Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, announced in 2010 and renamed in 2015, has been criticized at length, for well grounded reasons. The River class destroyer, formerly known as the Canadian Surface Combatant, was once promised for the 2020s and is now expected to arrive in the 2030s. The two Protecteur class Joint Support Ships, originally targeted for the early 2020s, are now expected in 2027 and 2028. Work on a polar-class icebreaker will not start before the end of the decade. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has tracked the cost growth, and journalists have covered the delays.

What is missing from this commentary is the comparative perspective. Australia announced its Naval Shipbuilding Plan in 2017. Britain announced its National Shipbuilding Strategy the same year. All three countries faced a similar problem with their large naval ships, defined as 1,000 tons or heavier: rising costs, slipping schedules, and a backlog of multiple fleets needing replacement over the subsequent decades. Comparing their responses reveals that much of what Canada is doing makes sense. It also reveals where critical problems remain, threatening to leave the Royal Canadian Navy without the warships it needs.

Why all three countries build at home

The starting point is sovereignty, or at minimum self-sufficiency. Canada has built its warships at home since the Second World War, codified in a 2001 build-in-Canada policy decision and reaffirmed by the Harper government in 2007. Australia’s 1976 Defence White Paper articulated a doctrine of self-reliance, and the 2017 shipbuilding plan was explicit about generating a sovereign Australian shipbuilding capability. Britain’s 2005 defence industrial strategy committed the country to retaining a sovereign warship-building industry, and the 2015 independent shipbuilding report argued that all Royal Navy warships should be built in the UK for national security reasons.

The three countries diverge on auxiliary vessels. Britain had its Tide-class tankers built in South Korea, and Australia procured its amphibious assault ships and Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment vessels from Spain. Canada builds everything at home, supply ships included. The Conference Board estimates that work at the Irving yard in Halifax under the NSS added nearly $12 billion to Canadian GDP between 2013 and 2025 and sustained over 9,000 jobs.

The build-at-home premium is real but smaller than commonly assumed. A 2008 internal audit at the Department of National Defence found that........

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