Arctic icebreaker delayed as Tories prioritize supply ships

Not much good news here. Even though the supply ships have been prioritized there will still be a gap between when the current AOR's are retired and the new ones commissioned.

What a circus.

None of this is ever going to happen, it seems. We might as well have the Liberals back, eh?

Concur...



For all the Liberal bashing of defence spending, over the past 50 years, it was they who bought most of the equipment we've used. If Martin's Liberals had won another term, we'd probably have these under construction - but Harper cancelled and then restarted this program in 2008/09, and that's why it's been delayed so much.

Still, it's WAY past time to point fingers - just build something already.

It'd be nice if they considered buying the Karel Doorman, as suggested by the National Post.

canadian-military-f23/a-deal-for-the-rcn-t106393.html

That would provide a quick solution to the gap between de-commissioning the AORs and the commissioning of the JSS (at least on one coast anyways).

While I like to see BC get the work, not sure it makes sense to send it to us if we can't handle it.

The main problem seems to be that people are saying that the money allocated for these programs isn't enough to actually build what the govt is saying it will, and it will turn into another F35 mess. Guess the Harperites hope it won't come out til after the next election.

The little, bare minimum, chicken feed of it ....

Let's face it, NO government has really distinguished themselves on the defence portfolio since the 60s...singling out one party or the other is useless - they are all equally guilty of neglect.

Well, It's easy to single out the Liberals because they were in power for most of the 20th century. Both Trudeau and Chretien were positively anti-Defence and would have been happy of DND had ceased to exist so that they could use the money to buy our votes with more goodies.

What all of our governments have done since St. Laurent's time is the very bare minimum requirement to stay in our treaty organizations ... just enough to maintain our memberships but not enough to prevent us from handing all of the heavy lifting off to our allies. I don't know why we didn't get drummed out of NATO as being welfare bums.

Well, It's easy to single out the Liberals because they were in power for most of the 20th century. Both Trudeau and Chretien were positively anti-Defence and would have been happy of DND had ceased to exist so that they could use the money to buy our votes with more goodies.

What all of our governments have done since St. Laurent's time is the very bare minimum requirement to stay in our treaty organizations ... just enough to maintain our memberships but not enough to prevent us from handing all of the heavy lifting off to our allies. I don't know why we didn't get drummed out of NATO as being welfare bums.

I agree that Trudeau and Chretien disliked the military, but I doubt either would have gotten rid of it - they just would have only been given blue helmets and Iltis and told to drive around Africa solving the world's ills.

I don't see our contributions to NATO as being pathetic at all. Sure, after 1970 or so, it was smaller, but it was still very significant, especially given the size of our nation and our economy.

We spent $1 billion+ a year for almost 40 years to keep thousands of troops and dozens of aircraft based in Europe. We also maintained a fairly strong peacetime fleet and literally gave tons of planes, tanks, and other equipment to European allies so they could maintain their commitments.

I'd say we went above and beyond the call of duty in NATO.

Call me a pessimist, but I doubt any European power would be willing to do the same thing for us in this day and age if our existence was threatened in a similar fashion.

It was the perfect fleet to fight the previous war. We were stuck in "convoy escort" mode long after it ceased to be relevant ... in ships that couldn't defend themselves against the sorts of weapons that has been out there for almost 40 years, now. We were good at ASW when the real ballistic missile sub threat was lurking under the Arctic icecap where our fine ASW navy couldn't reach them. The Poles had an exceptionally competent cavalry in 1939, too.