It was announced Thursday in Halifax that the Canadian arm of Thales, a French company, will take over the maintenance and support of the future fleet of navy ships, including joint support vessels and arctic patrol ships.
The Trudeau government awarded the French company the eight-year, $800-million contract over the Irving Shipyard, which was bidding on the work.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the contract is expected to generate more than 2,000 jobs, with many of them in the Halifax area.
“This contract here doesn't impact our public service employees at all. This contract is actually a hybrid process here. We need the public service and we need the military,” said Sajjin. This is about creating a better efficiency.”
There was concern that Thales would move away from the naval employees and private sector workers who already maintain the ships, but the company says that would be a costly mistake.
The initial announcement came out on Thursday in Halifax, and the minister repeated the details in Vancouver on Sunday.
“We’re going to leverage the skills that exist, that obviously is a key component to providing value for money,” said the president and CEO of Thales Canada, Mark Halinaty, on Thursday.
There has been no response from the union of national defence employees so far, and Irving Shipbuilding told CTV Atlantic it would have no comment on Sunday.
The contract is set for eight years, with an option to extend up to 35 years, making it the biggest in service support contract in Canadian history.
For some that raises issues about security, with a foreign company having access to sensitive information.
“We have tremendous experience working with our allies when it comes to very sensitive information, we have agreements in place, plus we have, we work very closely with industry getting that right innovation. That innovation, when it comes to certain technologies, is done in collaboration with industries,” said Sajjin.
“To keep a balance between what industry can provide, readiness of ships when we demand it, international deployments, and what we can provide with specialized teams with specialized operation al equipment, weapons and sensors. so it's a fine balance, that's always under examination and evolution,” said Rear-Admiral John Newton.
Two Arctic patrol ships are under construction at the Irving Shipyard in Halifax and four more are planned.
Sajjan said that maintenance work will only be done outside of Canada if a ship is already deployed overseas.
On Thursday, officials from Thales said they're not sure how much work will continue to be done in Halifax because they haven't decided which docks will be used for which activities.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Emily Baron Cadloff.
