operated and which particular technical aspects may or may not be help
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee To be honest, I don't have a good answer for you on that. I look at it more in terms of our doing our part in building a capacity and capability in this country to provide this very important strategic capability for this country and our allies. In terms of this contribution
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Thank you, Madame Vignola. Those are great questions. Are two polar icebreakers enough for our capacity in the north? Well, it would be a fairly straightforward replacement of our current capacity. It wouldn't be a real expansion of the capacity. Right now we have two heavy iceb
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee I'm not sure which part of my opening remarks you mean. I think it was more about different ways of calculating the costs of these ships. Of course, it's already calculated in the defence spending over time. It's included in the “Strong, Secure, Engaged” budget plan for the next
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Sorry, the audio lagged for a moment there. Can you repeat that?
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Yes, that's right. As I mentioned, western shipbuilding capacity is fairly limited. The Americans—the biggest of them all—are already stretched to their limits, in terms of both shipbuilding and maintenance capacity. Literally anything that any of us can do to help contribute to
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee This is mostly visible in the Coast Guard. For now, the Canadian Coast Guard is the dominant federal maritime presence in the Arctic. They provide vital icebreaking services to ensure that northern resupply vessels and commercial shipping can actually get to those northern comm
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Thank you, Ms. Thompson. It's a great question. “Off the shelf” gets thrown around a lot as a general solution to all of Canada's procurement woes, but in reality, it covers up a lot of minute details that dictate the timetable, time frames and costs of buying “off the shelf”. E
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Thank you, Mr. Bezan. For the air defence section, around seven years ago—probably eight now—we decommissioned our Iroquois class air defence destroyers and they provided that long range air defence capability that can attack aircraft well out to the horizon and beyond it. Righ
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee As far as I know, no. Neither of those FREMMS, that I'm aware of, have that capability, though I imagine it could be installed with a lot of additional hardware, software and firmware additions. With regard to your second question on bringing these ships into water quicker, one
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi
Government Operations committee Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dear Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for inviting me to provide my insights to this august committee. Many other witnesses have already spoken to you about the complexities and challenges of the processes behind the NSS, so I will focus my rem
April 8th, 2022Committee meeting
Timothy Hiu-Tung Choi