"Canadian Submarines" | What are we missing?

[00:00:13] Speaker A: Well, like it or not, submarines are a fact of life in a modern military. And as the Canadian armed forces and the Canadian government continues to expand the military and try to reach the all elusive 2% of their GDP goal, buying submarines is the key to everything. Thrilled to be joined by Paul to talk more about it. And Paul, this is something that's responsible. Received a lot of attention in Parliament Hill, in the military and for average Canadians from coast to coast. [00:00:37] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's a big expenditure, Jim, you know, and he's, he's actually trying to hit that magic number as you said. And he's gone to NATO and he's even said as much as 5%. Right. So which, you know we had that podcast with the Frazier Institute. Yes. Which was a, which was a great thing, discussion about the military and this 5% goal. But it's not, it's a non binding commitment. So you know, he's talking about doing it. Submarines we've needed for a while and you know, give us some stats on submarines for a minute. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Well, so Canada has never had new submarines, if you can believe it. In 1965 the country bought three U submarines from England. The Oberon class which served for years. And then the late 1990s under the Christian government Art Eggleton, the then Minister of national fence, bought 4 use Victoria class diesel electric submarines from England. At the time the Royal Navy went to all nuclear powered ships. It's been an expensive long process for the Canadian Navy with these submarines. When they're in the water and they're operating, they do quite well. But the maintenance time and the money and the expenditure is huge. And right now they're looking at a massive expenditure. The biggest, most ambitious thing the Canadian Navy's ever done to buy 12 State of the art air independent propulsion diesel electric submarines that would completely change the military navy. And with this purchase they would have no Trouble reading the 2% goal poll. Two. [00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, 2%. Because it's roughly 60 billion bucks, right? [00:02:13] Speaker A: It is. So probably expect a little bit more as well. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's 60 billion. But you know the question we talked about before and it keeps coming to my mind, should they all be electric, diesel or should they? You know, and that is the big question for me. You know, we're a nuclear force. We're six in the world in nuclear production. We have 19 reactors. You know, we're the Candu reactor country, which is magnificent for us. Ontario just doubled down and you know, came up with the small reactor program. You know, is there a hybrid mix we should be looking at. So is there, you know, and maybe for the group. Jim, let's talk a little bit about what's the pros and cons of nuclear versus diesel. Diesel. [00:02:59] Speaker A: I mean, with the nuclear power submarine, once it's in the water, the only time you need to go back to port is for food, right? The, the fuel cell will last 25, 30 years and never have to do anything. And that's the beauty about it. It powers the submarine, it desalinizes the water, it runs everything and it keeps you moving. And the best thing about it is you can go submerged for weeks on end. Once you drop down, you never have to hit the surface ever again for weeks on end. The only problem is with the submarine and even the most sophisticated US submarines know this, that after a couple months. [00:03:38] Speaker B: You'Ve run out of food. [00:03:39] Speaker A: So you have to go back to a port, a friendly port, and restock your foodstuffs. But other than that, there's not much not to like about nuclear powered submarines. The big question for a lot of critics is if something happens and you have a nuclear reactor dropping down to the surface of the ocean, which is an environmental disaster, the diesel electrics, they have to surface every few weeks to get fresh air. That's just part of the technology though. There's pros and cons to both of them. But it's, it's a cost thing, right? For most navies don't have in most governments don't have the wherewithal to build nuclear powered submarines. There's only a few countries in the world that have them because they're so cost prohibitive. Paul, unfortunately, and Canada has never had nuclear powered submarines. They tried in the late 1980s when Param Beatty was a minister of national defense and they wrote a white, white paper saying that this was the future of Canada's sovereignty, especially in the Arctic. It met overwhelming criticism from the media, from the public, from the press, from the other opposition leaders. So it's been a non starter ever since. So if you asked all the leaders of the Canadian Navy in confidence, what would they like? They'd like half these electric, half nuclear, without question. But it's never going to happen, unfortunately, in this country, Right? [00:04:54] Speaker B: No, no, I get it. I, you know my mind, of course I understand the cost, right? So I understand you have to build new ports, new dry docks, you have nuclear waste, you have all that stuff you have to deal with. But again, you know, we, we committed to nuclear a long time ago. I think we're six in the world. I was Actually, before we, we sat down, I was surfing around, you know, I was shocked. You know, we have 19 nuclear reactors, right? So we're number six. So there's the US, China, France, Russia, South Korea ahead of us in the nuclear reactor, space and production generation. We're number six in generation. So we do and which makes up about 13.4% of our energy, which I was like, oh wow, that's, that's bigger than I thought. [00:05:45] Speaker A: So, and I think that number is just going to climb, Paul, because as you mentioned, Ontario, with the smaller reactors, and whether people agree with it or not, there is a major push provincially to provinces all across the country and federally to reduce all fossil fuel power plants. So if you can't have hydroelectric, because that's not everywhere, the next best thing is the nuclear power plant. [00:06:07] Speaker B: Okay, so then you're making my point for me. You know, and I get. We signed a proliferation agreement with the, you know, NATO and everyone. I think we, along with most of the world, except for China, the U.S. you know, got out of nuclear from a weapon perspective. But this isn't a weapon, right? This is the powering of submarine. Right? And I know, I know people have freaked out about that in the past. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Unfortunately, once you say nuclear powered submarine, people think a nuclear armed submarine. And England, France, Russia, China, the United States are among those who have nuclear powered weapons, nuclear weapons on their submarines that they can launch, right? And that's their, their, that's their defense. But Canada after the 1960s have never had nuclear weapons and never will have nuclear weapons ever again. And one, and I just, with the way the political climate, the, the appetite and so little is known about the military amongst the general Canadian public that when they hear that word, they can't separate the two. Paul. So unfortunately for our military and our navy especially, even though they would like a hybrid of both, they know that's a non starter. So they have to get the possible diesel electric technology that's available right now in the world and that's their future, their submarine fleet. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Right, okay, I don't like that. I don't like that because I think, you know, again, when we were, let's say, dependent on the U.S. yes. You know, and I think we've, we've got a wake up call the country in the last, you know, six months. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Huge wake up. [00:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah, huge wake up call. I get why nuclear was off the table, but now with that relationship sort of teetering and you know, the threats about, you know, joining the US and everything else, you know, we should be Looking at all options right now and we should be looking at what we're good at and we should be developing what we're good at. And we are, as Canadians, you know, I, I'm the Candu reactor generation where I was so proud of the fact that we created that and remember the Canada arm. Yeah. [00:08:19] Speaker A: Remember what a big deal that was. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:21] Speaker A: For the space shuttle. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Huge. Right. I remember sitting there watching the tv, all proud that we were doing that. You know, those are the things that I think we need to look at. So I do think, you know, I know they're trying to, they've discounted the option. I think they should put it back on the table and look at it as a hybrid. I agree with you. I think you, you really should. I. [00:08:41] Speaker A: With Mark Carney as Prime Minister and the Liberals in power, that will never happen. Now maybe if there was another government in place, another leader who didn't worry about getting reelected and had an overwhelming majority and they would try to make this happen, but with a, with a liberal minority government to them, they may think that's a non confidence vote. And the NDP and block Quebecois at the very least would be so overwhelmingly against it, they would find themselves in political turmoil and peril. So you think the block would be against, oh, 100%. They would be 100% against a nuclear powered submarine unless it was built in Davies shipyard in Quebec. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Well, that's what I'm saying. So, okay, so good segue into where I wanted to go with this next. But so say that option gets thrown on the table. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Right. So now the block says, okay, we'll do it if we get to build it in Quebec and B.C. and we get two ports, dry docks, we create them, we build them. Great projects we need now, so we get to do it. So the question then becomes now that's not on the table. So right now it's kind of been shortlisted to two countries. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Correct. Germany and South Korea. [00:09:55] Speaker B: Right. You know, and you and I, you know, lots of conversations about that. I'm concerned. Right. I've said that from the beginning. Because those two countries, like most of the world right now, have had some challenges in the last year. Right? [00:10:10] Speaker A: Correct. [00:10:11] Speaker B: You know, we've seen South Korea with impeachments of the president, you know, a new president, declaration of martial law. The consumer index for South Korea is abominably bad. It's like 88%. Restaurants don't even open during the day anymore there. It's a very challenged economy. Right. Good, good manufacturing skills. I get it. Right. Country has its challenges. And then Germany, like most of Europe right now, you know, with Stommer and things going on, have some real, real big issues with debt, populism and some other things happen. And, you know, they're, they're now, we complain about, you know, our deficit. They're now at 2.7 trillion euros. They're talking about debt breaks. You know, they're trying to put caps, which is something I talked about on a previous show that we should look at. [00:11:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:05] Speaker B: So you know what, the world's unstable. And I throw this because I really wanted to talk to you about it today. These things aren't built today. [00:11:13] Speaker A: No. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Like when, you know, and I, you know, of course, you know, when I think of manufacturing, I always think, okay, this is quick, but we're talking about. [00:11:22] Speaker A: The first sub coming out, if they're lucky, in 2035. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah, 2030. [00:11:27] Speaker A: If they're lucky. [00:11:28] Speaker B: A decade. [00:11:28] Speaker A: A decade. [00:11:29] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:11:30] Speaker A: A modern submarine, Paul, is so complex and so difficult to build that the Korean shipyard Hanway have told the Canadian government and Mark Carney if they sign the deal by 2026, they guarantee four new submarines in the Canadian Navy by 2035. Now Germany's only promised one by 2035, then another one a second in 2037. [00:11:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:53] Speaker A: And that's tough for Canada to say no to. Now, I hear what you're saying about the countries and their respective economies, but you sign a deal like that, that's a lot of cash infusion into their coffers, into their treasury, and in revitalizing their local economy and their shipyards and their welders and their machinists. [00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's interesting. So, you know, the, the Stephen Lecce announcement on the small reactors in Ontario, I was amazed. So they're talking about 15,000 jobs in those reactors and they're talking about, you know, 500 spinoff jobs out of those. They're talking about a lot of benefits to the economy we're not going to get. Right. So in this, this submarine project, at a time when I think, you know, and I've said this on previous shows, at a time when I think we have to look at all of our national projects and we have to say, can we do them right? Like, can we be involved with them? Can we build these submarines here? [00:12:57] Speaker A: So I'm pro Canadian enough to believe that we could build anything. And we've proven that time and time again, Paul. Sure we are. And we have a track record of building surface ships. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:07] Speaker A: Both commercial, whether it's ferries or cargo ships, destroyers, supply ships. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:13] Speaker A: We're doing it right now at C Span in Vancouver and Irving shipyard in Halifax and building sophisticated state of the art ships. That's not a problem. They've never built submarines. Now, in a perfect world, they'd sign the deal Hanwei in South Korea who are building the four. By 2035, we send Navy personnel, engineering graduates, people with specialized skills and trades go to South Korea for a couple months, see how they're doing it, and transfer those skills to a Canadian shipyard to start building them their own. So say our submarines that we build don't come online to 2036 or 37. We still have four to keep us going until then. Right, but then we have all those jobs and all the money that comes into it with tax revenue and everything else on Canadian soil. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Right? I know. And you know, I hate to bring it up because I'm not trying to give him any benefits or give him any shout outs, but you know, isn't that kind of a Donald Trumpism thing? Isn't that, isn't that kind of where he, you know, let's keep our military resources at home, let's produce what we need, let's keep our critical skills and critical resources in country for our defense. And that, you know, it does make some sense. I hate to, you know, I'm not trying to prop him up, but I really do think we have to think twice about, you know, offshoring all of our military procurement and bringing it back and then just sending our people for training. I think that's one thing, right? [00:14:44] Speaker A: But Paul, it goes. I don't even care if it's Trump related or not. To me right now, in the state of the world and the state of our economy, in the state of everything else, it makes common sense to do as much as possible on home soil to reduce youth unemployment, to increase our tax revenue and everything. There is a company in the Brampton Mississauga border called Rochelle and they build armored cars that we as a country bought over a thousand of them and sent them to Ukraine. The chassis are built at the Fort Planet Oakville and then they're manufactured in Brampton Mississauga and sent there. We could easily buy a thousand for our own military, for our reserves and regular force in a heartbeat and create all those local jobs. I totally agree. Saab has told the Canadian government if they buy their fighter jet, the Gripen that they will, you could license build them in Canada. That means the first batch would be built in Sweden and the rest Dozens and dozens of them built in Canadian soil with Canadian jobs. The more that we do that, and we've done that in the past. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:48] Speaker A: The better it is for our country. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Oh, of course. You know, 7.1% unemployment now. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:54] Speaker B: Right. So we're growing and you know, we look at the. And I'll just get on my soapbox for two minutes and I'll jump off, please. Yeah, yeah. But you know, you look at right now, today coming in, you know, I'm watching a country, a very peaceful country having a lot of issues for a number of reasons. One of them being, and this is, I'm talking about is Nepal. One of them being 11.5% unemployment, mostly youth. Right. So, you know, that's a key factor in that. You know, those people sitting around not being able to get jobs, not being productive is not great for our economy. Right. And I think we have to start looking at every single public procurement project and say if we don't have the skill sets, how do we build the skill sets? You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you a story and please do. My God rest his soul. My, my brother in law passed away years ago. But he actually was a really cool guy and he was a welder fitter and, and he actually went to work and he built armored cars here. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Wow. [00:16:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And then he went up to London and with GM and they had the contract and he did armor cars there and he was so good, they actually moved him over to build locomotives. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Wow. [00:17:11] Speaker B: So he went over there and then when he was doing that, they set him up and he lived up in London at his own house. And then the pipeline guys came actually. No, sorry. The Maple Leaf Gardens team came and got him for the Freon system for Maple Leaf Gardens. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Wow. [00:17:27] Speaker B: So he went down and put that together with the team and he, he loved it. He big Maple Leaf fan. Then he, then he decided to go on the pipeline. So, you know, I went out, you know, and I, I was able to see him and he came back a number of times to tell me the stories. But you know, the number of skilled people that I met through him from that trade and through the, the engineering and the welder fitters and the technicians in that trade were astonishing. We do have the capabilities to do amazing things. Now it's dwindling. Here's the challenging thing. So, you know, I tell that story. He would have been, you know, God rest his soul, he would have been 62 now, so he'd have probably been retired. And most of the Guys I met retired. You know, are we backfilling that? Right. You know, is that happening? Because do we have the projects to backfill it? You know, down on the East Coast? We do. You know, you said, like, when you go to St. John's when I go to see my buddy Blair in St. John's the people I'm meeting are all coming off the shipyards back from the pipeline. Right. They're actually returning all the time. Most of the people I meet in St. John's have either returned from Alberta or, you know, on the way there. Right. So they're still got that culture. They're still building things. Ontario, not so much. Right. Which is hurting us right now. And would it hurt us in Ontario if we took some of our new immigrant crew and got them involved in this and shipped them out? We have a lot of talented new immigrants coming who not do not necessarily have skilled trades, but they do have engineering degrees. They do have. They're well educated. Right. So the one thing they've done in. In countries like I just brought up, like Nepal, they have really good education systems. Right. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Look, as far as I'm concerned, no matter what country you come from, Paul, if you have a skill, let's maximize it and utilize it. [00:19:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:18] Speaker A: If you're an engineer, let's put you on an engineering project. If you're in health care, work in healthcare. If you are, whatever skill you have, let's utilize it. And I couldn't agree more. I know there is a plan to revive, and this is a combination of Doug Ford and Mark Carney to revive some of the shipbuilding and shipyards in Ontario. The Canadian Navy's looking at building a Corvette, which is a smaller, more versatile warship that could go different places. And the idea is to build them at these very shipyards in Ontario. That's brilliant. I was hurt to Hear that the B.C. government was going to give China $1 billion to build a new ferry to go from Victoria to Vancouver. That should never happen. Especially if everyone's talking about elbows up and pro Canada. And Canada first using. We need to use Canadian steel from Canadian steel factories and steel mills. [00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Built and built by Canadians. [00:20:14] Speaker B: Steel, aluminum. Right. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Whatever it is. And have the Canadian skills and trades and specialists build these things. We should never be offshoring a lot of those, because it's one thing we do as a country that's extremely well is build surface ships of all different varieties, whether it's cargo ships, passenger ships, ferries, passenger ferries, icebreakers or whatnot. We've been doing it for Centuries. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Okay, so, you know, I'm with you. So I'm totally. I agree. So solution. A hybrid model of nuclear versus, you know. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it'll never happen, but it would be perfect. [00:20:51] Speaker B: No, no. Good solution. Yeah. Right. And now a. An agreement that allows whoever they select. I don't think I have a preference here. It doesn't. To me, it's whoever is most qualified and can go as fast. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Both countries are good countries with challenges and good product. Good product. But I think we want them to actually educate us to go forward and build them and maintain them. And, you know, that's the other thing, you know, we, we talked about earlier too. And I want to bring up, you know, once these are built and they're in the water, their useful life is 30, 30, 40 years. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Both max. 30 years. [00:21:29] Speaker B: 30 years, right. So we have 30 years of repairs. We have 30 years of upkeep. We have 30 years. Wouldn't that be great to be doing it here and not have to be shipping in parts every time, producing those again? That's creating an industry. Right, That's. [00:21:42] Speaker A: Now, as I understand it, the maintenance will be done at Canadian shipyards. But you brought up a good point about parts. And there was an incident where Mark Carney recently was with our Canadian army in Latvia with our NATO group there. And Murray Brewster from cbc, I want to give him credit for an outstanding article with quotes from all the commanders of field commanders on the ground there mentioned that because of a lack of spare parts, 30% of the vehicles are non operational. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:10] Speaker A: And you can't have any kind of military vehicle without a warehouse of spare parts because unfortunately they're run so hard, things break down. So that is a key component that whatever contract they sign, they need to have proper spare parts. Have them in Canadian ports and Halifax and Victoria and the two major Navy shipyards yards so that when they're doing repairs, the spare parts are there and they're not just sitting there because they don't have a spare part. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, the supply chain doesn't catch us. You know, it's funny, you know, over the summer, I don't know if anyone paid attention, you know, orange helicopters, of course. Yeah, yes. [00:22:45] Speaker A: Do you know, I see them all the time. [00:22:46] Speaker B: Do you know how many weeks they were grounded for? [00:22:48] Speaker A: I think it was at 8. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah. No parts. Yeah. So as you're driving up to the cottage. Right, yeah, yeah. I don't think half the people were realizing if anything happened, there were no ability to airlift you out at that point. At one point There was no ability. All of them were grounded. [00:23:06] Speaker A: And this goes back to years of assuming everything would always be the way it was. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:11] Speaker A: And this is the short sighted thinking that, well, if we buy helicopter a from this country and they're built in Ohio, who cares? They'll always be our friends, we'll all have no trouble getting parts. And now it's really bit us in the butt as a country and I think as a nation, we're in a bit of a paradigm shift, Paul, where we realize that we can't always rely on other people. We have to start relying on ourselves. [00:23:33] Speaker B: Right. So, you know, this is back, you know, when your father was in the military. So that this is a great one. You tell this story because you told to me before, you know, maybe because of their generation, the way they looked at things, it was a little different. And the way the world was as far as shipping and everything else, they had to be more creative in the way they did things. But they not only figured out how to produce the parts and to get trained, but they actually figured out methods to do that. So the reason you were able to live in different countries was because he was doing that, right? He was, yeah. Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker A: And my dad, a high school dropout in the 50s, and all his buddies from Halifax were all high school dropouts and they had limited job prospects working on the shipyard or working as a butcher. And they all said, well, we want to see something outside of the greater Halifax area because they've never traveled anywhere. [00:24:28] Speaker B: And Can I, can I stop you from it? Limited job opportunities. What does that remind you of? [00:24:34] Speaker A: I know today. Yeah, right. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Are we talking the same thing? We just said that, you know. Yeah, yeah. [00:24:38] Speaker A: And then they, they joined the military and my father with. Without a high school diploma, learned to trade to fix aircraft engines, ended up getting his GED down the road after the fact, became an expert in turboprop engines, which are the engines on the famous C130 Hercules, which also happens to be the engines on the CP140 Aurora, this state of the art sub hunting plane. So our family moved to California. He went to the Lockheed plant at the time in Burbank where they were building it and all. There was 200 Canadian servicemen in total, basically learning every nut and bolt and every system on the airplane. We all got transferred back to Greenwood, Nova Scotia, to the training squadron and they all became instructors. And so generations of pilots and ground crew and air crew and technicians all stemmed from that venture in the late 70s and early 80s. [00:25:33] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. You know, there you go right. So we're talking the same thing really today we're talking whatever contract we do. Yes, we actually do the same thing. So we ship a bunch of people over there, they work on the line, they work in engineering, they understand how the submarines are built, how they're operated, they take control of all the technology tracking. So when it comes back, it's ours solely. There's some IP agreements and everything that goes on because we're using their technology to figure it out. But, but that is the, you know, and it's funny because we're not talking anything new here. But why are we talking. The interesting thing, we're not talking about this hybrid model. [00:26:16] Speaker A: I don't, I personally, I think it would be great. Paul. Yeah, I just don't think anyone in government. To them it's almost a third rail topic. [00:26:25] Speaker B: It's, it's, it is $60 billion is a third. [00:26:29] Speaker A: No, the hybrid of, of electric and nuclear. I think a lot. [00:26:33] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:26:34] Speaker A: The politicians won mention it because they're so afraid that it would cost them votes. So that's why when they talk about submarines, unless you have a, like a 300 seat majority government and you never have to worry about a non confidence vote, it's never going to happen. So to me, if they can build 12 of these state of the art diesel electric submarines, you have six in each coast. The problem is with any warship, any, anything in any country, whatever's at sea, when it comes back, it needs a tune up, it has to get resupplied and every four or five years it needs a long, long term tune up. And then every 10 years it needs an even longer tune up. No matter what country it is. [00:27:13] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [00:27:14] Speaker A: To keep it going. And so every time they're in dry dock, that means they're not in the sea. But if you have six in each coast, that means you always have at least one submarine in the water at all times for Canadian sovereignty. And that is an important thing, especially in the current world climate. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Oh, I agree. And we're talking a decade out. [00:27:32] Speaker A: A decade. [00:27:32] Speaker B: We gotta get it, we gotta get, we gotta get there. [00:27:36] Speaker A: Yes. With our current submarine force who at the best of times we have one that's ocean ready at any one time. The fort. [00:27:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:43] Speaker A: And depending on what coast is at. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well we're, we're protecting three seas or three, three oceans. Right. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Well right now with our submarine technology we can only do two. [00:27:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:53] Speaker A: We can't do the Arctic Ocean, but these new submarines, we could, could finally put a Submarine in our waters in the Arctic Ocean, which would be an absolute game changer. [00:28:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:03] Speaker A: And I always think about the mental aspect and the morale of the people in the service. It can't be fun when you know, you're going to your base no matter what your trade, and you're working on 34 year old, 30 to 40 to 50 year old equipment that's falling apart. How nice would it be to have brand new, state of the art equipment now when they do have new equipment? It works fabulously and it does great work. And it's, it empowers the men and women in our military, knowing that the government's provided them. I don't think anyone can dispute the fact that the work in our Canadian military, whether it's frontline combat, search and rescue, rescuing people from wildfires, if they got the right equipment to do the job, how could any taxpayer have a problem with that? [00:28:47] Speaker B: No, no, I don't think anyone would. Right. No. And if, if we were creating an industry at home, see that, that's, that's where we're at. Right. If we create an industry at home, I'm okay, I, and I'm not okay anymore with subbing it out and creating industries in other countries. I want long term industries here with our taxpayer dollars. So let's build a military, but let's build it where it transitions to being here in Canada, not being over in another country. So we're not in this predicament. Come 30 years from now, we're not sitting there going, well, we need another. Well, 12 submarines. [00:29:26] Speaker A: What do we do? [00:29:26] Speaker B: Let's go to. And I'm like, oh my goodness, you got to be kidding me. Right? Like we really. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Because right now that's what would happen. We'd have to go to other countries to ask for bids. And I couldn't agree more with what you said. This is something I've wanted to vote for years. And people always thought, Jim, you don't. We'll just go to. No. Now we're in a real, real, you know, where we're in a real predicament as a nation like this is a tipping point as our, as our country going forward. So why not develop homegrown industries as much as humanly possible where possible? That protects us. So if anything else happens on the world stage with a world leader, that we are insulated from it and Canada is a stronger country because of it. And who knows, people may actually buy it from us. [00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that'd be great. Right. We're dependable. Right? [00:30:17] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:17] Speaker B: We're good manufacturers. We've proven that time and time again. And quite frankly we've been there for NATO, you know, so I know we. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Have from the beginning in 1949. We've been there from the absolute beginning. So I know a lot of people wonder should we have a military, should we spend money on a military? So here's your options as a Canadian, if you don't have a military, you could ask another country to patrol your seas, your air and your land. But then are you really a sovereign nation if you have another country like protecting you? [00:30:51] Speaker B: No. [00:30:51] Speaker A: Well, it definitely, I don't think you are. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Well, that's not even a definition of a country is you secure your own borders. Yes. So you have to, you have to. [00:30:59] Speaker A: We as a nation have to. [00:31:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:31:00] Speaker A: And if we're going to do it, do it right and do it here, do it in Canada. Supporting. Look, we talked about this before we started. The youth unemployment rate in Canada is pretty scary right now. And we're not talking just kids out of high school. We're talking young men and women with, with white collar sophisticated engineering degrees, specialist degrees that should be working in the industry making this country better, who are doing quite frankly jobs that are beneath their skill set and their education level. [00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I mentioned to you I had a cousin, right. A civil engineer. Right. [00:31:34] Speaker A: It's a pretty good job, pretty good degree. [00:31:37] Speaker B: Came out of Waterloo, really good kid. But you know, quite frankly, you know, he's walking along, putting lines on asphalt right now and you know, waste a waste because there's no real motivation. You know, jobs are sparse, you know, a lot of over educated people right now doing some basic stuff and not feeling overly motivated. Right. And quite frankly enjoying, enjoying our cannabis trade maybe too much our cannabis businesses here and you know, and too frequently early in the day and, and that's causing a problem. Right? Because he's not motivated. And by not being motivated he's not doing stuff that he wants to do. But you know, what better thing to do than go to a, either a pseudo defense company or a defense or the military. [00:32:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:32:23] Speaker B: Be involved in something, get some discipline, be motivated to go somewhere again. You know, then I'm okay, now I'm doing something. I want to buy a home, I want to take a mortgage now I want to have a family now I want to have. [00:32:36] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:32:37] Speaker B: So these are all the things right now. You know, he's not going anywhere, right. Because he's not seeing. Because the future. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Why motivate myself? What am I motivating Myself. For. For. [00:32:48] Speaker B: And that's the challenge with where we're going. And that. That's what concerns me right now. And I couldn't agree more. So now the question I have just. I wanted to. So, you know, I think we got in our mind, if we had, you and I were, you know, having lunch, we would have a solution coming out of this. You know, we would have a few nuclear submarines, we'd have a few diesel electric, the rest, diesel electric. And then we would actually, let's call it, create a agreement with one of the companies either in Germany or South Korea, that would work alongside of us to bring the industry back to Canada or make them actually come here and set up a plant here to do it. We would figure that out. Right. That would be the. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Anything could be accomplished when you put your heads together. I agree. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Well, at the same time, producing, you know, two to four submarines directly, there's. So we could make sure that we had something for sure. Because our fleet is diminishing. Exactly. So we get it. We got it. Right. Why is that a challenge for. So, like, I know you said to me, you know, politically, I get the nuclear thing. That's a weird one in this day and age and where we're at, but I get it. Why is it so challenging? Like, to me, that should be one where a House of Commons sits. Everyone. Someone stands up and they explain it. Everyone goes. Goes. Here, here, Done. Vote and we're done. Yeah. And we start. I don't. I don't. Why is that a. [00:34:25] Speaker A: It's. [00:34:25] Speaker B: It's the politics of it. Are we. Are we mirrored. Are we so mirrored in the politics of this, quite frankly, that we're going to fight about. We're going to fight about what's pretty obvious. Like, so we get a military strategy. House of Common sits, you know, stand up. The Liberal government provides their military strategy. A little bit of debate. Everyone comes to a resolution. Is there more to do than that? [00:34:53] Speaker A: There shouldn't be. But, Paul, unfortunately, we've developed a system with the Privy Council and with the Parliament and with the government procurement, no matter what it is, if it's for school buses or commuter trains, no matter what piece of equipment it is. [00:35:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Even though everyone knows it needs to be bought and built and produced and delivered, it takes years and years more than it should. And the. The timeline of any kind of procurement is growing exponentially. And the timeline for military procurement is beyond anything you could possibly imagine. You said, how could it be that we have to wait 10 years for four submarines that's actually doing it quickly. [00:35:31] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:35:32] Speaker A: That is a quick timeline to build four submarines. Now. [00:35:35] Speaker B: That's crazy. And, you know, I got to tell you, I was. I. The Jamaican government asked me to go down Jamaica Cool. Years ago and look at a property. It was a convention center. [00:35:45] Speaker A: Right on. [00:35:46] Speaker B: And I went down and they want to convert it into a gaming facility. So I went down and I took a look at it, and the Chinese had built. The Chinese needed a vote at the UN and so they actually reached a deal with Jamaica to build this convention center. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Convention center got built. And it wasn't. Wasn't hugely successful. It was kind of not run very well and quite frankly, had its challenges financially, but they were looking at options of what to do with it. A beautiful facility. Just gorgeous. Right? And what had happened was one of the state construction companies of China dropped in and they showed me a video, and I honestly, I've never seen this before in my life. They were airlifting in containers of materials and sleeping facilities. So they made a city. So there was an open field. They made a city of containers. They emptied the containers of all the materials. They then stacked the containers and made living quarters for all the workers that were coming. They brought local workers, and then they brought the people who had the skill to do it, the engineers and the tradespeople, and they built this convention center in record time. This was crazy how fast they did it. And, you know, I. I always remember that. And I think to myself, you know, we're talking projects now that we're working on for transportation and like, that are taking us a decade or a billion dollars overruns. Like, we're not somewhere along the way. We are not bad builders. We're good builders as Canadians. Somewhere along the way, to your point, Jim, our procurement processes got so messed up that we became bad builders because we can't seem to be buy anything. Like, we're not. We're not bad builders. We're bad buyers. [00:37:31] Speaker A: So how is it that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and for people across Canada, there's a light rapid transit that they've been working on in the Toronto area for 15 years. [00:37:43] Speaker B: Yes, I know. I drive by it every week. [00:37:46] Speaker A: And it's been the biggest boondoggle ever. And some of the people running it had to admit, Paul, that the trains were bought so long ago, thinking you had to be up and running, that some of them may need to be replaced. [00:37:57] Speaker B: Well, yeah, there are. They're actually. Because they're 10 years old, they're actually Their warranties are up now. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yes. Anywhere. [00:38:06] Speaker B: And they can't get parts. Yeah. [00:38:07] Speaker A: And so this is. This is something that's. It's not just the military. It's like mass transit. It's. How long does it take to add a lane to a highway? Every province in the country is pulling their hair in frustration, Paul. Like, why do I look at my Facebook? And they built an overpass in Holland in a long weekend, and They've been spending 10 years to add a lane to my local highway. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I know, I know. My grandpa, I tell you this, but down to you, Right? [00:38:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:34] Speaker B: My. My grandfather actually was working at Kodak. He was. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, okay. [00:38:38] Speaker B: You know, in maintenance. [00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:39] Speaker B: He was pulled out because he was a sheet metal worker from England. He was pulled out and he was actually put in the plane division. So in the. During the war. And quite frankly, most of the people who worked with them were female. [00:38:53] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Because the male men were all gone to war. Right. So he operated the plant and he built the planes and, you know, he showed me the books. But again, you know, when. When we are motivated and we want to do something, we can do it. For some reason, we don't. We lack that motivation. [00:39:10] Speaker A: But I believe there is a certain motivation, Paul. [00:39:14] Speaker B: There should be. [00:39:14] Speaker A: Wow. I wish there was. I mean, I don't know how many governments, municipal, provincial, federally, over the years have talked about getting rid of the red tape to make things faster, and we as a nation have not seen any evidence of that. And whether it's building a new school, a fire station, a hospital, whatever it is, it always seems to take so long and costs more than it should. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Okay, so now I'm going to kind of go to another level on this one for you. So, you know, in the States, you hear it, you know, it's a national threat. You know, Donald Trump's doing this quite a bit. He's actually doing things because he's saying it's a threat to the country. [00:39:51] Speaker A: Correct? [00:39:51] Speaker B: Right. And there he's being challenged in the courts and everything else. But is this not a. Like, are we not there in Canada? Right. It's funny how we don't escalate things. Like, we don't see things as critical. And I think, you know, coming into this session for government, I would, you know, I'd love to see the parties. Right. I know there's going to be back, you know, we're all setting up for this to and fro, which, tell you the truth, I. I'm sick of this crazy, this interesting, sarcastic Kind of funny debate stuff. You know, it's old things done. No, it just, it's honestly, I, I, I really caution both parties to stand up for another session and just say silly things to each other for the session. But, but you know what, I would recommend that they sit down and actually try to prioritize. So what are the key priorities of the country? And quite frankly, this one's got to be up there somewhere. So if you're, now, when the US does it, when they do call it a national threat or they create something, it's all, you know, it's all hands on deck. Right. So they put the money, they allocate a budget. It's, you know, it's like a disaster recovery program. They go to work. Work. Right. That's what we need to kind of focus on. So whether it's, you know, whether it's transportation, whether it's defense, whether it's immigration, whatever the concept is, or whatever the pillars, you know, that's what I recommend we do. And I hope this session we don't spend another, you know, up until Christmas just sitting there criticizing each other. [00:41:22] Speaker A: In the meantime, say you want to build high speed rail from Toronto to Montreal. Guess what, there's no shovels in the ground. Or you need to buy more jeeps for the army. Nothing is bought. And you, in a perfect world, Paul, you're 100% correct. The leaders of the different parties stand up and said, Mr. Speaker, I'm not here to criticize the liberal government or Mark Carney. We're on serious national emergency that's going on with America. We need to get things done right now. Let's start voting on things and start building it and getting things done immediately. Immediately. We'll worry about getting votes another day. Now that's not going to happen. No, but that's what it should be because once upon a time, and we've all seen the great movie with, about Winston Churchill with Gary Oldman and basically saying, hey, we just escaped from Dunkirk. The we may lose the whole war, we may lose England. We've all got to work together for the next few years and forget about votes or we're going to lose to Hitler. And that's what they did. [00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:42:25] Speaker A: They, I mean England was that close to losing everything. [00:42:28] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. [00:42:29] Speaker A: And so, you know, we are in a serious situation as a nation right now. What is wrong with all the parties and all the side saying let's worry about votes another time? Right now let's get, let's build 10 hospitals, five high speed rail lines. Let's do this and that and let's get it built right now. [00:42:46] Speaker B: And let's see, include 12 submarines and. [00:42:48] Speaker A: 12. So, please, for the Navy's sake. 12 submarines, that'd be great. Paul is always a pleasure. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Thank you, my friend.