OTTAWA – Canada’s auditor general says the navy is at risk of shrinking in both size and capabilities unless the federal government injects more money into its multi-billion-dollar national shipbuilding plan.
In a report released Tuesday, Auditor General Michael Ferguson says the government has not budgeted enough money to replace the navy’s aging destroyers and frigates as promised.
He also notes trade-offs have already been made to keep the navy’s new resupply ships and Arctic patrol vessels on budget, and that future trade-offs are likely unless the feds are prepared to ante up.
As first reported by Postmedia News last week, the auditor general says the problem is that budgets for each of the shipbuilding projects were based on “rough estimates,” most of them derived years ago and never revised to reflect changed circumstances.
Those changed circumstances include rising costs for raw materials, labour and military components for ships, as well as the government’s decision to roll the projects together into one major shipbuilding strategy.
“The initial budget for each class of military ship was set years before construction will begin,” Ferguson’s report reads. “As such, the estimates were very imprecise and should be regarded as, at most, placeholders.”
It goes on to say that “it is not realistic to expect that the original budget cap will remain the same from a project’s conception to completion.”
“While budgets are a useful control,” the report concludes, “Canada may not get the military ships it needs if budgets are not subject to change.”
Compounding the problem is a lack of clarity from the government on exactly what it wants the navy to be able to do, the auditor general found.
The Conservative government has touted its Canada First Defence Strategy, unveiled in May 2008, as the centrepiece of its long-term vision for the military.
However, Ferguson’s report says that “while the (defence strategy) did outline the expected number of navy ships and the core missions for the Canadian Forces, it did not define the specific naval capabilities required to fulfil the government’s level of ambition.”
This appears to confirm critics’ suggestions that the defence strategy, which promised $490-billion of investments in the military over 20 years, is little more than a shopping list.
The auditor general praised the way the government selected Halifax and Vancouver as the main shipyards for the shipbuilding strategy, describing the process as “efficient” and “independent from political influence.”
Canadian navy may be shortchanged on ships because of budget problems: auditor