Who defends Canadas three coastlines?
It certainly isnt the Canadian Navy The Navy appears to be primarily a blue water fleet, mandated to fight Canadas battles away from Canadas shores. Requiring the Canadian Navy to fulfill its primary mandate of defending Canadas coastlines, would, of course, be one alternative for bolstering Canada’s maritime security. But several witnesses have argued that the Navys ships are generally too big, too slow and too expensive to efficiently deal with threats in our littoral waters. In fact, officials have recently announced [2003] that the Navy is essentially taking an operational ‘pause’ a year off in an attempt to regenerate the institution. [Ed: The Canadian Navy does own a fleet of what are known as maritime coastal defence vessels (MCDVs), but their primary role is training naval reserves. See: A Modest Proposal for using these vessels in an ‘Interim Maritime Security Force’.] What does the RCMP contribute to Maritime Security? In Nova Scotia, Chief Superintendent Ian Atkins, of the C
