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OTTAWA — A naval expert warns that a weekend collision with naval supply ship could hasten the demise of the Canadian navy’s only command-and-control destroyer in the Pacific.

Dan Middlemiss of Dalhousie University in Halifax says the accident involving HMCS Algonquin and HMCS Protecteur will “quite seriously compromise” the country’s naval readiness on the West Coast.

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He says the incident is even more serious in light of continuing repairs to the frigate HMCS Winnipeg, which was rammed by an American fishing trawler in a separate accident last spring.

Middlemiss says it is a politically awkward time to be absent from the Pacific, given the heightened U.S. interest in the region.

Naval engineers are conducting damage assessments on both the destroyer and supply ship, which have returned to their home port of Esquimalt, B.C..

Middlemiss says both the Harper government and the navy will have to decide whether the benefits of returning the 40-year-old Algonquin to service outweigh the cost of retiring the ship, which has the capacity co-ordinate other Canadian warships when they operate as a task force.