Vanguard Magazine

c csc www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2016 33 S u p p o r t i n g o u r t r o o p s i n c h a l l e n g i n g m i s s i o n s Working under tough conditions, our troops can confidently rely on Rousseau products being built to withstand even the most adverse environments. Rousseau's Heavy-Duty Storage Products provide well organized, efficient and easy access for maintaining our fleets fit for action. Our products are designed and manufactured in Canada with the modularity, ruggedness and quality that you can depend on for your missions. 1000's of models to fit your needs. Visit rousseaumetal.com Dependable solutions for land, sea & air. rousseaumetal.com 1.866.463.4270 Dependable Storage Solutions The minister said the move to keep a lid on the cost estimates concerning the CSC is part of a new game plan her office is adopting to keep the NSPS under con- trol. She also said that "work is underway to determine a new costing approach" and that she intends to double the number of staff working on the NSPS. The CSC is the procurement project to replace the Royal Canadian Navy's Iroquois class and Halifax class frigates with up to 15 new warships beginning in the mid-2020s as part of the $39-billion NSPS. The replacement vessels are envisioned to be larger than the Halifax class and will likely provide wide-area air defence and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The actual number of ships will depend on the budget allocated for the program. The NSPS was launched by the Conser- vative government in 2010. The strategy was broken into three sections: the com- bat package, the non-combat package, and the smaller vessel package. Companies that won one of the larger ship packages were not able to bid on the smaller vessel package. The Conservatives abandoned the tra- ditional competitive procurement process and instead conducted a stringent meth- od of choosing providers for the vessels, which ended up committing the govern- ment to deal with the country's three larg- est shipbuilders, Irving Shipbuilding Inc., Seaspan and Chantier Davie Irving won the largest chunk of the NSPS which is the CSC. Seaspan of Van- couver got the smaller Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) program. Quebec's Chantier Davie ended up with the much smaller $587 million civilian tanker retro- fit program. The NSPS has been dogged by de- lays and controversies. The price of the 15 warships that were to be procured for the Royal Canadian Navy's (RCN) Single Class Surface Combatant Project has more than doubled from the initial $14 billion price tag to more than $30 billion, according to a report by the Ca- nadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) News. This means the total cost $26.2 million approved by the government for the pur- chase of those 15 ships and an additional six Arctic Patrol Ships, will cost about $16 billion more and balloon to $42 billion. Foote noted that the NSPS went through a period of "growing pains." For instance, Foote said, the Conserva- tives did not update their initial shipbuild- ing cost estimates to take into account for inflation, exchange rates and changes in material cost. "This is the main reason why projects ap- peared to be vastly over budget when actual contracts were signed," the minister said. Foote noted that the nsps is going through a period of "growing pains."

• Cover