Yesterday Mark Carney visited a South Korean shipyard as part of a plan to spend $100 billion on attack submarines. The prime minister is pursuing one of Canada’s largest ever discretionary purchases as he prepares an austerity budget for the working class.
In an unprecedented level of direct prime ministerial involvement in military procurement, Carney has visited the shipyard of the two firms competing to supply Canada’s military with up to a dozen submarines. Yesterday the PM toured the Hanwha Ocean facility in South Korea while in August he visited the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems shipyard in Germany. At a geopolitical level purchasing from South Korea is viewed as deepening an anti-China alliance while purchasing from Germany would bolster an anti-Russia partnership.
The Liberals are seeking to procure offensive oriented submarines. Expected to integrate with US weapons systems, the submarines will be able to launch ballistic missiles. Submarines excel at blowing up ships or merchant vessels. They can also be used effectively to impose a blockade.
In truth, submarines are a military luxury and it’s unnecessary to spend $100 billion on purchasing a dozen of them. Three quarters of the world’s countries don’t have submarines, and Canada currently has only one operational submarine (three other Victoria-class submarines are inoperable).
Manufacturing submarines consumes significant energy and produces many waste products.
Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) guidelines also permit submarines to dump waste into the sea and these vessels are known to regularly kill sea life.
Purchasing submarines would strengthen maybe the most male-dominated domain of a patriarchal institution. It wasn’t until 2000 that the submarine service was opened to women and the first female submariner started in 2003. There have only ever been three dozen female submariners in the RCN.
And what use would these subs be in defending Canada against the only country that threatens to make us their 51 state?
As an inherently covert domain, submarines undercut democracy, which requires transparency and public oversight. A lack of Canadian military transparency is often part of deepening ties to their US counterparts.
In Saturday’s Globe and Mail Carleton University professor Stephen Saideman pointed out that “The civilians are looking at distancing us from the United States, and the military wants to keep their eyes closed, their ears shut, and hope that everything turns out okay.”
Saideman is co-author of a new book that looks at the “effectiveness of democratic control of the military in 15 countries”, reported the Globe. “Canada is among the worst, meaning the military often charts its own path without elected officials having much knowledge or control.”
Submarines participated in the most egregious example of the Canadian military subverting democracy to assist the US empire. Without political consent, two Canadian submarines and a dozen other vessels participated in the 1962 US blockade of Cuba. According to Lieutenant Bruce Fenton, the RCN “assumed responsibility for surveillance of Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic while the United States Navy was engaged in operations around Cuba.” Incredibly, the mission didn’t have official political support.
The commander in Halifax (Flag Officer Atlantic Coast) Kenneth Lloyd Dyer quietly deployed his forces and simply said the operation was part of fleet exercises with the US Navy. Military historian Jack Granatstein labeled Dyer’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis the “the single greatest breach of proper civil-military relations in Canadian history.”
Do we really need a repeat or worse?
Canada shouldn’t spend $100 billion dollars to better assist the US empire and acquiesce to Donald Trump’s military spending demands.
As part of my bid to lead the NDP I’ll be doing a 10-city eastern Canada tour beginning Tuesday in Halifax. Details here.
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