As the Liberal government announced new fighter aircraft Tuesday, the top admirals from the Royal Canadian Navy were down the street talking about their capability gaps at sea.
Rear Admiral John Newton and Rear Admiral Art McDonald, who are in command of the Maritime Forces Atlantic and Pacific, respectively, testified today before the House of Commons defense committee.
Questions touched on several topics, from Arctic security to how applicable nuclear submarines would be for Canada. A constant line of questioning was about the capability gaps that the navy is currently facing. As the navy refits and modernizes its vessels and waits for new vessels to be built, it faces an inability to operate at full capability, which is called a capability gap.
When questioned about the navy’s current lack of supply ships, which are necessary for any prolonged action, McDonald said that it was not “catastrophic.” The lack of supply ships makes “the employment of our forces less efficient,” he said, explaining that more refueling stops “would take us away from time on station.”
Where previously Canada has operated with two supply ships, the navy now has none, as HMCS Protecteur was recently retired after 46 years of service. According to the Public Works and Government Services Canada website, the replacement supply ship will be available 2020. In the meantime, Canada is borrowing supply vessels from both Chile and Spain.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel asked about the navy “delivering service while patiently waiting for the government to deliver equipment” and about the impact of operating without supply ships.
Newton said the navy’s operational capacity dropped during the hurried modernization of the Iroquois-class destroyers. “We’ve have to—not struggle, it wasn’t a struggle—to find relationships,” said Newton, referring to the relationships with allies that have allowed Canada to borrow supply ships for the navy. “We’ve come through that period,” he continued. “The interim [support vessel] will deliver.”
“The last two governments, both Liberal and Conservative, failed to keep up with capital needs of the Canadian Armed Forces in general and it’s a particular problem for the navy,” said Randall Garrison, NDP vice-chair of the committee. “We have a big backlog of maintenance and upgrading work that needs to be done to be fully ready for any possible threats.”
Liberal MP Stephen Fuhr, the committee chair, said the military needs to be “recapitalized.” He cautioned that would be an expensive process and that careful attention would need to be paid to the available budget.
“It’s very important to the country to make sure that we get it right,” said Fuhr, “and we can’t afford to get it wrong.”
Header photo by Dennis Jarvis – Creative Commons (Flickr)
