National Defence committee  From my experience, no, not generally. There are, of course, a lot of skills that can be transitioned across, but if you look at how you shape metal for ships when you build a bulbous bow, that is an art form and not a science. Spencer and I walk around the shipyard quite often

National Defence committee  I think you need to look at the whole maritime industry. Look at countries like Norway that actually develop what they call a “maritime cluster”, which is not just the shipyards but everything throughout the value chain, including seafarers. Just developing that entire marine val

National Defence committee  I think you have to keep it very simple. That goes for, as you said, the design of warships. That was one of the key findings from the U.K. national shipbuilding strategy. Build the simplest designs, like the French do, and you'll be able to export them. If you try to, as you wou

National Defence committee  It's very hard for me to put a number on that. I couldn't put a number on that. I would say that each country in the world has at least one shipyard similar in size to Davie, except for maybe some of the ones that we're bidding to, as Spencer said, export ships to, like some of

National Defence committee  I've actually looked at this in detail. If you look at the European Union, it publishes reports for shipbuilding costs. As Spencer said, shipbuilding costs are split roughly fifty-fifty between labour and materials around that point. So really, material costs are the same whereve

National Defence committee  As I said before, as far as I know Davie is the only shipyard that exists today that has actually built large-scale warships. I think all the other shipyards, if I'm right, no longer exist.

National Defence committee  Actually having that capability or that experience is something that's....

National Defence committee  Spencer can speak to that.

National Defence committee  It was the most complex commercial vessel ever to be built in North America. It was so complex because it had triple redundancy on every system throughout the ship for use in oil fields to do subsea intervention.

National Defence committee  No. This was a fix to the national shipbuilding strategy.

National Defence committee  The simple answer is no. I will tell you that when we first arrived in Canada, we did have communications with both of the shipyards, and from the outset there was a reluctance to go that route. That was an offer specifically for the polar icebreaker that we had made to your frie

National Defence committee  Absolutely.

National Defence committee  That's the way to speed up the programs, to save money for the taxpayers, and to get these ships built for the armed forces.

National Defence committee  Yes, they do, for every naval and Coast Guard ship repair and maintenance contract. Those are excluded from the NSPS and will be competed amongst all Canadian shipyards.

National Defence committee  Davie built all of Canada's existing destroyers. The frigates were built half by Davie and half by Saint John shipyard. Of course Davie could build destroyers. It's what's it's been doing for the past 190 years. In terms of the submarines, I'm sure we could have a debate about