Well it’s more than that. For us submarines really aren’t about combat vessels as much as they are about surveillance platforms.
We have a hell of a lot of ocean that touches our country. Proper surveillance is absolutely critical. Not just of military threats but also criminal and other activity. You can do a certain amount with planes but they can’t sit around and later forever watching a vessel and if they do the vessel knows they’re being watched. Same as surface vessels.
So even if the Americans were still at work allies we would still need to have a submarine fleet that was large enough to reasonably patrol and monitor the absolutely vast amount of ocean we have to deal with. I don’t think that any other country in the world has as much ocean directly touching them was Canada does, so of course we kind of need Subs
Because the US is no longer a reliable partner?
Never were. Why are we buying jets? Because the US wouldn’t let us have our own. You can apply the same to subs.
Well it’s more than that. For us submarines really aren’t about combat vessels as much as they are about surveillance platforms.
We have a hell of a lot of ocean that touches our country. Proper surveillance is absolutely critical. Not just of military threats but also criminal and other activity. You can do a certain amount with planes but they can’t sit around and later forever watching a vessel and if they do the vessel knows they’re being watched. Same as surface vessels.
So even if the Americans were still at work allies we would still need to have a submarine fleet that was large enough to reasonably patrol and monitor the absolutely vast amount of ocean we have to deal with. I don’t think that any other country in the world has as much ocean directly touching them was Canada does, so of course we kind of need Subs
To add to this, our existing fleet is toast. Out of the 4 subs we own, only one is currently operational.
And “operational” is still a bit of a stretch in terms of it’s functional capabilities.