Feds mum on start date for warship construction

Irving Shipbuilding is pushing federal officials to announce a firm date to begin construction on Canada’s new fleet of warships, arguing that will help drive the project along. But the company is facing resistance from federal officials concerned about missing a publicly announced start date, as happened with the Arctic patrol ships (AOPS) now under construction, according to documents released to Postmedia.

Federal officials have continued to say construction of the Canadian Surface Combatant Fleet would begin in the early 2020s, but a specific date hasn’t been set.

Irving representatives tried last year to convince federal bureaucrats of the need to set a specific date to begin construction. “(Irving) noted that hard dates is what drives the work,” according to the report from the Jan. 17, 2017, meeting of deputy ministers overseeing the national shipbuilding plan.

But the firm faced pushback from Department of National Defence officials.

“DND cautioned against setting a hard production date to work toward, noting the challenges this approach caused on,” Arctic and offshore patrol ships, the report said. DND officials warned committing to a specific time to start cutting steel on the warships “will add additional risk.”

The Arctic and offshore patrol ships were announced in 2007 by then prime minister Stephen Harper and were supposed to be in the water by 2013. But construction didn’t start until 2015. The first ship was launched on Sept. 15 and won’t be operational until 2019.

Three consortiums have submitted bids for the surface combatant program and those are still being evaluated. The project will see 15 warships built by Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax. A winning bid is expected to be selected sometime this year.

The ships will form the backbone of the future Royal Canadian Navy.

Scott Leslie, director general of large combat ship construction at Public Services and Procurement Canada, said a more precise construction date can’t be provided now because a winning design has yet to be selected.

“There are a lot of variables around it, one of the main ones being which design is chosen and how much work is required to get that design evolved and buildable at Irving Shipyards,” Leslie said.

Irving is worried about the gap after building the Arctic and offshore patrol ships, but before construction of the surface combatants. If the two projects are not aligned, workers could face layoffs and Irving is worried it will lose skilled personnel.

The government has already faced delays and rising costs with the warships. In 2008, it estimated the total cost to be about $26 billion. But in 2015, Vice Admiral Mark Norman voiced concern taxpayers may not have been given all the information and predicted the cost alone for the ships would be around $30 billion.

Cost estimates for the entire project are now between $55 billion and $60 billion. About half is for systems and equipment on the 15 ships, according to federal documents obtained by Postmedia through the Access to Information law.