HMCS Charlottetown heads out the harbour as the Halifax-class frigate is deployed to Libya, in Halifax on Wednesday, March 2, 2011.(Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Posted on 03/06/2011 7:56:33 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Ottawa won't be working with U.K. on building warships
The Canadian Press
Updated: Sun. Mar. 6 2011 6:33 PM ET
OTTAWA — The Conservative government is slamming the door shut on a British proposal that wants the two countries to work together in building new warships.
"Canada will not be pursuing collaboration with the United Kingdom on our new surface combatant fleet," Jay Paxton, a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, said Sunday.
Paxton was reacting to comments made by London's top diplomat in Ottawa, who told The Canadian Press that Canada and Britain could make better use of scarce public dollars by collaborating on new warships.
British High Commissioner Andrew Pocock said that with the economic crisis exerting pressure on defence spending everywhere, it makes sense for Ottawa and London to be discussing ways to co-operate on replacing aging frigates in their respective navies.
"We live in a much more financially constrained world. Every government faces a challenge in making its defence and other spending go as far as possible," Pocock said in an interview.
"One of the ways to produce something that is greater than the sum of its parts is through genuine partnerships and collaboration." Pocock said it was too early to discuss specifics of any collaboration, but the possibility of a joint frigate program is sending nervous ripples through Canada's struggling shipbuilding industry.
Last month, Britain's parliamentary secretary for defence, Gerald Howarth, told his House of Commons he was delighted that a "close discussion with the Canadians" was underway over the so-called Global Combat Ship program.
The Conservative government in Ottawa has played down the significance of that statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at ctv.ca ...
HMCS Charlottetown heads out the harbour as the Halifax-class frigate is deployed to Libya, in Halifax on Wednesday, March 2, 2011.(Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
That is one really ugly boat.
ditto that
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