Liberal name change

The federal government has taken the liberty of changing the names of the new RCN Joint Support Ships (JSS) . Originally to be named the Queenston class the new ships will now be named the Protecteur class. Queenston will become Protecteur and Chateauguay will become Preserver continuing the names of the ships they will replace.


The original names were chosen by the previous Conservative government and reflected then Prime Minister Stephen Harper's preoccupation with the War of 1812-14. They commemorated two significant battles of the war, fought between "Canadians" (not yet a nation) and Americans. They hardly seemed to be diplomatically correct in terms of fostering good relations with our southern neighbours, so perhaps the change reflects the current government's fraught re-negotiations of NAFTA and that other issues between the two countries need to be worked out amicably.


In order to speed up delivery of the two ships, Seaspan Marine in Vancouver has told by the current government to delay construction of the new Polar class icebreaker which has been named John G. Diefenbaker. Do we see a pattern emerging here? Can we expect another renaming in the offing? Perhaps a Lester B. Pearson or even another well known former Liberal Prime Minister's name would be applied - would it be similar to the current Liberal Prime Minister's name? Would it be wise to make the change before the 2018 federal election, when the ship will not likely be delivered until 2021-well into a possible second mandate?
Oh horrors.


The new HMCS Protecteur will be the second ship of the name in the RCN, but HMCS Preserver will be the third. A pair of  World War II tankers were named Preserver and Provider and served as Fairmile depot ships until paid off at the end of the war and sold to South America. When Canada built its first post war supply ship, it was named Provider but a second ship of the class was never built.


The navy explains the new name change respects the previous ships and those who served on them. This is the same explanation that has been given in the past to cover a lack of imagination in ships naming, a change in naming policy or to overcome controversy  (CCGS Edward Cornwallis (ii) was not named for the man but for the previous ship of the same name according to a CCG official.)


Quite frankly if the RCN can't develop esprit de corps without reverting to nostalgia they need a wakeup call. When the name change is so overtly political do they think that matelots are too stupid to recognize it for what it is? And what message does it send to the forces - that they serve at the whim of political parties or that they serve all the people of Canada no matter their political affiliation?


I have a couple of suggestions for another name change for the JSS ships. They should be named Kitchener and Waterloo after two adjoining cities in southern Ontario.


Since the new ships will be built to the German Berlin class, we will be reminded that the City of Kitchener was named Berlin until 1916 when it was changed in view of the anti-German sentiment of the First World War. Many Canadians of German ancestry experienced discrimination solely because their names sound German.


We will also be reminded of the battle of Waterloo (in Belgium), wherein Prussian and British troops defeated Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815, resulting in his abdication as emperor of France. It was this war in Europe that distracted the British from the War of 1812-14 in North America, and largely left Canada on its own to defend itself. Napoleon met his Waterloo and we should all remember the necessity of overcoming the aspirations of all those who want to conquer the word.


So something to learn from the significance of the names of two ships other than how to score political points.

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Protecteur on the way

The decommissioned former HMCS Protecteur is underway from Esquimalt BC, bound for Liverpool, NS where it will be broken up by R.J.MacIsaac Construction Ltd. It suffered serious fire damage while returning from Hawaii February 27, 2014. It had been expected to pay off in 2017, but instead was decommissioned May 14, 2015.

Sailing from Halifax August 3, 1987, HMCS Protecteur was an impressive ship. It was transferred to the west coast in 1993.

The ship is not traveling under its own power but is in tow of the American tug Corbin Foss. The tug is no stranger to towing old warships. It was responsible for the successful tow of the former USN aircraft carrier Constellation from Bremerton WA to Brownsville TX just over a year ago.


The tug is giving an ETA of March 17 at Balboa, Panama. It is interesting to speculate on what will happen then. I would have thought that a tow from British Columbia to Nova Scotia would be considered a coastal tow, and require a Canadian tug. Maybe a stopover in Panama or a US port would break that chain, or maybe Corbin Foss will tow it all the way. Stay tuned on St.Patrick's Day.

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1973 time warp - Iroqouis, Athabaskan, Preserver - still with us.

Looking back through my records for December 1973, there are a lot of now dimly remembered or forgotten merchant ship names, none of which are still in service.

Such is not the case among naval vessels. Ships participating in Marcot, a three week naval exercise involving the RCN, RN and USN returned  to Halifax. HMCS Preserver, Annapolis (leader), Iroquios (leader) Assiniboine, Margaree, Nipigon, Qu'Appelle,  Okanagan, Onandaga, and Athabaskan arrived December 14, with Algonquin and Yukon to return December 17. HMS Ashanti did not come in to Halifax as far as I can tell. The USN participated with an Orion aircraft.
( I believe this was the first exercise for the new Tribals.)

I don't have photos from December 1973, but I have some that are relevant.

 1. July 1, 1980 saw Huron, Iroquois and Skeena dressed all over.

The Tribal class destroyers Iroquois and Athabaskan and the supply ship Preserver are still with us, and will be for some time to come as controversy still surrounds their replacements.

2. Protecteur and Preserver together at Imperial Oil while fueling in 1982.

Not surprisingly the Canadian Auditor General has now come out and stated that Canada will be paying a huge premium to build new supply ships in Canada. He faults the National Ship Replacement Strategy (NSPS) for the way it has picked two shipyards and other critics claim that Seaspan and Irving Shipbuilding have been given blank cheques to build ships without competitive pricing.

Our government knew that the political importance of building these ships in Canada would have a higher price tag. Not only that, they had to make up a huge deficit in Canadian shipbuilding capacity because previous governments failed to act on ship replacement, allowing the yards to die. Blaming the government for not knowing the size of that premium is a little self-serving in my opinion. Surely the AudG knows that there is no naval program anywhere in the world that is not plagued with overruns, delays and escalations. Name any country you like and naval shipbuilding is a controversial subject. The government needed to act, they chose a "no favouritism" method of selecting the builders and got the program moving, by first rebuilding the shipyards  The old method of calling for competitive pricing for a design package obviously did not work in the past -and would mean endless delays which would cost even more if allowed to continue.

The Auditor General would be well advised to comment and make recommendations on cost control measures to be put in place during the program, rather than carping about decisions that have already been made on a political basis. No sound business case could ever be made for building these ships in Canada - but the need to have a Canadian shipbuilding industry is a matter of sovereignty and patriotism. In an era of exporting technical and manufacturing jobs from Canada to the Third World, it makes political sense to create jobs in Canada. It also allows to keep a little corner on our needs without having to rely on other countries.

3. Pre-TRUMP Iroquois makes an early morning arrival in Halifax in 1980. The destroyers may be among the last ships to be replaced in the NSPS. They lost their distinctive canted funnels in that refit.

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