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The Resignation
14 April 1991 Sir:
I have, after careful consideration, concluded that I cannot support the policy paper which you currently have before government.
I must admit that I did not believe that another defence policy that proposes an unaffordable programme and promises capability which cannot be delivered would actually be proposed to government. . . .
I am also unable to accept a policy proposal which will minimize the capability and future development of the Maritime Forces by affirming that the centre of interest for these forces be in Canadian coastal waters (east and west). I would agree that the centre of day-to-day activity may be in Canadian coastal waters. That is why we must progress and build the MCDV vessels. However, inshore requirements alone cannot determine the kinds of ships and submarines required for the future. It is a fact that blue-water, mid-ocean, combat-capable warships, in combination with the MCDV, can do any work Canada needs done at sea.... Corvettes can’t. They have neither the reach nor the seakeeping. The Corvettes proposed are just a code for “spend less money.” Unfortunately, they are the wrong ships and they won’t be cheap.
In my judgment, the next most affordable and most widely employable naval surface ship is likely to be a variant of CPF-type vessels, for which design and infrastructure cost have already been paid.
Employability is important. Current events and Canadian interests as a maritime nation require that we be able to exercise influence on
events and participate in events requiring combat capable forces at sea, far beyond our coastal interests. The industrial factor is also important. Canada has invested a great deal of public money and created private sector expectation with the re-establishment of a capacity to design and build warships. Departmental priorities and the minimization of maritime defence, implicit in the policy and inevitable in face of funding allocations, will lead to the dwindling death of the defence industrial sector with promise of long term viability.
1 am disturbed that two years after the government said it wished to continue the essential rebuilding of the Canadian Navy, nothing has been started. We continue to delay the conventional submarine replace- ' ment programme. . . . The current submarine force is too old and we ask too much of our people. Thus, we are intending to surrender sovereignty over the water column, that is, over the undersea water space surrounding our country. And all of this is occurring without any public debate or political decision.
I disagree with the departmental priorities. I believe that this government and future governments will use our maritime forces in potential j combat environments far from Canada. I do not believe that land force combat units at the brigade group level will be similarly deployed. There is no stomach to see large numbers of young Canadians
86
Proceedings / March
doubled to $656 million (Canadian) and whose passage- denial role had become moot with the 1988 Arctic cooperation agreement.10 After the decision not to acquire nuclear submarines, then-Minister of Defence William McKnight admitted that Canada must rely on its allies to patrol the Arctic, an apparent retreat from claims of effective control of Canadian Arctic waters." The only residual of the 1980s Arctic defense initiatives has been the arming of the indigenous Inuit with World War I-vintage rifles and an 800 number, with orders not to shoot, but to call if they see a submarine. None have been sighted.12
Several transits by U.S. icebreakers have occurred since the Arctic cooperation agreement took effect, and each has been made with Canadian permission. Notably, the agreement applied only to icebreaker navigation and did not address the sore spot of submarine navigation through the Arctic archipelago. U.S. and British submarines routinely have operated under the Arctic ice cap since the
1987 Defense White Paper proposed that these forces would operate within a “three-ocean” maritime strategy, which would not only meet NATO commitments in the Atlantic and bilateral U.S.-Canadian commitments in the Pacific, but also give Canada a strong role in the maritime defense of Arctic North America.7
Less than two years later, these Arctic defense initiatives had lost steam. In January 1988, Canada and the United States papered over their differences with respect to icebreaker navigation. The resulting agreement required toe United States to ask permission for icebreakers to transit Canadian-claimed Arctic waters but allowed that ask- tog such permission in no way affected the U.S. contention that the waters were not internal to Canada.8
In the spring of 1989, Canada canceled its nuclear sub- toarine program to help reduce a rapidly growing budget deficit.9 The government also axed other Arctic programs, including the Polar 8 icebreaker—whose costs had almost
le on television. Indeed, having ad at our disposal an acceptably Quipped and highly professional r,gade group, Canada chose not to *t in the recent Gulf conflict, he logic of giving priority to the toaintenance and expensive reequip- h|ng of a replacement expeditionary 0rce brigade group so that Canada Can choose once again not to use it escapes me. . . . this priority invest- 1T|ent will obviate, in the fiscal cirCumstances, other more likely and in
my view more useful, courses of action. . . . The happy expectation of being able to achieve combat fighting capability in all three environments has masked any serious discussion of what form of Canadian Forces should exist and where the priorities should lie if the financial support from government won t afford a combat-capable Army, Navy, and Air Force. That lack of financial support is now real, yet there has been no meaningful defence option debate—merely an equivalent reduction of each component and a single solution submitted to government without public participation. This result may be bureaucratically tidy. It will not serve the country well.
. . . [AJnother unachievable defence policy will do irreparable harm to the Canadian Forces trust in their military leaders. In that regard, I owe a specific and particular obligation to the people of the maritime community. ... I have assured my people that I would speak and work for their requirements. I will not support proposals that will lead our sailors and maritime air people into danger and harm’s way without their having the tools to do the jobs that will be asked of them.
In sum, I find the policy proposal, its promises and priorities unacceptable for the following reasons:
>• It is unaffordable.
>■ It promises equipment programmes that cannot be delivered.
> It only addresses some of the politically contentious reductions in bases and infrastructure which are required to begin to divert spending to necessary military equipment.
- It will dilute and marginalize military capability and particularly maritime capability.
>• It puts existing shipbuilding programmes and the long promised reserve vessels (MCDV) at risk of not being completed.
- It therefore generates an absolute possibility of a complete breakdown of trust and morale within the naval reserve if the MCDVs are delayed or canceled.
- It makes continuation of a conventional S/M service most doubtful.
- It leads to a wrong and expensive choice of less capable surface ships.
- It will harm and diminish Canadian industry and waste public and private investments.
>■ It has not been publicly debated.
>• It is intended to reduce future defence expenditures and markedly reduces Regular Force military strengths yet achieves little in the way of new fighting equipment.
This is simply not good enough. With great regret, I am therefore quite deliberately submitting my resignation as a formal protest. I hope that there may be a public debate on the defence issue and about the kind of defence force this country will need. . . .
C. M. Thomas Vice Admiral
"ngs/ March 1992