“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” — former United States admiral David Farragut

At the risk of misrepresenting this great quote, the developments related to the governments’ plan to replace the four aging

Victoria-class submarines that have served Canada since the late 1990s have been bandied about for several weeks and need a reset.

The submarine program has become an icon for both the compelling need to

modernize the long-suffering Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and for the government to demonstrate long-overdue changes to its procurement processes.

In essence, the government has grabbed onto the requirement to purchase up to 12 modern conventionally powered submarines as a means to demonstrate to our allies and Canadians alike that things have changed and that the Mark Carney government is taking the rebuilding of the CAF seriously.

I applaud the prime minister’s personal leadership on the defence file , and I am impressed to see him actively engaged in visits to both the

German and Korean shipyards . I want to believe his personal leadership is also responsible for the recent decision to

refine the selection process down to two potential suppliers

. In the past, such a process would have taken years, and this government has moved with unprecedented alacrity and commitment to change how business is being done.

Beyond this obvious change in behaviour is also the stated intent to realign our domestic industrial capacities and opportunities. In aggregate, these changes reflect a sophisticated approach to

defence spending that has been sorely lacking for decades. This, however, is hard work, and the results will not necessarily be immediate or obvious.

As it specifically relates to the submarine project, the government has essentially decided that Canada will either purchase a Korean or a German submarine. Although there are some notable technical differences between the two, they are in essence similar offerings.

Imagine comparing the relative merits of a Kia Sportage to a Volkswagen Tiguan. Both are modern, capable and arguably indistinguishable compact SUVs that offer great performance, reliability and value to consumers.

Imagine further that the decision to purchase one over the other was tied not just to the individual features of the vehicles or their purchase price, but factor in the

potential economic benefits of a decades-long partnership with the manufacturer and parent country. In simple terms, that is where we find ourselves here.

The two suppliers have now been fully briefed on Canada’s expectations and they have been invited to provide detailed proposals in the coming few months. Given the similarity of their offerings and the explicit statement by the Royal Canadian Navy and government that “they both meet the requirements,” the decision will come down to cost, scheduling and overall value for Canada.

Although I am fully supportive of the actions to date, there are some concerns about how this program is playing out in the public domain. In particular, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the apparent obsession with scheduling and some of the language related to potential economic benefits to Canada since both of these factors are being abused or weaponized.

First of all, although I generally support the urgency of the timelines being applied to this project, we need to be careful to not overplay this consideration. I have seen these kinds of strategies before and they tend to skew behaviour and constrain thinking. Scheduling is important, but it is not absolute.

Over the past decade or so, Canada has gone upwards of 1,000 days without an operational submarine. This is as much an admission of past failure as it is a caution. As we characterize a crisis of scheduling, it needs to be put in the right context.

Additionally, given the relatively small number of submariners in the fleet and the limited capacity to train more crew, the idea of having brand-new submarines sitting dockside without qualified crews is potentially foolish. I do not suggest for a moment that we should ignore the urgency of the problem, but we should be careful to not blindly pursue one criterion at the expense of others.

Secondly, I am increasingly concerned about how the phrase “

built in Canada ” is being used without proper context or nuance to either propose or refute any particular approach.

For example, recent comments by ministers and senior government officials that submarines “will not be built in Canada” are as concerning to some as they are potentially intuitive to others. We need to make an important distinction between verbs such as produce, manufacture, fabricate, assemble and build. They all add value, and making an overt or arbitrary distinction without considering how and where value can be added in a complex process such as building a submarine is extremely unhelpful.

Individual parts, components and assemblies are manufactured in a variety of locations and assembled in a final location. This is normal and no different for cars, aircraft, ships or submarines. Yes, there are economies to vertical integration, but that is rare.

The economic value for Canada in the context of 12 new submarines should therefore not explicitly prohibit the production, manufacturing or even partial assembly of built-to-print components or assemblies, especially if we have ambitions to sustain the submarines over their entire lives.

We are facing a series of unprecedented, overlapping and interconnected challenges and opportunities as a country. We cannot afford self-goals, unforced errors or shooting ourselves in the foot. I would like to think that with all the ongoing efforts to leverage the massive potential of increased defence spending, we would not knowingly, or inadvertently, restrict our options simply because we have either subscribed to a self-generated crisis or because we don’t understand the meaning of our own words.

  • Mark Norman: $80 billion in new defence spending is laudable, but the devil’s in the execution
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Mark Norman is a retired vice-admiral who commanded Canada’s Navy and was vice-chief of Defence. He advises several Canadian defence companies.