Federal shipbuilding plan foundering
Report questions whether enough money is set aside to pay for project as envisioned
It’s looking increasingly unlikely that the Conservative government’s $35-billion shipbuilding plan will deliver as promised.
Senior bureaucrats said Wednesday they have reduced how fast the navy’s yet-to-bebuilt armed Arctic vessels can sail to keep the project within budget — and that other vessels could have their capabilities trimmed due to money issues as well.
The comments came during a technical briefing Wednesday as the government sought to get ahead of a potentially damaging report into whether enough money has been set aside to replace the navy’s two 45-year-old resupply vessels.
The first vessel of the new joint support ships, which are being built in Vancouver, was supposed to have been delivered last year, but now won’t be in the water until at least 2018.
Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page’s report, to be released Thursday, is expected to find the government must dramatically trim the new resupply ships’ capabilities to stay within the $2.6-billion budget set for the project in 2010.
The bureaucrats, speaking on condition of anonymity, reassured Canadians that the $35-billion plan, which is supposed to revitalize the navy and coast guard fleets over the next 20 to 30 years while simultaneously turning Canada into a world-class shipbuilder, is proceeding.
One said Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax and Seaspan Marine in Vancouver are on track to start cutting steel next year, and while there will be schedule slippages and other problems given the scope of the program, “the advantages of efficiently building the federal fleet far outweigh the disadvantages.”
Yet while the bureaucrats maintained they are confident the government can still afford two joint-support ships, as the new resupply vessels are dubbed, they also admitted there could be “trade-offs” to keep the new vessels within budget. The government estimates the full, all-inclusive cost of buying and operating the joint-support ships over 30 years will be $7.1 billion.
The joint-support ships have already been subject to a number of trade-offs as they were initially envisioned to be multi-purpose vessels that could resupply other Canadian vessels as well as transport troops, hold vast medical facilities and perform other functions.
It’s believed the vast majority of these extra capabilities have already been stripped from that original plan, and while government officials said the new supply ships will still meet the navy’s “required capability,” it was unclear exactly what those requirements are.
The bureaucrats said a similar trade-off was made in agreeing to a slower design for the new armed Arctic vessels, which are scheduled to start being built in 2015 and new replacements for Canada’s destroyers and frigates