Killing the Canadian Coast Guard. One massive hack at a time.

You would naturally believe that Harper and his hillbilly cohort would be strengthening the Canadian Coast Guard for several reasons, not the least of which would be to strengthen any claim on the Arctic with positioned Arctic escort ships, search and rescue and just plain hanging a flag. Another reason would be the woefully inadequate CCG resources to deal with the upcoming traffic jam in Douglas Channel. Given that Harper's national shipbuilding fantasy includes a bevy of new ships for the Coast Guard you'd expect them to be viewed as essential, and thus insulated from Harper hatchet work.

Not so, it would seem.

The ongoing gutting/changing of budgets and services at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Canadian Coast Guard are beginning to defy logic.

...

The bulk of the cuts are expected to come within the Canadian Coast Guard, where the story said $20 million will be shaved off and as many as 300 people could be shown the door.
Many insiders knew the axe was going to fall, but I would hazard to say few people expected it to be quite this dramatic.

Ah yes. Harper didn't get his extreme austerity when he had a minority government. Given that it is the lone tool he knows how to use after being trained as second-rate economist, he intends to tell you in 2015 what a wonderful manager of the economy he is and kindly ignore the fact that our SAR resources don't sail, our aids to marine navigation have rotted on their cables and vessel traffic control in congested areas simply doesn't work. Oh yes, you might also want to ignore those 300 unemployed seafarers.

One of the more stunning elements could come in the form of what looks like a major reduction - a $4.2 million budget cut and 23 job losses - in Canada's offshore surveillance of foreign fishing vessels. That would mean less monitoring of foreign vessels fishing outside Canada's 200-mile limit. 
What's more perplexing than the decision is the rationale for it.
The powers-that-be suggest they've done such a good job of reducing "serious" (a word DFO has worked very hard to cut out of its list of fishing citation reports in recent years) foreign overfishing infractions in the last while that we just don't need as much monitoring any more.
I won't ramble on about the rationale, only to say it's comparable to firing the cops because you haven't had a serious crime in a while.

Bingo (I say in a singing voice).  This is the tough on crime bunch who, despite plummeting crime rates, spent billions and forced the provinces to spend billions to lock up more people than ever because they knew there was more crime out there than we could actually see ... or that we reported. You'll recall Brother Stockwell lying through his teeth to convince you that spending billions of dollars on crime prevention was worth it, if only because he loves watching people who make him feel icky, suffer. But when illegal fishing, particularly off the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap gets curtailed ... (well, not so much curtailed as reported using different language to make it look like there are fewer violations) ... that's cause to dismiss your patrol force and the unique experts who staff it.

What is particularly interesting about this investigative piece is that it noted top bureaucrats in the department - including the deputy minister - have advised against making the cuts and have recommended spending be increased - not slashed.

 ...

If the federal government is making these cuts in spite of what their own top people are telling them, then why are they doing it, and where is that information coming from?

Ah, yes. The $200 million question. Where is their information coming from?  How about ... the PMO? The frat boys in short-pants don't know a coast guard from cattle dung. If it isn't important to them, to hell with advice.

And let's not forget the court jester running the Treasury Board. Tony Clement, a refugee from the Ontario Mike Harris fiasco, a man who never saw a tax dollar he couldn't spend on himself, simply told DFO to lose a few hundred million of budget line items. It doesn't matter what they are because this whole coast guard thing is way too expensive and anyway, they have no presence in Muskoka except to harass people about their boat operator cards.

It also demonstrates the weakness of Gail Shea, so-called Fisheries Minister. Clearly she has about as much influence at the cabinet table as Flaherty's pet cockroach. This wouldn't be happening if she'd threatened to resign, which makes her another Harper knob polisher.

(O)ne minute a bottle of champagne is being broken against a new Coast Guard ship or a brand new station is slated for construction.
The next minute, people who work on those ships or in those stations are getting their Records of Employment (ROE) and being shown the door. 
Government logic. Certainly an oxymoron.

No, not actually. What it shows is two things, both of which highlight the fiscal and administrative incompetence of Harper and his chosen ones. No logic, but worst of all no plan. 

Ships! We will have ships! Many ships...

Maybe.

Petey "Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates" MacKay was making bold with his announcement of 50, that's right count 'em, fifty ships to be built in Canada by the Canadian shipbuilding industry.

Canada's shipbuilders have agreed to a radical change in the way contracts will be doled out by the federal government.

Good. Because the current system, the one streamlined by the Harper government, quite frankly, sucks. The Harper government has cancelled or shelved every single ship procurement contract on the books and have seriously jeopardized the frigate mid-life modernization.

The government plans to spend $40 billion over the next 30 years to build as many as 50 large ships, in addition to 70 ships under 1,000 tonnes that have been earmarked for revamps.

Let's start with the "50 large" number. On the shelf are naval requirements for three Joint Support Ships and six to eight Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessels. That's it. The former project was cancelled and the latter is on hold after being seriously watered down. (Let's not play the eight number. If these things ever materialize, six will be the maximum number.)

There are no other actual new construction projects in play - not even on hold.

The Coast Guard Mid-Shore Patrol Vessel project and Off-Shore Fisheries Research Vessel project were both dropped at the same time as the Navy's JSS project. You might not have heard it because it was mumbled out of the side of some boffin's mouth. Whether these are included in the "50" raises a question. The proposed size of the MSPV (37 - 42) meters sounds very much like an under-1000 tonner to me. It doesn't qualify under MacKay's announcement. And nobody really knows if the OFRV was larger or just another version of the MSPV. Let's pretend that it was intended to be over 1000 tonnes.

That makes 11 total possible ships with project status, even though the Harper government dropped all of them. (After big, loud promises to build them and, yes, even more!)

Now let's look at another number. The "30" years.

That presumes that the same government will be in power for the next 30 years because, as anyone in the ship procurement business can tell you, when governments change, so do plans.

The Harper Conservatives have a best-before-date that won't give them 30 more weeks without having to go to the voters and the shipbuilders know that.

"There is going to be enough work with 50 ships on order for every shipyard in the country to be going full steam, and that's good news in terms of the economy," said Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

I'm calling bullshit on MacKay. There will never be 50 ships on order. MacKay is playing with words and numbers that would make a dishonest accountant blush. Notice, the absence of "over 30 years" in his pronouncement.

... a new process that theoretically will allow the government to pick and choose in a more direct way which Canadian shipyards will build which ships. The agreement is meant to end the often intense bickering that has killed some government contracts.

Which is hardly the "conservative" way. What happened to the good old conservative maxim of "let the market reign"? This sounds like government controlled, government subsidized shipyards.

The agreement itself still requires scores of questions to be answered and many details to be ironed out.

Bingo! And one of the details is, what happens Peter, old boy, when you get turfed out of office and the "50" number changes? What happens if over 30 years requirements change?

Enact legislation making it mandatory? Give it a try.

Alan Williams, former head of procurement for the Defence Department, called the deal historic.

"I think the notion for revisiting the government's shipbuilding policy makes good sense," he said.

However, he added that if the program is not managed properly it could become a disaster. He said the government needs to make the process transparent to ensure that tax dollars are spent wisely.

That seals the fate of any deal with Harper's hillbilly government. I shouldn't have to say this, but if I were a shipbuilding company or a head of procurement basing a decision on the need for good management, one look at the Harper government track record would send shivers down the spine of any rational individual.

It would be too limiting to call this announcement nothing but smoke and mirrors. It is, in actual fact, complete bullshit and MacKay is an empty shirt.

You Can't Play In My Sandbox . . . .

Today's On Point radio program with Tom Ashbrook on NPR featured a story concerning global sovereignty. The current activity between Canada and Russia in the Arctic was the main topic. No doubt the US will soon enter the fray with the dwindling natural resources south of the as yet untapped area. (For some unknown reason the audio links on the site are inoperable. I'll update when available)

Global Resources Wars

By host Tom Ashbrook:

This hour On Point: flags and ice and the new resource scramble at the North Pole and around the world.

It was a quirky story in the US news media, and a national triumph in Moscow.

Last Thursday, in the frigid wake of a nuclear powered ice-breaker, Russia sent two mini-submarines 13,000 feet beneath the Arctic ice cap, and planted a titanium-encased Russian flag on the seabed of the North Pole.

"The Arctic," declared expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, "is ours." And with it, Moscow hopes, a huge share of the massive oil and gas reserves under the melting pole.




The US and Canada laughed, but not for long.

Fred Weir, Moscow Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor

Michael Klare, Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and author of "Blood and Oil"

Michael Byers, Professor of International Law at the University of British Columbia

Eric Posner, Professor of Law at University of Chicago Law School

One of the panel discussion participants, Michael Byers, is a professor of international law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He cautions to not become hysterical at this point over the activity in the area. Hope he's right.

Ashbrook interviews a US Coast Guard lieutenant currently on the largest cutter in the fleet that is mapping the area for who-knows-what purposes?

The listener call-in comments are particularly interesting. Typical of the "us-or-them" US mentality is one caller who advocates setting up alliances with Russia as opposed to Canada in the battle to control resources. It would be interesting to get stevie harper and peter mackay's take on that type of attitude.

Now this headline from the CBC today:

Planned army base, port in North heat up Arctic quest

I wonder how all this figures in to the Deep Integration/SPP discussion?

How this plays out over the next few years should be quite a show. Get your popcorn and grab a seat . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Getting things done... without thinking.

Steve Harper has done it again. Without a comprehensive defence review in place, without a white-paper and contradicting the methods laid out by the Canadian navy to secure the Arctic, he has decided to tell the navy what type of ships they will have to form a fleet.

The federal government will fund the construction of six to eight new Arctic patrol ships to help reassert Canada's sovereignty over the North, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday.

The ships will be custom-built, state of the art and made in Canada, Harper said during a ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt on Vancouver Island.

Based on the only existing defence policy the military has to use, the Canadian navy produced this strategic planning document entitled Leadmark: The Navy's Strategy for 2020. (Which has now disappeared from the navy's frontpage on the DND site.)

Nowhere in that document will you see a specific requirement identified by the navy for any ice-resistant ships. Which means that the Harper government has inverted the process and is now telling the navy, not what needs to be done, but exactly how to do it.

There is a large component in the navy who will disagree that six to eight ice-resistant ships are the way to go. There are cheaper, more effective options. And as for the ships Harper is touting:

He said the ships' hulls will be reinforced with steel and be able to crunch though ice up to a metre thick — allowing the ships to patrol the length of the Northwest Passage during months when a Canadian naval presence is necessary.

The vessels will be armed and will have a helicopter landing pad, Harper added.

A meter? That's a little on the wimpy side. There is every chance that, in order to patrol the length of the Northwest Passage, an ice-breaker would have to be capable of taking on ice up to two meters thick with a "reverse and ram" configuration which would give it a capability of taking on up to three meters of ice.

Of course they will be armed - but to do what and deal with what threats? You don't just say they will be armed, fitted with helicopters and send them out patrolling. As much as Harper makes it sound simple, each mode of warfare requires special attention by the designers, builders and crews. Are they to be designed to fit into a task organization or are they expected to be a self-contained anti-submarine, anti-aircraft, anti-surface platform? What is the defensive range expected to be? What is their proposed endurance? How are they to be resupplied? Since they're only ice-resistant, what type of ship will be there to groom the ice-path? (Oh shit! You forgot about that!)

The tell:

The government estimates the project will cost $7 billion and take five years.

Harper also said the government will construct a deepwater port somewhere in the far north, with the location to be announced soon. The port will be used as an operation base for the new patrol vessels.

There is no plan. Harper is making this up as he goes. This question still applies.

In truth, the Canadian navy would love to have Arctic patrol ships... after all other requirements and resource demands are met. They would also love to have the people to man them, or has it been lost on this government that there are really only nine crews to run twelve frigates?

The announcement has no timeline, no real funding, an estimate that means nothing and no materiel project. The five years Harper is talking about could start in 2050 for all we know.

If you ask an admiral in the Canadian navy what is the most suited vessel, (assuming the need for a vessel), to patrol the Arctic archipelago, most would answer, a submarine with under-ice capability.

That idea sank at the hands of the Mulroney government when they too meddled in trying to tell the navy what type of ship they needed without properly consulting the experts.

The question remains: Is this government going to acknowledge the dismal state of affairs in the Canadian Coast Guard and do something to bring that fleet up to an acceptable standard?

No... I suppose not.