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The Government is following through on its commitment to build ships in Canada. The NSPS will mean long-term jobs and economic growth for the country, stability for the industry, and vital equipment for our men and women in the Royal Canadian Navy and the Canadian Coast Guard.

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Joint Support Ships (JSS) Backgrounder

On July 14, 2010, the Government of Canada (GoC) announced it would acquire two Joint Support Ships (JSS) with the option for a third, to replace the Royal Canadian Navy's (RCN) Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment ships at a cost of $2.6B (taxes included). Included in this announcement was an indication that both a new design and a Military Off The Shelf (MOTS) design would be considered. The JSS project was integrated in the NSPS when it was developed in 2010.

New Design Option: Canada awarded a contract for Engineering, Logistics, and Management Support (ELMS) to BMT Fleet Technology (BMT). Under the ELMS contract, BMT was tasked on 7 February 2011 to develop an initial design and cost estimate for a JSS design option based on the RCN's Requirements.

MOTS Design Option: Canada awarded a contract to ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems Canada (TKMSC) on 18 January 2012 to conduct design studies to ascertain the feasibility of adapting the Berlin class EGV II (FGS BONN) ship design to meet Canadian requirements, and to provide the estimated cost of building the existing design.

The work under these two contracts will be completed shortly, at which point an options analysis will be conducted to select the design that will be the new JSS.

This options analysis will look at the capability, affordability and risks of each design and lead to a JSS design selection decision. The analysis will consider information provided by the designers of the New Design and MOTS Design options, with input from Vancouver Shipyards (VSY) (the Canadian shipyard selected to build JSS), and an independent third party cost validation provided by First Marine International (FMI). KPMG will provide independent expert advice in the development and finalization of the overall design selection process. This analysis will result in the selection of an affordable JSS design that provides the best value to Canada for two ships. The design selection decision is expected in Spring 2013.

Through NSPS and the required Government approval process, JSS will go through a series of check points to validate that the required capability can be achieved within the established affordability envelope. In the case of JSS the next check point is part of the design selection process. As described above the cost estimates for the design options will be reviewed providing confirmation that the selected ship design provides confidence of an affordable project.

Once this is confirmed, the selected design will then be passed to VSY to mature the design to a production-ready state. At this time, the estimates fit within the assigned budget to acquire at least two ships.

Throughout this process construction estimates will be matured until substantive costs are provided, again confirming project affordability. At any time throughout this process the project teams along with the shipyard have the ability to exercise design-cost trade-offs to ensure affordability and delivery of the required capability to the Navy.

Equipment Selection

On 19 October 2011, the GoC selected Seaspan's VSY as the prime contractor to build the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) program's non-combat vessels.