Navy to play larger role in the future
Posted By Ian Elliott, Sun Media
Posted 4 months ago
KINGSTON, Ont. — Canadian sovereignty and protection of trade routes are becoming two of the major issues of this century, and it will be the Canadian navy that will be charged with looking out for them.
“The 21st century will be shaped by ocean politics in a way that is profound,” observed naval Capt. Serge Bertrand, who was in Kingston yesterday to gauge the position of the navy in an largely army town as part of tour that is taking him across the country.
“People have this idea that the world’s oceans are a vast, empty space where not a lot happens, but in fact, when it comes to everything from fishing to trade routes, they are not just important but increasing in importance.”
Next year is the navy’s 100th anniversary as well as marking one of its biggest-ever domestic taskings when it will do the bulk of shoreline defence for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
It is also about to undergo a major refit and modernization of the fleet as well as facing a looming wave of retirements of baby boomers at a time when its tasks are becoming more numerous and more complicated.
dealing with everything from patrolling the rapidly-melting Arctic to intercepting pirates off the coast of Somalia.
The navy does it at a time when it is under the same stresses as other branches of the armed forces, chief among them a looming wave of retirements of baby boomers that intensifies the need to recruit a new generation of computer-savvy personnel to operate its complicated equipment.
“We are looking for geeks with attitude,” said Bertrand, who now works as a reservist after a career of better than 30 years in the regular force.
“Our warships are some of the most technically advanced machines on the planet, and we need those people that I call geeks with attitude to run them.”
Often overlooked in a largely army town like Kingston, the naval actually predates the city in the form of the old British naval yards around Fort Henry. The city also has a long shipbuilding history, and the Kingston shipyards produced a number of Canadian Navy vessels.
Nowadays, most of the local naval element is centred on HMCS Cataraqui, which will be contributing a number of reservists to the Olympic security operation, but Bertrand argues the navy has a wider effect on the lives of Canadians even if it is not as visible as some elements.
“We’re not patrolling off Somalia because piracy represents some sort of vague, existential threat to Canadian security,” he said.
“In fact, it represents a real and present threat to our way of life when you consider how many things we use in our daily lives that came to us at least in part by ship, and how many supply lines run through that part of the world.
“In today’s world, warehouses have been replaced by ships.”
The navy also provides troops on the ground in Afghanistan and indirect sea support — Canadian ships protect American aircraft carriers, from which half the combat missions to that country are launched.
Those rapidly-evolving missions have spurred the navy to modernize and rebuild its fleet and as a small navy, Canadians usually operate with allies in a multi-lateral environment, requiring a sharing of everything from resources to intelligence.
“The actions that we are required to undertake are becoming increasingly complicated and we need to be able to react to a broad range of threats, which results in our need for new ships,” said Bertrand.
“If all we worried about were pirate skiffs out at sea, well we wouldn’t need terribly complicated ships to do that.”
The operational tempo of the forces, Bertrand says, is a strength of the armed forces as well as one of its most potent recruiting tools.
“At its core, the Canadian Forces is not a think tank, it’s a do tank,” he said.
“If 5,000 people are needed in downtown Toronto tomorrow for an emergency, we’ll be the ones who will do that because we’re the only organization in the country that can do that.”
news.dailygraphic@shawcable.com
