Vanguard Magazine

20OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2024 www.vanguardcanada.com A N U C L E A R S U B M A R I N E The most recent precedent was set by the Mulroney government's outreach to the Reagan administration in the late 1980s to secure that IP transfer. Despite their friendly relations with the Conserva- tive government, the US Navy reacted to this proposal with a combination of suspi- cion and derision, with Ambassador Allan Gotlieb describing it as having provoked more American interest than any Cana- dian defence initiative since [Pierre El- liott] Trudeau's 'peace proposal.' 8 Today, the American reaction is unknowable. It is possible that it may be welcomed as evi- dence of a new commitment, though, with Canada struggling to maintain and expand its current military capabilities, the Ameri- can reaction might also be similar to that of the 1980s. Even if the US was amenable to trans- ferring the technology, it would retain an absolute degree of control over the pro- gram that many Canadians would chafe at. As the IP owner, the US will set the re- quirements for the supporting infrastruc- ture and personnel certification require- ments. These requirements are incredibly stringent and not subject to debate; they are also the reason that there have been no US Navy nuclear incidents over seven decades of continuous operation. 9 Ad- hering to these requirements represents an expense and a logistical challenge that most Canadians simply don't understand. 10 The infrastructure in direct support of nuclear-powered submarines must be sev- eral times more sophisticated and robust than standard dockyard facilities – in case of nuclear emergencies. For example, the synchrolift (ship lifting system) or drydock must be able to fully function in the face of extremely unlikely events – such as a simultaneous major earthquake and hurri- cane while a naval nuclear reactor is being worked on. Thus, any equipment cost esti- mates must be from a current nuclear sup- port infrastructure, not necessarily what is available commercially locally. The alternative to American IP would of course be a partnership with the French. This was one of the options examined in the late 1980s by the Mulroney govern- ment. Naturally, the French would also have to approve Canadian access to their IP, as well as the construction of the sup- porting Canadian infrastructure. In short, while possible, Canada would not be in control of the application of foreign- sourced IP, especially infrastructure asso- ciated with operations and maintenance. 11 To avoid the political complexity and logistical hurdles of foreign IP Canada could develop and build an indigenous naval nuclear reactor. The nation certainly has the resident expertise, however, the ci- vilian CANDU reactor is not suitable for naval service and duplicating the maritime technology which has taken our allies gen- erations to refine would be an enormous undertaking and prohibitively expensive. 12 Infrastructure Apart from the submarines themselves, the most significant cost of an SSN program would be the accompanying infrastructure. These are massive expenses and common- ly underappreciated. As part of AUKUS agreement the Australians are currently spending $8 billion on their modern west coast submarine base HMAS Stirling. This expense is simply to upgrade the current submarine support infrastructure on one coast. 13 With two coasts, separated by a continent, Canada could expect to more than double that cost because, for reasons of nuclear safety, neither Esquimalt nor Halifax naval bases could support a fleet of SSNs. These bases are simply too close to major population centres. In the late 1980s the Canadian Submarine Acquisi- tion Program (CASAP-SSN) project cal- culated that a fleet of 10-12 SSNs would require a base the size of CFB Shearwater in a location on the sea, with air and rail heads, away from high population density – and on both coasts. This is not an impossible task, but it raises questions of time and cost that are not intuitively obvious. There are obvious political pitfalls as well. Over the decades required to build these submarines, it is in- evitable that the government will face se- rious local resistance pushing back against new SSN bases. Despite their excellent safety record, there will be a concerted environmental campaign that any govern- ment will struggle to win over – or push past. To their advantage, the US, the UK, and France put their respective nuclear infrastructure in place in the 1950s and 1960s before much of modern anti-nu- clear movements had gained strength, and importantly, before modern environmen- tal assessment regulations were developed. Canada's poor track record executing on major infrastructure projects suggest that it would face a nearly impossible task Her Majesty's Canadian Submarine (HMCS) Windsor. Photo: Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn M. Kent, Formation Imaging Services - Halifax.

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