National Economy

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Hamilton enters the fray!

The company with the drydocks (Heddle) maintains floating ones in Hamilton (I believe there are no 'land-based' drydocks at present) but has permanent docks in St. Catharines at the northern end of the Welland Canal, in Port Weller; looks like they also have a facility in Thunder Bay. I think they largely work on freighters, but I seem to recall seeing a coast guard ship in drydock not all that long ago, and there are a couple shown on the website.

Still, to develop a specialized ship building/maintenance capability especially for subs seems a stretch. I'd think Heddle is more suited to maintaining 'traditional' boats, but if there's a business case to do submarines, perhaps it can be so. At what cost, is what I'd wonder... and if building them in Canada is at all feasible, would it be better for one of the yards on an ocean coast that has experience with navy ships to take up that work and transfer other projects to yards on the Great Lakes?

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If we are going to have a ~50 ship navy, and a coast guard with another 40-50 ships or so, that should be enough to support at least three shipyards across the country on an ongoing basis (ship life ~25 years, ongoing maintenance and refits).

Wherever possible we should be building these things at home in order to support homegrown industry and develop our own capacity to do the work. Ships are perfect for this. We should also be developing capacity for general duty military vehicles, munitions, drones and small arms.

Sure, there are some things we should buy from international partners (planes, helicopters, heavy armour etc), but, if we want to be a self sufficient military power, we should learn to build more on our own.

Completely agree. While Canada does well with some things like the LAVs made by General Dynamics in Ontario and the small arms made by Colt Canada are well regarded and do have international sales, this certainly could be expanded.
A Canadian version of the CAESAR howitzer and the HIMARS rocket artillery systems could bring some of the old Ontario auto plants back to life.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If we have a fleet of 12 submarines, and these subs have a life expectancy of 25 years, and it takes two years to build each sub, then a Canadian submarine shipyard would have continual work, especially if you factor in maintenance and refit activities as well.

Learning to build your own damned stuff is an act of nation building. Canada used to be good at building things. Now we are just a client state. I prefer for us to be self sufficient.

South Korea would be an excellent partner. They would help to get our submarine shipyard up and running, and, would continue to assist with supervision and quality control (for a licensing fee). Meanwhile, Canada learns the process, and hundreds of high quality jobs are created.

Exactly. it would be interesting to see a study on how much per billion spent on something like ship construction is recaptured via corporate taxes from all the companies in the supply chain and the individual taxes from all their workers. So much better to keep that money recirculating within the Canadian economy. Korea gets enough of our money via Samsung already!

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

The company with the drydocks (Heddle) maintains floating ones in Hamilton (I believe there are no 'land-based' drydocks at present) but has permanent docks in St. Catharines at the northern end of the Welland Canal, in Port Weller; looks like they also have a facility in Thunder Bay. I think they largely work on freighters, but I seem to recall seeing a coast guard ship in drydock not all that long ago, and there are a couple shown on the website.

Still, to develop a specialized ship building/maintenance capability especially for subs seems a stretch. I'd think Heddle is more suited to maintaining 'traditional' boats, but if there's a business case to do submarines, perhaps it can be so. At what cost, is what I'd wonder... and if building them in Canada is at all feasible, would it be better for one of the yards on an ocean coast that has experience with navy ships to take up that work and transfer other projects to yards on the Great Lakes?

If this were to occur, it would of course be open to RFP and whichever shipyard wanted the business can make their case.

At a glance, the old St John shipyards seems big enough, but it might actually be too big.. For a perpetual sub yard, multiple small docks would be preferable to one large one.

Subs are small enough to be built off lake Ontario, and Hamilton does seem like a good fit. The Irving drydock in St john is actually big enough to build ships as large as a 40k ton Wasp carrier!

Way too much ship for the RCN now, but maybe someday...

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

Completely agree. While Canada does well with some things like the LAVs made by General Dynamics in Ontario and the small arms made by Colt Canada are well regarded and do have international sales, this certainly could be expanded.
A Canadian version of the CAESAR howitzer and the HIMARS rocket artillery systems could bring some of the old Ontario auto plants back to life.

...

Colt Canada recently applied to the City of Kitchener to expand its plant in Kitchener.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

If this is the sort of business model you want to see more of, then there's no better place to focus on right now than the defense industry, particularly ships!

Why should we send 12 subs worth of our tax money to another country when those billions could be spent expanding our shipbuilding industry and providing high skill jobs to more Canadians? Better to keep that money flowing within the Canadian economy instead.

Canada has zero experience building submarines. Full stop.

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Canada has zero experience building submarines. Full stop.

We just need to begin with a parts list. Here, let me start:

1 x hatch

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Canada has zero experience building submarines. Full stop.

Maybe we should get the experience.

In times of war when supply chains can be disrupted, and international alliances can shift, do we really want to be beholding on foreign sources for our parts and equipment?

Sometimes this is unavoidable, but we should be decreasing our exposure as much as possible.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Maybe we should get the experience.

In times of war when supply chains can be disrupted, and international alliances can shift, do we really want to be beholding on foreign sources for our parts and equipment?

Sometimes this is unavoidable, but we should be decreasing our exposure as much as possible.

Yes but submarines aren't high on the list of something we'd want to give away or be going alone on something. I suppose a conflict with the US over the arctic is possible. We already make things the Ukrainians need now that we aren't expanding production of so domestic production doesn't seem to be high on our list of priorities.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Maybe we should get the experience.

In times of war when supply chains can be disrupted, and international alliances can shift, do we really want to be beholding on foreign sources for our parts and equipment?

Sometimes this is unavoidable, but we should be decreasing our exposure as much as possible.

Why? For 12 pieces of equipment? Better to focus on traditional shipbuilding which at least has more potential contracts.

[Truenorth00]

There's absolutely no justification for acquiring and maintaining a sovereign submarine construction capability. If it's about jobs, we're so much better off doubling down on our actual strengths in the defence sector like combat vehicles, aircraft, space systems, and modeling and simulation systems. There are fewer companies in the world that can build high fidelity simulators like CAE does, than submarine builders.

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's absolutely no justification for acquiring and maintaining a sovereign submarine construction capability.

Well, there isn't if you aren't interested in being a sovereign nation..
Why do we need our own dollar anyway if all international trade is settled in USD?

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If it's about jobs, we're so much better off doubling down on our actual strengths in the defence sector like combat vehicles, aircraft, space systems, and modeling and simulation systems. There are fewer companies in the world that can build high fidelity simulators like CAE does, than submarine builders.

So is your solution for underemployed shipbuilder to just learn to code? Or are you suggesting disused dry docks be converted to LAV factories instead? The natural place to expand that industry is where it already is, where many auto workers already had their jobs gutted by Korean imports..

Genuinely don't understand why a purported patriot such as yourself would be opposed to building industry for all skill levels in all parts of Canada?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

Well, there isn't if you aren't interested in being a sovereign nation..
Why do we need our own dollar anyway if all international trade is settled in USD?

Ahhh yes, if we don't go full North Korea autarky and build everything ourselves, we aren't a sovereign country apparently.

I assure you, there's not even a single digit percentage of the population that will go along with that ridiculous logic.

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

So is your solution for underemployed shipbuilder to just learn to code? Or are you suggesting disused dry docks be converted to LAV factories instead? The natural place to expand that industry is where it already is, where many auto workers already had their jobs gutted by Korean imports..

I don't understand why a purported patriot such as yourself would be opposed to building industry for all skill levels in all parts of Canada?

Given that we've never had a domestic submarine capability where are all these unemployed submarine builders supposedly coming from? If it's just shipbuilding then get them to build other ships. Doesn't have to be submarines. Heck, welding on a LAV and riveting on an aircraft after no different than doing the same on ships. Putting them to work in other sectors.

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Ahhh yes, if we don't go full North Korea autarky and build everything ourselves, we aren't a sovereign country apparently.

I assure you, there's not even a single digit percentage of the population that will go along with that ridiculous logic.



Given that we've never had a domestic submarine capability where are all these unemployed submarine builders supposedly coming from? If it's just shipbuilding then get them to build other ships. Doesn't have to be submarines. Heck, welding on a LAV and riveting on an aircraft after no different than doing the same on ships. Putting them to work in other sectors.

Well, not a particularly recent one.. But that doesn't mean Canada isn't capable of rising to the challenge again!

During World War I the yard assembled American-designed Holland 602 type submarines on behalf of the Royal Navy.[4] The hulls were Canadian-built, but the machinery and equipment were American. They were known as the British H-class submarine in the Royal Navy and were the first submarines to cross the Atlantic Ocean under their own power. Canadian Vickers (along with Polson Iron Works of Toronto) also constructed the first vessels specifically designed for the Royal Canadian Navy, the Battle-class naval trawlers.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Vickers

And say what you will about North Korea, but at least they haven't had trouble supplying munitions to their allies in the Ukraine war...

As for South Korea, it's not like they have an enormous amount of experience sub building either. They've only built 3 of the model that is apparently being considered, and their prior model was a collaboration with a German builder. Not sure why a Canadian capability couldn't be built up similarly?