The navy’s proposed Arctic patrol ship project has been put on hold until the federal government works out a shipbuilding strategy with industry.
It is the latest setback for the program, one of the Conservative government’s pet projects to increase Canada’s profile in the Arctic and comes just two weeks before Prime Minister Stephen Harper embarks on a summer tour of the North.
Defence contractors were notified recently that a meeting of bureaucrats and industry officials scheduled for Aug. 12 has been postponed indefinitely, The Canadian Press has learned.
As well, the issuing of a letter of interest, the first step in the long, cumbersome contract process, has also been delayed with no new timetable listed, according to an internal National Defence e-mail obtained by the news agency.
A project management office, set up to oversee the construction of the six light icebreakers, said it will continue to post documents and reports online and that in the meantime “industry is welcome to review and provide comments” on that information.
A spokesman for National Defence said federal officials laid out $50-billion worth of planned ship procurements over 30 years at a shipbuilding conference in Gatineau last week.
The politically sensitive $3.1-billion Arctic project is part of that plan, the official said, meaning that its timeline will be further delayed.
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I’ll not hold my breath waiting for any new ships of any kind. I can only speculate as to why they talk tough on the Arctic but do nothing. Many of you will not agree but not only are we wasting young men in women in Afghanistan we are wasting defense money that we should be using to protect our Arctic.
Simply looking at a map, there’s no way Canada could protect the Arctic. We’ve been disarming and reducing our Defense expenditures for decades until the Harper government came along.
A key justification for participating in the global battle against terrorism is to strengthen our ties with allies whose help we will need if the thugocracy of Russia decides to make claims on our sovereignty in the Arctic
Harper started off with armed ice breakers and has ended up with a shelved something else – why am I not surprised.
@Larry: They are talking tough on Arctic Sovereignty because it’s a currently topical and they think it will get them votes – but like Paul big winds come from empty caves Martin talk is all they got. Harper talked up the Arctic security during the campaign where he won his first minority (and did nothing), talked it up again during the last campaign (and again did nothing), and now that he thinks he’s got another election to fight in the fall he’s trotting it out again and this time landing himself on an old ice breaker ( anybody wanna bet he wears a flight jump suit?).
– and why not, people were dumb enough to fall for it the second time around… so why won’t it work this time?
Finally someone wrote a decent article about this. I’ve been looking for more than an hour.
http://www.ottawatravelwatch.com