Canada’s submarine fleet, made up of just four Victoria Class submarines, has become unreliable and expensive to maintain.
In April, the prime minister and defence minister announced an updated defence policy that offered few details on plans to replace these Victorias. This lack of detail is raising concerns within the Canadian Armed Forces and from Canada’s allies.
Marine activity levels and tensions are rising in the geopolitically important regions of the Arctic and the Asia-Pacific, but Canada is absent in key strategic conversations.
Built by the British Navy and commissioned in the early 1990s, Canada’s “gently used” fleet of four submarines was purchased, renamed and began sailing under the Canadian flag in 2003. None is currently at sea.
A typical “Rust Out Date” for submarines is approximately 30 years, meaning the end-of-life of Canada’s fleet is nearing. It has begun to show.
“In general, when those submarines are operating, they’re exceptional,” says Richard Shimooka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. “But,” he added, “they have had a fair number of reliability issues, especially as they get older.”
The Canadian Armed Forces have a history of finding ways to extend the projected useful life of older equipment, be it helicopters, fighter jets or navy vessels. In 2015, the Forces announced a life extension program for the Victorias.
But submarines are subject to unique limitations.
“You can take an old warship and keep running her for longer through life extensions. You can keep replacing steel members and the like to ensure they’re seaworthy,” said Shimooka. “Submarines have a harder limit. Going underwater is a more challenging activity.
“There’s a limit to how long we can continue to use this class safely. You now have a date, let’s say 2035, where you have to work backwards from to replace this vessel,” he said. “2035 is ten years from now, and acquiring a class of warships is a long, hard process.”
In 2019, the Royal Canadian Navy began a process to study acquiring replacements. But five years later, few details are available.
‘A maritime nation’
Rear Admiral (Ret.) Luc Cassivi spent 39 years in uniform with the Royal Canadian Navy, 20 of which were at sea commanding three of the Victorias.
Asked what a prolonged absence of submarine capabilities would mean for Canada’s security, he says, “Canada would be vulnerable. We wouldn’t be able to maintain adequate control of our maritime space.”
“Canada is a maritime nation. The area we need to patrol, control and have eyes on is as large as 70 per cent of Canada’s land mass and includes three oceans, so it’s huge.”
“We need the capability to do so not just on the surface, but underwater. If you don’t know what’s happening underwater, you don’t know what’s happening in your waters.”
Of increasing importance in Canadian waters is the changing Arctic.
Countries viewed as aggressive by NATO allies — particularly Russia and China — have been open about their desire to expand their presence and influence in the North as sea ice melts, opening the region to more resource development, shipping and military significance.
Cassivi says “the Arctic is changing. It’s getting busier, and it’s going to get busier over the next decades … If it’s not a consideration now then we’re not doing our due diligence and our duty to Canadians.”
The Government of Canada acknowledges as much.
“The most urgent and important task we face is asserting Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic and northern regions, where the changing physical and geopolitical landscapes have created new threats and vulnerabilities,” it said in the defence policy update it released in April.
‘Isn’t that telling?’
Similarly, the strategic importance and volatility of the Indo-Pacific region is increasing.
Last year, Australia, the UK and US — Canada’s allies in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — announced the AUKUS partnership to work toward delivering new, technologically advanced nuclear submarines to Australia’s defence forces.
Canada is not a participant in the partnership, making it the only Five Eyes ally left out apart from New Zealand, which does not have a submarine fleet.
Japan is now being considered as a new partner in a pillar of AUKUS.
“Recognizing Japan’s strengths and its close bilateral defense partnerships with all three countries, we are considering cooperation with Japan on AUKUS Pillar II advanced capability projects,” read a joint statement from the three members in April.
Many believe Canada has been left out of the AUKUS group as a result of long-term and sustained military underspending.
Shimooka’s personal view is that “there are a lot of good indications to say that we’ve just been deliberately excluded because we’re not seen as being serious about our defence … You already have a framework (Five Eyes) for it, but you have to create a whole new framework … Isn’t that telling?”
Asked about the status and future of the Victorias, Cheryl Forrest in media relations for National Defence confirmed in an emailed statement that in 2022 the service support contract for the Victorias was extended to June 2027.
“The Government of Canada is considering options for follow-on sustainment arrangements that will … keep the current fleet of Victoria-class submarines operational so as to avoid a capability gap,” she said.
Elsewhere, the Forces have said they “commit to vastly improving the Canadian Armed Forces’ ability to surveil and control our underwater and maritime approaches.”
But details on new submarines remain outstanding. The Forces have only said they “will explore options for renewing and expanding our submarine fleet to enable the Royal Canadian Navy to project a persistent deterrent on all three coasts, with under-ice capable, conventionally powered submarines.”
Vulnerability gaps
The submarine replacement program is expected to be the second largest procurement expenditure in Canadian history, second only to the National Shipbuilding Strategy. That strategy is worth $80 billion and currently being executed in major shipyards in Halifax (Irving Shipbuilding), Levis, Que. (Davie Shipyards) and Vancouver (Seaspan).
The submarine program is larger even than the purchase of 88 new F-35 fighter planes, which was estimated at $19 billion when announced in 2023 but is now projected to cost $74 billion.
Cassivi believes that the fleet should be doubled in size to consist of eight vessels — four based on the Atlantic and four on the Pacific.
And despite challenges, he is optimistic.
“I believe there is a commitment to replace the capability.
“A lot of the work has already been done by the Navy … They don’t want a gap in that capability, for obvious reasons.”
Ottawa has signalled it agrees, noting that we are living in a maritime environment “at a time when Russian submarines are probing widely across the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans and China is rapidly expanding its underwater fleet.”
To avoid vulnerability gaps, Shimooka suggests that government move with some urgency. “The decision point for this program is probably within the next four years, maybe three.”
A lot of work remains outstanding before an informed decision can be made.
