Major Dan Schade looks on from the flight deck of HMCS Vancouver as the ship’s CH-148 Cyclone helicopter leaps into the air faster than anything weighing more than seven tonnes has any right to. Safely clear of the ship, the grey aircraft hovers briefly, before heading off in search of a submarine lurking nearby in the depths of the Western Pacific.
“Grizzly you’re clear to go,” Maj. Schade says as the helicopter disappears from site. “Happy hunting, gentlemen.”
Tracking down subs was one of the primary purposes of the 12 Halifax-class frigates in the Royal Canadian Navy, the Vancouver among them, when the ships were first ordered in the 1980s.
Quickly upon delivery, however, with the end of the Cold War, this role began to seem if not obsolete, then at least unsuited to the needs of a Canadian military increasingly focused on peacekeeping, terrorism and, into the 2000s, the war in Afghanistan.
Geopolitics does not stand still though, and the Vancouver, refitted in the past decade as part of a $4.3-billion modernization program, finds itself newly relevant in an increasingly tense world, nowhere more so than where The Globe and Mail joined the ship for a week this summer: the Western Pacific.
The Vancouver, left, and its sister ship HMCS Montreal, right, are normally not in the same ocean, but for these exercises they were, as was the smaller HMCS Max Bernays.
While the Canadian Navy has always maintained a token force in the Pacific, this has been expanded and reaffirmed since Ottawa adopted a new strategy calling for Canada to “augment its naval presence” in the region, “including by increasing the number of frigates deployed” and conducting exercises alongside allies and partners.
That’s what the Vancouver has been doing all year, taking part in Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) in July, alongside 28 other countries, and Operation Pacific Vanguard, a four-navy exercise conducted with the United States, Japan and South Korea in late August. This was only the second year Canada has deployed three warships to the Pacific, with the Vancouver’s sister ship, the HMCS Montreal, and the smaller HMCS Max Bernays also in the region.
Such exercises enable allied militaries to improve interoperability and capacity, acting as a “force multiplier, a way of exponentially increasing the efficacy a military presence brings in terms of deterrence,” said Lukas Filler, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.
The need for deterrence has taken on greater weight as China has increased its own footprint in the Western Pacific, aggressively expanding territory in the South China Sea and threatening Taiwan. During the week The Globe was aboard the Vancouver, Chinese and Philippines ships clashed around the disputed Sabina Shoal, while Japan reported an incursion into the country’s airspace by China for the first time.
Even as Beijing has spent an estimated US$15-billion annually on its own exercises, it has reacted angrily to others doing the same: In April, Zhang Youxia, vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, criticized unspecified countries for flexing their “gunboat muscles” in the Pacific.
The geopolitical context was hard to ignore while the Vancouver was engaged in a “war at sea scenario” fighting “country Alpha” for control of “island Charlie,” even if interviewees on board were scrupulously politic in refusing to acknowledge how such an exercise might feed into real-world situations.
“It’s not geared toward one specific nation,” said Commander Tyson Bergmann, a nearly three-decade veteran of the service who took over the Vancouver earlier this year. “But we’re conducting an exercise close to both Russia and China, and much like if another nation were carrying out an operation off the West Coast of North America, they will be paying attention.”
Cdr. Bergmann said Pacific Vanguard was “smaller-scale than RIMPAC, but higher-end warfare, you’re operating with nations on the same level.” This year’s iteration included a Japanese submarine, which Maj. Schade’s Air Force detachment was tasked with hunting down, working in conjunction with the Vancouver’s underwater warfare team, ensconced in a chilly control room on an upper deck of the ship, surrounded by screens showing radar and other data.
“There’s no real substitute to being able to exercise with a real submarine,” said Lieutenant Stewart Joyce. “You learn something new every time when you’re working against a real adversary.”
Cdr. Bergmann agreed, noting simulations are useful but cannot recreate the “game of chess of trying to outwit your adversary” felt when competing against other humans. “When you’re up against a real sub, you can try and out-think them, you know the captain has to sleep, so you can keep an aircraft on top of them the whole time, keep the crew awake,” he said.
Squeezed into a small shack on the flight deck overseeing the Cyclone’s takeoff, Maj. Schade said Canada is “widely known as a competent anti-submarine player,” with the helicopter forming a large part.
Major Dan Schade oversees the takeoff of the Vancouver's Cyclone helicopter, a type of aircraft only Canada flies.
But if the Cyclone represents the modernized Halifax-class frigate, it’s also symbolic of how stretched Canadian supply chains can be operating across the Pacific. Only Canada flies the CH-148, meaning the Vancouver and other ships depend on bases back on the West Coast for parts and support.
Canada does not have any supply vessels in the Pacific, forcing the Navy to rely on allied ships and bases, as The Globe saw when the Vancouver refueled at sea from the JS Tokiwa, a tricky exercise involving the Japanese vessel running a pipe across nearly 50 metres of rolling waves while both ships proceeded alongside each other at around 12 knots (22 km/h).
At other times during this year’s deployment, the Canadian frigate has depended on German and New Zealand assistance, which Cdr. Bergmann said was not uncommon, with only the U.S. not having to rely on allies.
“Especially in the Pacific, it’s such a vast area, and as more and more nations start to operate here, that will require more co-operation,” he said.
The Canadian Navy is expecting delivery of two new Protecteur-class supply ships next year, part of a project that is already years late and a billion dollars over budget. Writing last month, defence analyst Richard Shimooka said this program was indicative of “years of underfunding and delayed modernizations [that] have now left the Canadian military facing a severe capability deficit.”
When resources are limited, leaning on others can be a useful way of prioritizing spending in other areas, Dr. Filler told The Globe. “Refuellers and other logistic support ships, they’re important, but there are so many allied partners and ports available across the region that that’s probably not where I’d put my money.”
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Ottawa has repeatedly committed to hitting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s spending target of 2 per cent of GDP, despite falling well short over the past decade. Using the NATO benchmark, Mr. Shimooka estimated Canada’s military has been underfunded by around US$147-billion during this period.
“This has been disproportionately applied to procurement accounts, which helps explain why the Canadian military operates 30-year-old frigates, 40-year-old tactical fighters and nearly 45-year-old maritime patrol aircraft,” he said.
Canada’s adversaries have noticed this as well: After HMCS Ottawa sailed through the Taiwan Strait last year, a commentary on China Military Online, a publication put out by the People’s Liberation Army, dismissed Canada as “lacking the ability to launch large-scale military operations overseas.”
“Canada does not have as many geostrategic fulcrums and overseas bases as the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific, so its military presence and influence in the region are unnoticeable, not constituting a comprehensive threat at all,” analyst Ling Yunzhi wrote.
Mr. Shimooka said Canada was facing a “crossroads where it should either accept the continued decline of its military capabilities into a largely token force or consider radical alternatives to preserve its relevance on the battlefield and in international relations,” such as by downsizing and specializing the army.
Ottawa and its critics agree on the importance of the Navy: Canada has the world’s longest coastline and is facing new challenges from both Russia and China in the Arctic as well as the Pacific.
When The Globe joined the Vancouver on the U.S. territory of Guam, it was docked alongside the Montreal, a rare experience for the crews of two ships based on opposite sides of Canada. Cdr. Bergmann said the presence of two Maple Leaf-flagged ships didn’t go unnoticed by their hosts.
“In meetings for Pacific Vanguard, I did hear that Canada was definitely punching above our weight,” he said. “Even though we may not have the largest navy in the world, we are committed to working with our allies, and being a reliable, professional partner they can count on to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
James Griffiths spent seven days on board the HMCS Vancouver in August and September, 2024, during which he was subject to a Media Embedding and Ground Rules Agreement with the Canadian Navy. The Navy did not review this article.
