The Canadian government is requesting proposals from foreign defense contractors to determine how much it can afford to expand the size of its aging conventionally-powered submarine fleet.
Canada first mentioned the possibility of seeking military off-the-shelf submarines and maintenance capabilities from defense contractors last spring in strategy paper “Our North: Strong and Free.” Now, Ottawa is looking for who might be able to provide submarines and maintenance by 2035 at the latest.
At the 75th anniversary meeting of NATO leaders this summer, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Defense Minister Bill Blair said buying the submarines was a matter of when not if. The two also met on the sidelines before and during the summit in Washington with their counterparts from Norway and Germany to discuss a trilateral agreement on strategy and operations in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
Philippe Lagasse, who specializes in defense policy and procurement at Ottawa’s Carleton College, believes the submarine request “was written to cast a wide net” among shipbuilders. He added that in its wording Canada appears open to various weapons systems to be placed on the subs it will order.
Looking at a future submarine fleet, the information request requires the boats be able to operate under ice. Ottawa is also being cost-conscious in wanting to know what the price per boat would be if it bought 12 or sliced the order to eight.
“Fewer than [eight] and the viability of the project would be called into question,” Lagasse said.
The Trudeau government further hedged its commitment to go forward by saying Ottawa wasn’t under “any obligation [or] commitment on the part of Canada to issue a Request for Proposal” to nail down work orders to build and deliver the submarines.
Ottawa has already embarked on an ambitious replacement program for its 15 Halifax-class frigates for the Royal Canadian Navy. Canadian news outlets report the project is moving ahead although final details on costs and design have not been nailed down. Parliamentary budget officials estimate the cost at $84 billion Canadian, up from $26 billion when originally proposed.
Despite the rising frigate costs, Lagasse does not think the two programs will be in competition with each other in parliament.
Nov. 18 is the deadline for the builders to answer the request for information to replace the four Victoria-class submarines. The yards are also supposed to have one-on-one meetings with Canadian defense officials to go over the submissions.
The long-range patrol submarines in the Victoria class began entering the Royal Canadian Navy in the early 2000s.
Hanging over the project is the prospect of a change in governments within a year.
Canada must hold a federal election on or before Oct. 25, 2025, that could unseat the Trudeau government and re-direct national security priorities and spending.
Canada’s Russian Concerns
The “two Arctics” divide – between Russia and the NATO alliance – became even more publicly pronounced with Canada’s request to bolster its submarine fleet.
The idea of two Artics as from a security perspective pre-dates the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, said Adam Lejeunesse, who has written extensively on High North policy and operations and teaches at Nova Scotia’s St. Francis Xavier University.
Moscow’s actions have caused a shift in thinking about the security stability globally and Russia’s ambitions, said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Polar Institute. She included assassinations, cyber-attacks, attacks on undersea infrastructure and interference in elections in the “lawless set of actions,” as well as waging war in Georgia and interfering in Syria’s civil war where Russia has long maintained a naval base on the Mediterranean.
“That pattern of increasingly problematic Russian behavior is a major driver in the backdrop of Arctic security tensions because Russia is the largest state in the Arctic” with core security and economic interests there, Pincus said.
The Kola Peninsula is home to Russia’s second-strike nuclear capability – ballistic missile submarines and long-range bombers. The Kremlin sees the development along the Northern Sea Route between Asia and Europe as vital to future economic security in its exporting of petroleum and natural gas.
The complex and deepening relationship between Moscow and Beijing has added another dimension to Canada’s, the United States’ and NATO’s concerns over what that means in the long term.
“I think there you have a recipe for very significant security interest in the Arctic region on the part of NATO and a deepening of tensions,” Pincus said.
Russia and China have had an active summer in the Arctic, off of the U.S., said Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, deputy commandant for Coast Guard operations, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Friday.
Most recently, the Chinese Coast Guard sailed for the first time in a joint patrol with the Russian Border Guard in the Bering Sea. The implications of that joint patrol were on the mind of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown ahead of the most recent meeting of the NATO Arctic defense chiefs in Keflavik, Iceland.
Canada is not the only NATO ally announcing it will be investing in submarines, possibly for Arctic duty. Portugal also is in the market to buy two for its fleet. Although located nowhere near the Arctic, Lisbon, this summer, reported one of its Trident-class submarines operated under the ice as part of Operation Brilliant Shield.
‘‘Arpão is equipped with advanced sonar and communications systems, in order to carry out vigilance, patrol and reconnaissance missions. During this mission, Arpão was tasked with monitoring non-NATO military platforms, both surface and submarines, known to operate in this region,” according to a NATO news release said.
Although security concerns have risen in the Arctic, Pincus thought it highly unlikely Russia would deliberately provoke a conflict with NATO there.
She added, however, “too often, the Arctic is treated within a silo, and it’s not fully acknowledged that it’s part of a global chessboard. And so much of what’s happening is being driven by geopolitical events that are happening elsewhere,” like the Indo-Pacific.
