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The role gives overall control of the management and delivery of all contracts – the going rate for which is typically 12-15% on every dollar spent, according to industry insiders.

No financial details on the Canadian Surface Combatant project have been released.

But the news that the contract had been awarded without a competitive tender ran around the town quicker than Wee Willie Winkie in his nightgown.

“The price of the poker game has gone up without a competition,” said one lobbyist. “It’s great to have a Canadian company running a 30-year effort but what will it cost the taxpayer? If they’d held a competition, we could have seen five or six contenders.”

Others pointed out that the sole sourcing appeared to run contrary to the government’s much-vaunted Defence Procurement Strategy.

It certainly seems to violate government contract regulations that say sole sourcing is permissible “if only one person is capable of performing the contract.”

By handing the contract to a Canadian company, it may have fulfilled one of the procurement strategy’s goals, but it may not have gotten the best price, critics claim.

“The government wants 15 ships but they don’t have enough money for seven ships – and they have even less now. Nobody tested the market,” said one industry source.

A senior government official at Public Works said the selection process took place in 2011, when Irving was chosen as the lead yard for the surface combatant vessels. He said it was made clear “by exception” that the shipyard was the prime contractor. “But in the umbrella agreement signed by the shipyard, the Crown reserved the right not to make it the prime contractor. We wanted to do an industry analysis to make sure our intended course was the right one. It was clear to everyone that Irving was prime contractor during the construction phase. At issue was whether it was going to be prime contractor during the design phase.”