{"id":70755,"date":"2016-02-17T23:37:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T04:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=70755"},"modified":"2016-02-17T23:37:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T04:37:46","slug":"shipbuilders-call-for-federal-strategy-overhaul-to-avoid-an-embarrassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/02\/17\/shipbuilders-call-for-federal-strategy-overhaul-to-avoid-an-embarrassment\/","title":{"rendered":"Shipbuilders call for federal strategy overhaul to avoid an ’embarrassment’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OTTAWA\u2014The Shipbuilding Association of Canada is hoping the Liberal government will change course when it comes to the renewal of the country’s navy and civilian fleets.<\/p>\n

The industry group said Wednesday that the current strategy, laid out in the former Harper government’s national shipbuilding program, is not working and has led to \u201cunaffordable and untenable\u201d renewal programs.<\/p>\n

It also wants to see the overall marquee strategy reopened \u201cto include any Canadian shipyard capable of delivering ships to the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the age profile of our fleet and corresponding potential safety issues for our brave men and women, there is no time for delay,\u201d the association said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Documents leaked to The Canadian Press show that the Liberal cabinet will be asked to put more money into the coast guard’s $144-million offshore oceanographic science vessel project in order to build the long-awaited ship.<\/p>\n

Costs for a separate program to build three fisheries science vessels have soared by 181 per cent to almost $700 million.<\/p>\n

The Liberals have also been warned that the navy’s frigate replacements are going to cost substantially more than the $26 billion that was earmarked eight years ago.<\/p>\n

The association said that before the shipbuilding strategy was finalized in 2010, it tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Conservative government to adopt a looser model, rather than designating just two yards to build both the combat and non-combat fleets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt provided a logical and common-sense approach as to how Canada could obtain the ships it needs at a competitive cost, within the time frames required by the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard,\u201d said a report, released Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives opted for Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax and Vancouver’s Seaspan yard as its go-to companies.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Irving shipyard, Mary Keith, said late Wednesday that the company has not been part of the association for many years and that the group in no \u201cway speaks for, or is representative of ISI’s interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also dismissed the report as representing a \u201cminority opinion\u201d within the industry.<\/p>\n

Although initially praised, the strategy has yet to produce a single ship\u2014and the association says those delays are driving up costs to the point where entire programs are on the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly competition will drive value-for-money for Canadian taxpayers,\u201d the association said.<\/p>\n

The group’s position puts the Trudeau government in a bit of a bind: the shipbuilding strategy was one of the few Conservative-era policies the Liberals chose to endorse.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, a select cabinet committee is said to be reviewing the program in light of the soaring costs.<\/p>\n

The association says the Conservative strategy is \u201cnon-binding\u201d and should be jettisoned \u201cbefore the program becomes an embarrassment to Canada and its shipbuilding industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA\u2014The Shipbuilding Association of Canada is hoping the Liberal government will change course when it comes to the renewal of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-70755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-murray-brewster","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}