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Intellectual property belongs to those who design the millions of things that go into a modern warship. This IP would belong to those offshore companies who designed the ship and it systems. We have already seen an inkling of this problem with the current attempt to buy offshore designs for the Navy’s Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC). Several countries and their shipyards have balked at the requirement for Canada to have access to the IP of their proposed designs.

But why is this IP important? It is primarily because it limits the amount of maintenance and modification that Canada can carry out. Without the IP, you cannot fix anything, you cannot modify anything and you cannot sell your technology to other countries. It would mean that we would have to send the ships back to their parent shipyards for dockings and other essential work. It would mean that maintenance of any ship systems, from main engines to combat systems, could only be done by the holders of the IP. It would mean little or no work for Canadian workers on any of these systems.

But surely we could buy the IP from the selling shipyard? Well, that would also mean buying it from every IP holder who has equipment on the ship. And it would cost us billions, many of those billions we might also have to put toward payment of ex-employees. This is a sellers’ market and Canada would have very little leverage to acquire IP for minimal cost.

To those who argue the point: It is just not that simple to buy all our warships offshore.

Gordon Forbes, LCDR (ret’d), has been involved in the naval procurement business for the most part of 38 years, both in the Navy and in the defence industry. He lives in Orléans.