How Canada might go about replacing its aging submarine fleet is an ongoing exercise, but the nuclear-powered option looks to be off-the-table. This much is not new; however, Canada was also just reminded of its exclusion from the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact between its close allies the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.
It may be a very long time before Canada makes a commitment for replacement submarines given that defence experts aren’t envisioning it being part of a new national defence policy to replace 2017’s Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE).
“It won’t be in the defence policy update,” James Fergusson, deputy director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, said in an interview.
He also questioned if Canada has the resource capacity to launch what would be another massive capital procurement project given the already announced upgrades to NORAD and purchase of new fighter jets.
While SSE was said to be fully costed, it did not contemplate NORAD modernization, which Stephen Saideman, director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network at Carleton University, called the “unwritten chapter of SSE.”
“I can almost guarantee you that the next unwritten chapter will be the submarines. I don’t think they’re going to want to tackle the submarines in this review because that would imply another $20[-billion to] $40-billion project,” he said during a Conference of Defence Associations Institute podcast published on June 8.
The Department of National Defence (DND) told The Epoch Times on June 13 that the Royal Canadian Navy is continuing work on the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project in which it conducts analyses of potential options to meet the navy’s requirements.
Fergusson noted improvements in battery technology and said that such subs produced by the Japanese and Germans can provide for longer periods under the ice.
The Americans are very protective about who is involved in nuclear subs, Fergusson added.
“If you’re not playing in that world, you don’t get the access to it.”
AUKUS Rebuke
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CTV on June 11 that AUKUS is not contemplating expansion to include Canada.
“There really aren’t discussions right now or plans to modify the AUKUS arrangement in the future,” Kirby said.
Around the time of AUKUS’s creation, in the fall of 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was excluded from the pact since it didn’t need nuclear subs.
Some national security and defence experts have bemoaned Canada’s ongoing exclusion from AUKUS. Fergusson says it should come as no surprise, given the lack of interest Ottawa shows in the Pacific region.
He also highlighted Canada’s exclusion from the Quad—an alliance between the United States, Australia, India, and Japan.
“We’re not in both [alliances] because we’re not really not committed to the Pacific in any significant way. We have a Pacific strategy, but it’s vacuous. It doesn’t really make us commit to anything,” Fergusson said.
The DND pointed to Canada’s long-standing membership in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes New Zealand along with the AUKUS countries, and the government’s new Indo-Pacific strategy.
“We are investing nearly $230 million to expand the capacity of our national security and law enforcement agencies to work closely with partners in the Indo-Pacific. Through the Indo-Pacific strategy, we are also investing approximately $500 million in four defence initiatives to boost our military presence in the region,” spokesperson Jessica Lamirande told The Epoch Times.
Fergusson characterizes Canada as not having any formal commitments in the Pacific and just having informal relationships.
Little Appetite for Nuclear
On a March 10 Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI) podcast, Timothy Choi, an expert on submarines and CGAI fellow, said that Canada has a longer history of working with nuclear fuels than Australia does but that he didn’t think Canadians are too keen on spending a lot of money on nuclear subs.
But Canada has to do something by the mid- to late 2030s to line up replacement subs, which will be running for 40 to 50 years thereafter and need an ability to operate in deeper ice to counter any Russian threat, Choi added.
“It’s very much a unicorn project that requires a unicorn solution in a project where nobody wants to have a unicorn solution,” Choi said. “It’s definitely a project that I think many politicians have considered a nice-to-have but not a priority, and [therefore], will be happy to get something ‘off the shelf.’”
A 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute research report cited factors like “domestic political blowback, lengthy intellectual property negotiations, production costs, and need for expansive support infrastructure” as likely preventing Canada from purchasing nuclear-powered subs.
