Federal government to negotiate deal for new icebreakers as fleet nears end-of-life
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that Davie was being formally tapped to build seven icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard.
The federal government doesn’t know when replacements for Canada’s aging icebreakers will start to arrive, as officials say the schedule will ultimately depend on a fresh set of negotiations with Quebec shipyard Chantier Davie.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that Davie was being formally tapped to build seven icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard in the coming years at an estimated cost of $8.5 billion.
Yet despite long-standing concerns about the Coast Guard’s existing icebreakers and calls for urgency to ensure replacements arrive in time, the announcement was devoid of any specific timelines.
In response to questions from The Canadian Press, Procurement Department spokeswoman Michele LaRose said new negotiations have been launched to hammer out contracts for each of the seven vessels.
Among the issues under discussion: When Davie will actually deliver the vessels.
“Negotiations have begun with Chantier Davie on contracts to support the construction of six program icebreakers and one polar icebreaker for the Canadian Coast Guard,” LaRose said in an email.
“With respect to timelines and costs, the exact build schedule and cost will be negotiated and finalized during the individual contract negotiations.”
LaRose did not indicate when the government hopes to have those contracts finished.
Last week’s announcement followed three years of negotiations over what investments Davie would be required to make as a condition of getting the icebreaker work.
Officials had originally hoped to conclude those talks by the end of 2020, and opened the door at one point to abandoning the discussions with Davie and looking at other options.
The lack of timelines did not sit well with University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert, an expert on the Arctic and Coast Guard, who said building new icebreakers is time consuming even without the added complication of negotiations.
The auditor general concluded there was little room for delay if Ottawa wanted to maintain its current icebreaking capabilities, which are critical for keeping Canada’s waterways open to trade and resupplying northern communities.
Davie, which is owned by a company based in Monaco, also has a mixed record when it comes to making good on the federal contracts it has won in recent years, including the three second-hand icebreakers.
Originally ordered in August 2018, the last of the three Norwegian-built icebreakers was only delivered by Davie late last year. By that point, the cost to Canadian taxpayers had soared from $610 million to nearly $1 billion.
