Judy Foote and the case of the missing announcement

News flash - there was no “shipbuilding announcement”

Public Safety minister Judy Foote and the Liberals announced two days ago that they were going to streamline the shipbuilding process for Canada’s new Single Surface Combatant warship. They would achieve this with the masterly frugal plan of purchasing an off the shelf plan. This in obvious contrast to those crooked Conservatives who didn’t budget enough money to pay for, or design these ships.

This sounds great!

Here's the catch though, Minister Foote announced nothing, and her jabs at Conservative overspending were baseless. Let me explain why.

See, what really happened was the Liberals opened a backdoor the Conservatives had already left in the shipbuilding plans. Before we get into what the actual plan was before the Liberals rebranded it we should look at the obvious political fodder in the situation. 

Since after all i’m a self proclaimed conservative pundit the question is, who have the Liberals put out of a job with this move? One can assume that if Canada has decided to purchase a warship plan off the shelf as opposed to designing one ourself, there is at least one ship designer who has been put out of a job. 

Well actually there isn’t. The contract as it was awarded never contained design elements for the Single Surface Combatant Vessels (SSCV). Irving Shipyards was to be the sole contractor of the SSCV and of Canada’s new Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessel (AOPV), but this simply gives the company sole right to construct the vessel, hire labour, hire subcontractors and so forth - this does not implicitly give Irving input on the design. The move to award sole contractor status was marred in controversy when it was decided, but changing Irving's status was never even hinted at during Judy's announcement.

(The Norwegian Svalbard class left,
The Canadian "DeWolf" class right
after $288 million in modifications)

As far as design work goes, Irving did have at least one "design" contract for the smaller ship, the AOPV. Well, this isn't totally true, the AOPV current being constructed in Halifax is not designed by a Canadian (or a Canadian firm). It is a heavily modified version of the Norwegian Svalbard class of Offshore Icebreakers.

As I mentioned the AOPV project was mired with controversy. The cost of the off the shelf Svalbard plans was about $5million. The cost to modify or redesign these plan for Canadian purposes was a staggering $288million. An amount no one could figure out. However since these ships are already being built there’s not a lot the Liberals can do except pay huge penalties for backing out, forcing themselves to find a new contractor, and continue Canada's embarrassing gap in the resources needed to secure our Arctic region. This is likely why the issue of the AOPV cost is being ignored, the Liberals can not afford to stop the ball rolling economically and strategically. Since they have to announce something or fear being out of the media for a few hours, they need a problem to solve. Their new boon to undoggle is the cost of the SSCV.

(Irving Shipyard - A single hall for large ship
construction - with multiple land based points for final
construction on smaller ships)

When Ms. Foote announced that not only would buying off the shelf plans save money, but it could also shave two years of the design process, allowing new warships to begin construction by 2020 - I had to scratch my head. This was exactly what the plan was the whole time… The AOPV weren’t slated to be completed until 2020. The life extension program for the Halifax class frigates completed by the conservatives meant the ships could last till about 2020-2025. So isn’t beginning construction by 2020 exactly what had been planned the whole time? Yes. The Irving shipyard is big, but it simply cannot lay down multiple vessels the size of the SSCV - by its very design.


As far as the design goes, the Conservatives were pragmatic. They gave Irving a piece of the pie in the form of redesigning the AOPV plans (some say this is an inexplicably big amount but that’s another article) but they left the largest of the design contracts (the ones for our new SSCV) up in the air. Designing your own ships is a great move if the economic conditions permit it. It develops high level industry in the home state, and allows for revenue from selling plans. However it is costly. This is why the conservatives likely didn’t double down on the design contracts with Irving. As there was no announcement of SSCVs specifics and no design element awarded for that contract whatever government is in power has the freedom to develop new designs and sell them, or make an economically pragmatic decision and opt for the  cheaper off the shelf option.

This brings us back to Judy Foote’s announcement, which if you’ll remember was that Canada will “streamline the process” of our SSCV by buying off the shelf plans… ok, but which ones? That was always one of two possibilities Judy, you haven’t really said much except you are picking the cheaper solution.

So in short, the Liberals have announced: 

• They will spend less money on the Military than the conservatives, they will do this by outsourcing design of the SSCV. 

• By omission, they have implied they will do nothing about the massive redesign cost of the AOPV, even though it too uses off the shelf plans.

• Minster Foote also gave us a timeline - that construction of the SSCV would start by 2020(ish)

Here's my observations, organized in the same way:

• The Liberal Party of Canada slashing military spending is hardly a surprise to anyone.

• The AOPV redesign cost as i've already pointed out, makes the purchase of off the shelf plans as a "frugal" move, suspicious at best.

• The timeline announced was exactly the same timeline that we’ve always had. The AOPV can’t be finished any sooner, that is without reducing the numbers (a move I predict will happen before 2020). Our current frigates will last till about 2025, like they were planned too four years ago. 

So basically what we got was an announcement that went like this:
       
The Liberals are happy to (continue to) overpay for the $288million dollar design of the “off the shelf” Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessel. They are not going to overpay for our Single Surface Combatant Vessel like the (scary old) Conservatives were. The ever frugal Liberals will purchase off the shelf plans (and presumably not pay $288 million to redesign said plans) allowing construction of the Single Surface Combatant to begin in about 2020… exactly when it was planned. 

Great announcement Judy! 

Keep it up!

How Canadian Journalists attacked Chinese-Canadian realtions

Dear Canadian Journalists: 

We are a middle power - misunderstanding this erodes our nation’s diplomatic abilities

Last week a Canadian reporter covering Canadian ministers meeting their Beijing counterparts asked Wang Yi and Stephan Dion a series a questions that those who follow Canadian politics are now familiar with. She basically asked a three part question. Here it is in a quote from an online article 

Connolly referenced the three issues before asking: "Why is Canada pursuing closer ties with China, how do you plan to use that relationship to improve human rights and security in the region, and did you specifically raise the case of the Garratts during your talks?”

Now the three issues mentioned beforehand were largely related to imprisonment and disappearing of Chinese nationals, and two Canadians - The Garratts.

(Wang Yi looking furious after understanding
the question - Stephan Dion looking confused
as the question was in English and he was on
a 7 second translation delay)

While this doesn’t seem like a provocative question to most Canadians, it was, and as  I will demonstrate, questions like it have the ability to destabilize Canada’s diplomatic abilities.

After the questions were asked the Chinese minster rebuked the reporter for her questions, going into a tirade of insults. Through his translator he called her arrogant, and said she lacked an understanding of china. Further journalists, offended at the perceived injustice of the Chinese response rose to her defence, and issue became a minor international bump.

Its time for the Canadian press corps to take a step back and realize what really happened here. The journalists in question have ignored Canada’s lingering position as a middle power. They have ignored the Liberals surprisingly apt move to act as a middle power thereby preserving this position. They should know that this is a very good thing for Canada, we lost clout over the last decade after all. We weren’t taken seriously since the Conservatives insisted on pretending that we are on the same level as global superpowers. 

They have made a rather severe diplomatic faux pas, and while both - the Chinese minster in question and the Canadian press corps - have the freedom to say what they did - it may have effected Canadian diplomats ability to make any progress on the very issues that were asked about.

When I say Middle Power, it’s important to take a second to unpack exactly what I mean by it. Canada has for a long time been a great ally of the United States, we were a founding member of most of the same treaty organizations and have until recently shared the position of each others largest trading partner. In most of these alliances however, Canada was very much a junior power. Never having the same offensive capabilities as our southern neighbour, and the hard power that comes along. What Canada has had historically, was friendlier relations with Soviet aligned countries. 

(From left to right: PM Justin Trudeau,
Former PM / President of Cuba Fidel Castro,
Sex and The City star Kim Cattrall)

Trudeau the First famously visited Cuba in 1976, and Canada has had an embassy in Havana since 1945. Trudeau I had also visited the Soviet Union in 1971, setting a much more sympathetic tone for the decade than his American Counterpart. What this meant was Canada gained a unique position somewhat in the centre, in a period where the world was very bi-polar. We were not a great power like the cold-waring USA and USSR, but a Middle Power. Aligned both strategically and geographically with the US, any attack on Canada would certainly evoke US retaliation, but Canada was also open to some level of relations with ideologically opposed countries. This gave us diplomatic opportunities not open to the US, we were known as fairly impartial peacekeepers. 

Fast forward to the ideological mic drop in the mid 90’s and the Soviet Union was out. This weakened Canada diplomatically as we had much less to be in the middle of. The strategy from both Liberal and Conservative governments to follow was to either slash, or largely ignore the armed forces, while pretending to be a Great Power (in a world that had only one) while really being at best some sort of Mediocre Power internationally. 

If we go even further forward to the present day, we see a surprisingly apt move from the current Trudeau on the throne in power. He and his government are trying to regain Canada’s position between the United States - that is potentially going to be under a very conservative administration - and countries that are aligned differently. They are doing this with things the Chinese like. High level officials showing up, grandiose events, press galas etc. Behind closed doors the Chinese officials, in a solid mood from having a political tour go the way they expect, sit down and do high level negotiations about important issues, such as the one the reporter in question asked about. Once they leave the country what ever was worked out is usually announced, if it reflects poorly on the party it will likely stay behind China’s firewall and the countries press won’t create stir for fear of embarrassing someone. 

What screws this process up is when for the sake of sensationalism, and a good story, a reporter jumps the gun and starts pressing a high level party official with questions they are most definitely in no position to answer. The Chinese minister was right, this reporter does misunderstand China. What she did put the minister in a position where the must now official deny, and likely cease negotiating over the very issues she brought up. This also explains why Stephan Dion likely didn’t come to the defence of the press, for fear he would further set back his chance at diplomacy. After all during a short tour, the hours of hard negotiations are few and far between. Minister Dion certainly had to spend several of his precious hours with the Chinese minister apologizing and explaining the incident, before he could hopefully return to the issues, assuming the Chinese minister hadn’t already been instructed to ignore said issues. 

I’m not saying that what the press corp did was undemocratic, however I think I have presented a fair argument that demonstrates is was very undiplomatic, and a best set back our negotiations, and our chances at regaining some Middle power status. 

So my message to the Canadian press corps and to Amanda Connolly of iPolitics  (who may be the only person to read my pitiful little blog if she has a google alert for her own name) is to take a step back and examine the power your questions have to impact our diplomatic relations. I know it makes for a great headline, and probably gains you some traffic in a market where that is a very difficult thing to do, but at the cost of setting back Canada’s diplomatic relations, and our possible return to a position of diplomatic prestige, could you maybe wait till the Chinese leave and grill Mr.Dion then? I’d really appreciate it.