Is it pro-working class to subsidize billionaires? Do workers benefit from naval belligerence?
NDP leadership candidate Rob Ashton supports giving huge subsidies to the most controversial capitalists in the Maritimes so the navy can fire long range missiles in US-led wars.
On X and at an NDP debate in Toronto Saturday Ashton celebrated the Stephen Harper government subsidizing the Irving shipyard. On X he wrote, “Over the past decade, Irving has grown from hundreds of workers to well over 2,000 good, family-supporting jobs today… building Canada’s next generation of navy ships.” At the debate he praised the then provincial NDP government for promoting a 2011 initiative between Unifor, Irving and the federal government to invest in good jobs.
In 2011 the Conservatives announced a $33 billion 30-year naval contract with Irving and Seaspan shipyards. It was a showpiece of Harper’s government.
In the debate Ashton praised the initiative noting the government put a “little” public money into the navy procurement.
Huh? What?
The initially announced outlay of $33 billion was huge and the Surface Combatant procurement at its core is one of the biggest corporate giveaways in Canadian history. In “Secrecy over troubled Canadian Surface Combatant program continues” Ottawa Citizen military reporter David Pugliese noted in May, “Critics have labelled the Canadian Surface Combatant project, the largest single purchase in Canadian history, as a bottomless money pit with little accountability or oversight. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has reported the CSC will cost more than $80 billion to build 15 of the warships.” The full lifecycle cost of the vessels will likely reach a quarter trillion dollars.
While the number of unionized jobs at the Halifax shipyard has undoubtedly grown, shipbuilding is capital, not labour, intensive. Many times more jobs would be created for each dollar invested in daycare or education. The main beneficiary of the public funds are the Irvings who are worth around $15 billion. No Canadian capitalists have a greater stranglehold over a region, particularly in New Brunswick, then the Irvings in the Maritimes.
The planned 15 surface combatants will be kitted out with a mixture of offensive and defensive weapons, “in a mix never seen before in any surface combatant.” The 7,800-metric-ton vessels have space for a helicopter and remotely piloted systems. The frigates have electronic warfare capabilities, torpedo tubes, and various high-powered guns. They will also possess Naval Strike Missile harpoons that can fire missiles 185 kilometers. Most controversially, the surface combatants look set to be equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of striking land targets up to 1,700 kilometers away. US-based Raytheon has only ever exported these Tomahawk missiles to the UK and if the Royal Canadian Navy acquires them it would be the only navy besides the US to deploy the missiles on surface vessels.
The vessels have little to do with defence. They probably couldn’t be used to defend against any possible Donald Trump annexation threat, since according to a February Ottawa Citizen headline, “U.S. controls key equipment on new warships, putting Canada in a potential ‘hostage’ situation over military procurement”.
In fact, the Irving shipyard is building combatants designed to accompany US naval patrols across the globe. From the Caribbean to the South China Sea, the Canadian navy supports US naval power projection. The Royal Canadian Navy assisted the war on Libya in 2011, US blockade of Iraq before its illegal 2003 invasion and repeated strikes on the West Asian country in the late 1990s.
Rob Ashton’s support for building naval vessels to intimidate the world should be debated in the NDP leadership race. Instead, the party has sought to marginalize anti-militarism and internationalism from the race. Shame.
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