MacCaulay
Banned
As most of you probably know, the Canadian Navy currently "operates" four diesel Victoria-class submarines. These were bought from Britain, but have had a lot of problems, all of which others could probably go into.
I'll just mention the poor case of Chicoutimi, which had a fire break out on board, injuring crewmembers from smoke inhalation. They're still trying to settle those medical cases in and out of court.
But what a lot of people don't realize is just how close the Canadian Navy came to acquiring nuclear submarines in the late-1980s/early-1990s.
In order to go about this, the Canadian government wrote out a Statement of Requirement, or SOR. This spelled out their willingness to seek out and purchase up to six nuclear submarines from either Britain or France.
The US denied the Royal Navy an export license to sell their Trafalgar-class nuclear boats because they'd co-developed the reactor with the British, and could stop any sail of the technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact.
When that happened, the Canadian government approached the French government about buying up to six Rubis-class subs, with the option open to build up to four new Rubis-class boats IN Canada.
The Government, now faced with just one class left, inexplicably rewrote it's SOR. And this left an openning for the diesel-boat crowd. They pushed for what they felt was a "safer" option, and they ended up winning. It was something that would not have seemed possibly in the mid-1980s.
So...here's the question: What if the Canadian government hadn't issued that second SOR? What if the Canadian Navy had actually acquired SSNs in the early 1990s?
I'll just mention the poor case of Chicoutimi, which had a fire break out on board, injuring crewmembers from smoke inhalation. They're still trying to settle those medical cases in and out of court.
But what a lot of people don't realize is just how close the Canadian Navy came to acquiring nuclear submarines in the late-1980s/early-1990s.
In order to go about this, the Canadian government wrote out a Statement of Requirement, or SOR. This spelled out their willingness to seek out and purchase up to six nuclear submarines from either Britain or France.
The US denied the Royal Navy an export license to sell their Trafalgar-class nuclear boats because they'd co-developed the reactor with the British, and could stop any sail of the technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact.
When that happened, the Canadian government approached the French government about buying up to six Rubis-class subs, with the option open to build up to four new Rubis-class boats IN Canada.
The Government, now faced with just one class left, inexplicably rewrote it's SOR. And this left an openning for the diesel-boat crowd. They pushed for what they felt was a "safer" option, and they ended up winning. It was something that would not have seemed possibly in the mid-1980s.
So...here's the question: What if the Canadian government hadn't issued that second SOR? What if the Canadian Navy had actually acquired SSNs in the early 1990s?