Canadian Coast guard needs better icebreakers, Senate urges

[Chris C.]

Mon. Jun. 23 2008 9:07 PM ET

 The Canadian Press

 OTTAWA -- The Canadian Coast Guard needs better icebreakers, tougher
 regulations and more Inuit involvement to safeguard the country's
 interests in the slowly opening Arctic seas, says a newly released
 Senate report.

 The report, released Monday, recommends that all ships entering
 Arctic waters claimed by Canada should be obliged to tell NORDREG, a
 registry maintained by the coast guard to monitor who's sailing
 through the Arctic. Registering is currently voluntary.

 "To show that we control the water and that these are Canadian
 waters, to assert our sovereignty, every ship should report and
 NORDREG is the tool to do it," said New Brunswick Liberal Senator
 Fernand Robichaud.
Canada should also implement regulations on the construction, manning
 and equipping of all vessels in the Arctic, the report said.
The standing committee on fisheries and oceans also said Canada needs
 go-anywhere, any time icebreakers. Although that echoes a
 $720-million promise made in the Conservative government's last
 budget, Canada needs more than one, said Robichaud.
"We expect a lot more traffic is going to happen up there," said
 Robichaud. "Right now, I don't think we have the capacity.
"The government should have a long-term program of shipbuilding
 icebreakers."
Ottawa shouldn't ignore the people who actually live in the Arctic
either, the report says.
More Inuit should be recruited for the coast guard to take advantage
of their unique local knowledge. As well, the government should
implement a plan that has been languishing before the federal cabinet for years to build a series of small-craft harbours in Nunavut.
"We believe (Nunavumiut) have not received their proper due with
 regard to facilities."
One Arctic expert praised the report, saying making NORDREG mandatory
 is "excellent idea."
"We've never had the political courage to stand by our convictions," said Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary's Centre for Military
and Strategic Studies.
While Canada has strong Arctic environmental legislation, foreign
ships have never been required to tell coast guard officials that
they're sailing through the waters it protects.
 "If you're passing a law like the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention
 Act, you're saying here's an indication of our sovereignty over the
 Northwest Passage," said Huebert. "Well, make the damn thing mandatory."
 With new technology such as Radarsat-2 keeping watch, Canada can now
 see for itself who's cruising the Arctic seas, said Robichaud.
Huebert also praised the emphasis on working with northerners.
He said the army already provides a model for working with Inuit
 communities with the Rangers, small detachments of reservists
 throughout the North that act as the military's eyes and ears.

 New harbours would also enhance Canadian Arctic sovereignty, Huebert
 said. Harbours are gates, and those who control the gates get to make
 the rules.

 "You've got to build the right gates," he said. "But if you build it,
 you control it."

[Kier Shackleton Gigeroff]

Thanks for the interesting information. Our Icebreakers are already far too old, and probably require replacement. For example, one of our "new" icebreakers, the Pierre Radisson is already 30 years old. The Louis is nearly 40. The newest full-icebreaker being the Henry Larsen, aged 21.

We've also had bad management of the vessels, as displayed with the movement of our heavy icebreakers Louis S St-Laurent and Terry Fox to Newfoundland.

The Louis will be replaced in 2017, however replacements for the others is sort of up in the air.

Cheers,

Kier

[sfitz]

To Dartmouth, Why would you consider the move from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland a bad move?

[Jean Hemond]

Agree but CCCG should become military!

 Major move in arctic and other coast should address US concerns!

Small icebreaker fleet in St-Lawrence and Eastern-Canada might be updated with appropriate budget considerations with localisation of operations but thats  small Canadian politics as-usual!

So Lets do it  with polar icebreakers nuclear propelled with conventional  military intervention capability Arctic based of course ! And Canadian built! No parrochial disputes over vicarage!

 Foreign interest  including US and Russia now plow arctic waters  ( Canadian) with nuclear propulsion ships and nuclear armements!

 Looking  not very far ahead financial resources of Canada are scarces and should be  now brougth to getter to guard our own sovereignty!

 Internal disputes  will only serve foreign interest seeking ownership of the only real economic strenght of Canada Its  natural resources!

 Canada would for sure not be part of economic table discussions without those mineral and hydrocarbons resources!

[Mac Mackay]

Moving Louis S. St.Laurent to Argentia - where there is no ship repair infrastructure make little sense.
The ship requires constant maintenance and attention from a variety of people - electronics, engines, you name it. Argentia has no industry to support this. Halifax and St.John's do.
Moving Terry Fox to St. John's was to "balance" the ships between the Dartmouth and St.John's areas, but  really it was political.
The supposed reason for moving both is that Halifax will have no pier space once they close the CG base and move all ships to BIO. This is clearly a bogus argument. They have just built a pier extension to BIO to accommmodate more ships, and if it had been planned properly they could have occupied Louis and Terry Fox too.
Both Louis and Terry Fox work in the Gulf of St.Lawrence in winter and the high arctic in summer. The steaming time difference between Hailfax and St.John's for ships returning from the Arctic is negligible. For winter ops it can't be more than 5 or 6 hours tops.
No money will be saved, some political rewards will be paid and the tax payers will be in dark - as usual.

[Chris C.]

I read your comments with interest Jean, I'm not sure if you saw an earlier
forum post regarding your comments suggesting the CCG should be part of the military.
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=5211&forum=2

[Andrew Lester]

Mac wrote:
The steaming time difference between Hailfax and St.John's for ships returning from the Arctic is negligible. For winter ops it can't be more than 5 or 6 hours tops.

Actually, the distance is about 500 nm, which would mean to cover that distance in 5-6 hours, it would mean the icebreaker would have to travel at between 80-100 knots! If we had icebreakers that could do that, I don't think we'd have any problems in the Arctic! I'm not sure how fast the icebreakers can go, but assuming 15 knots, it's about 1.5 days to cover the extra distance.

That difference aside, 1.5 days is still pretty negligible compared to the length of an Arctic deployment. I don't know much about the Maritime shipping scene, but from what I've gathered from these posts, the move does seem questionable. The fact that they have no plans for replacement ships is strange too. They plan on waiting another 10 years to replace the oldest one? 48 years old seems far too long to wait to replace it.

[sfitz]

To say there is no infostructure is not entirely true. The St. Johns dockyard is not that far away  and with Argentia only a 1 hr drive from St. John's any of the companies here doing electronics, welding and ship repair and ships engine and machinery work are avaliable to do any work. Alot of ships from Nova Scotia and elsewhere come down here regularly for maintenance and repair.

[Jean Hemond]

I  completely agree with that position of yours!

[Kier Shackleton Gigeroff]

sfitz:

Firstly, my apologies for taking so long in replying; I was away from Shipspotting for a long period of time this summer due to several major events occurring one after another.

Pretty much, what Mac kindly added covers it. The sea distance between Halifax and Newfoundland is negligible. So, they save a few hours (whether it's 5 hours or 24 hours, it's still very small). So the amount of fuel saved is extremely low in comparison to the total cost (not to mention anguish, in terms of the crew) of moving two heavy icebreakers. The port infrastructure in Halifax is superior, even to St. John's (just compare populations and add Halifax Shipyard.) Argentia is a very, very small place to house a heavy arctic icebreaker.
I had interesting talks with people who have worked in DFO regarding this, one of them said "they're making us pay (in Dartmouth) for not voting Conservative". While very simple that is really quite true. They moved the Terry Fox to a Conservative stronghold.

Let's move back to Argentia;
Argentia? Really? Every time you need to get the engines fixed you'd be sailing to Halifax? If you need somebody to clean the windows you've got to sail away? I'm obviously exaggerating on the last one there, but come on.
On top of this, they're not even going to move it to a Coast Guard base, they'll be renting a dockspace.
WHAT?!!?!!
Jeez, man. How exactly do they save time and money with this?
Well?
They don't. I do not know what the total cost of moving them to Newfoundland is, but according to Mr. Peter Stoffer (the NDP's critic on DFO) told me, it was considerable in the first place and will now cost 20x as much to do. I wonder how many years worth of fuel it'll be...
I'll start bugging the government for answers. I'd also like to know who owns the docks the government will be paying to use...long-time Conservative supporter?

It's purely political.
Money wasted + no practical advantage + big pain in the ***, for no good reason stated by the government; political.

Don't get me started on closing down Dartmouth Base, this really will go on forever. I'm tired and I'm going to go have tea.

[Dean Porter]

I had to have a say on this. Yes your right its purely political, but saying that if and when you need the engines fixed you would be sailing to Halifax...come on, how wrong can you be. Ships can be fixed in St. John's right now we have 16 coast guard ships based in Newfoundland, they don't sail to Halifax when they need the engines fixed or windows cleaned for that matter.

This is not new, a government wasting money and doing something that makes no sense, but don't make it seem like work that may need to be done on ships can only be done in Halifax.