Government checks another box on road to building Polar Class icebreaker

The federal government is requesting information from industry on which shipyard has the capability to build the Canadian Coast Guard’s new Polar Class icebreaker.

It’s a strange request in some respects. Last year the Liberal government took the Polar Class icebreaker project away from Seaspan shipyards on the West Coast and instead provided that company with a deal that will see it build 16 new multi-purpose vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard.

Irving, on the East Coast, is running at full speed handling the combat ship portions of the National Shipbuilding Strategy. It has already fallen behind on the delivery of the first of the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships and it still has much work to do on the Canadian Surface Combatant program.

It was expected that Davie, the largest shipyard in Canada, would receive the contract to build the Polar Class icebreaker. Yet the news release issued Friday by Public Services and Procurement Canada noted that, “the Government of Canada issued a Request for Information (RFI), open to all Canadian shipyards, seeking information on domestic shipyard capability and capacity to construct and deliver a Polar-class icebreaker. This follows standard procurement practices, and the information gathered will help the government determine how best to proceed so that the polar icebreaker is delivered in the most timely and efficient manner.”

Companies, however, only have two weeks to respond to the request for information.

The whole exercise has the feel of a government checking the boxes off before awarding the contract to Davie. Or it could be a measure to head off any legal challenge from other shipyards who would complain that a “fair, open and transparent” competition was not run.

Cecely Roy, press secretary to Procurement Minister Anita Anand, said in an email to the Citizen that as “a significant amount of time has passed since the last commissioned studies on the capacity of domestic shipyards, this RFI was initiated to provide updated information to inform the government’s decisions on the procurement process moving forward.”

The polar icebreaker, the future Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) John G. Diefenbaker, will replace Canada’s current largest icebreaker, the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent. The current fleet of heavy icebreakers, including the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, remain in good condition and will be in operation until the polar icebreaker is delivered, according to the federal government.

The Polar Class project was announced by the Conservative government in 2008 and has faced delays ever since. The ship had been expected to be in service in 2017. That date changed to 2021. Now there is no known date for the vessel to be operating. “The delivery date for the polar icebreaker will be identified as the project gets underway,” the federal government added in its news release.

“At this stage, we are exploring options to ensure the Polar Icebreaker is built in the most efficient manner to meet the needs of the Coast Guard, but a decision was not been made on the contract award, nor will this RFI result in that decision,” Roy said in an email to the Citizen. dpugliese@postmedia.com