Canada takes next step in submarine procurement project

PM Carney toured a German facility that is one of two finalists on the shortlist for Canada’s new submarine program. Abigail Bimman reports from Berlin.

BERLIN, Germany — Canada narrowed its scope of countries to buy up to a dozen new submarines from to two – Germany and South Korea – as Prime Minister Mark Carney toured the German Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems (TKMS) shipyard on Tuesday.

A Canadian government press release says TKMS, a German-Norwegian consortium, and South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean Co., Ltd. (Hanwha), have been deemed the two “qualified supplies” after putting out a Request for Information that closed in February and yielded 25 responses.

Speaking at a press conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Carney said there was a “clear difference” in the companies’ abilities to meet “very demanding” technical requirements for Canada’s needs, such as spending weeks under sea ice, as well as the Pacific Ocean.

“We need to be able to have year-round fleets in all three coasts under quite demanding conditions,” Carney said. “That’s how the field narrows quite that quickly.”

“We will conduct procurement as we always do, fully, transparently, fairly,” he later added.

Merz said he had been advocating for Carney’s visit to the shipyard.

Canada is looking to buy up to 12 submarines “with some sort of an urgency” to replace an aging fleet scheduled to be decommissioned by 2035, according to a senior government official who briefed reporters ahead of the announcement.

Speaking on a not-for-attribution basis, the official said that, while the subs will mainly be used to patrol, “we shouldn’t exclude the capacity to be able to fight.”

Officials said part of determining which company wins the bid involves “what they can bring to Canada.”

“We need some sort of return when we are investing that amount of money,” the official said of the massive procurement project.

In May, TKMS announced it was opening a new office in Canada.

“We are here to stay: we are not just interested in a contract – we are interested in a long-term strategic partnership with Canada,” TKMS CEO Oliver Burkhard said in a press release at the time.

Carney announced at the press conference he will be touring Hanwha’s South Korean facility in October.

When asked by reporters prior to the announcement whether there was a concern Carney’s trip to TKMS would show favouritism to one potential supplier over another, the senior government official said, “we are managing that risk.”

Carney is on a trip to Europe focused on deepening trade and defence relationships, spending Monday in Poland with Prime Minister Donald Tusk before later flying to Berlin.