Royal Canadian Navy drowns in morass of bureaucratic inertia - zero ships delivered after 13 years

If you follow the comings and goings of our utterly inept and incompetent political class, you’ll be well acquainted with our brand-spankin’ new fleet of warships that have been “in the pipeline” for quite some time now… oh wait… doesn’t seem to be any sign of those ships. In fact, other than Irving wangling another half billion out of the feds recently for “shipyard improvements,” we don’t hear much about the pipeline, let alone the ships. Here’s a story from the archives. Saturday, October 29, 2011 Canada commits 25 billion for new combat ships Minister of National Deference Peter MacKay announced last week that the Irving shipyard in Halifax would be contracted to build the next generation of warships for Canada’s navy. As Minister of Deference Mr. Mackay sees his job as being mainly about deferring to the big dogs in Brussels and Washington, and no doubt the big dogs will be pleased with this announcement. After all, it seals our commitment to being able to punch above our weight etc. whenever some dictator in some shithole foreign country who we’ve supported for forty years gets too big for his britches. And you know how we Canadians like to punch above our weight. It’s almost an obsession. But politics aside, it’s good news for the lads in the shipyard. I worked on the last generation of warships, at the Irving shipyard in Saint John, and I have to say it’s a good gig, in spite of my pacifist leanings. It’s good news for the Irvings too. As big-time capitalists go the Irvings are pretty cool. James Irving was the big gun at the Saint John yard back in the day. Used to come in unannounced at the oddest of hours just to see how things were going. One night he shows up on our late shift. One of the boys who’d had a few was a bit irate over having had to install the same set of bulkhead doors three times because the specs kept changing. Got right in Irving’s face and gave him a whiskey laced piece of his mind. I thought, well, Buddy’s toast. Not so. James Irving was able to overlook the booze-breath because Buddy had some serious concerns about efficiency. That made him Irving’s kind of guy. If I was just a bit younger I’d be tempted to head east again.