A trio of South Korean companies has made a significant and multimillionaire field to Canada, promising to quickly replace the marine submarines, deliver more fire power to the army and help revitalize the industrial defense base of the country.
At the beginning of March, a detailed description of the unplayed proposals was delivered, which were delivered to the Federal Government in early March.
Companies have the complete support of the South Korean government, which is anxious to expand the Association of Defense and Security that it signed with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau two years ago in Seoul.
CBC News received unprecedented and exclusive access to senior Korean and security defense officials, as well as two defense and shipyard plants, who have reserved their competitive differences to offer for the Canada underwater replacement program.
Hanwha Ocean and Hyundai Heavy Industries presented a detailed joint presentation with a value of $ 20 billion to $ 24 billion, promising to deliver the first four submarines by 2035, the current date of the Royal Navy of Canada to receive only a new boat. He has also presented buildings maintenance facilities in this country that would use Canadians.
Hanwha Aerospace, a sister company of the shipyard, has left two detailed proposals separately to equip the army with large mobile capables and artillery propelled by rockets, similar to the Himar system made by the United States. It has also proposed a larger package of armored vehicles to fill the gaps that the army has in combat and defense vehicles.
These launches are worth more than $ 1 billion, depending on what the Canadian government chooses and comes with fast delivery times and the possibility of establishing maintenance centers, and potentially manufacturing, South Korean defense officials, South Korean defense officials said.
While OTTAWA rethinks US weapons contracts, Southern Korea weapons manufacturers want to replenish the exhausted army of Canada with everything, from obuses to submarines. Murray Brewster de CBC obtained exclusive access to a company from a company to become the new high -tech Arsenal in Canada.
The proposals represent an unprecedented diplomatic and corporate impulse for Canada to buy its military team in other places that are not the United States and Europe.
“We do not think about this as a unique agreement between two countries. It is not a transaction for us,” said Vice Minister of Defense Hyunki Cho a CBC News in a recent translated interview. “If we succeed in selling, we will try to give our effort to strengthen the capacities of the Canadian defense industry, as well as to promote defense cooperation.”
Canada looking at the acquisition options
The offers were presented at a time when many Canadians, who face the commercial war and threats of the annexation of the Trump administration, have demanded that the federal government cancel the main military purchases of the United States, including the F-35 combat program.
The liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney ordered a review of the Plan and insinuated that Canada can receive the delivery of the plane that has already paid and look elsewhere to fill the rest of the order. In total, Canada has said that it requires 88 advanced combatants.
Although it did not present a complete unre requested proposal, the Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) have expressed interest in selling their F-50 combat plane to Canada as a training plane that could quickly become a combat plane.
South Korea has also begun to manufacture its own stealth fighter in association with Indonesia. However, Kai officials have not yet offered it to Canada.
Despite the enthusiasm, there is a deep skepticism among the officials and observers of the South Korean defense that Canada takes seriously the dependence of the United States defense-industrial complex.
During the recently completed federal electoral campaign, Carney repeatedly made clear that the relationship with the United States had irrevocably changed.
“The old relationship we had with the United States based on the deepening of our economies and strict military security and cooperation is over,” said Carney on March 27 in Ottawa.
The liberal recognized just when the electoral campaign was launched that it was deeply in the negotiations to join the ROARM Defense Plan of the European Union, an association that would make Canada eligible for the joint acquisition with allies in the continent.
South Korea’s defense experts point out that Europe is still discovering how to assemble with many defense industries that need to be reset and reopen closed production lines since the end of the Cold War.
“The supply chain is weak in Europe,” said Kayla Mijung Kim, from the Korea Institute of Industrial Economy and Commerce, to CBC News in Seoul.
“Germany and France, for example, want to make their own weapons systems, but they are limited. They cannot acquire all the defense components that need European countries. I think they need some time.”
Production bottlenecks, an aspect that was presented closely when countries rushed to assemble Ukraine, have taken some NATO allies to look elsewhere.
Poland is the most dramatic example.
Since 2022, Varsaw has signed between $ 16 billion and $ 22 billion in United States contracts with South Korean companies. Many of those agreements for K2 Black Panther tanks, self -propelled obuses K9 and multiple rocket launchers K239 Chunmoo have been broken down into sections. Since then, other agreements have continued with Norway, New Zealand, Thailand, Philippines, Romania and the United Kingdom.
More recently, Australia climbed on board with a $ 6,19 billion program to build 129 infantry fighting vehicles, many of them built in the Commonwealth country.
The administration of the South Korean acquisition program, Seok Jong-Gun, said the agreement with Poland was the progress to convince Western allies to consider a source other than traditional weapons manufacturers.
“Before the great contract signed with Poland, Korea’s reputation as a defense exporter was not so great,” News told CBC in a translated interview. “However, with the signing of a massive contract with Poland and throughout the process of implementing these contracts, many countries have discovered that Korea can provide quality products in a timely manner.”
Offers to help establish manufacturing and maintenance facilities have been key to obtaining agreements, Seok said.
Former President Yoon Suk Yeol had made the increase in country participation in defense exports a priority, to the point where South Korea seems to be on the way to being the fourth largest weapons manufacturer in the world by 2027.
“We have seen a large and dramatic increase in our export volume in the defense sector” in recent years, Seok said.
As is, the Canadian army faces a series of challenges, both abroad and in the country. He has struggled to form teams by force in Latvia, including modern weapons against the tank, the air defense systems and the technology of the Counter-Drone.
It also lacks mobile artillery and rocket -based artillery, which have been characteristics of the war between Ukraine and Russia.
The army currently has 47 capital projects on the march, Lieutenant-Gender. Mike Wright, the country’s best soldier, told CBC News in February.
“The army we have now is not the army we need for the future,” Wright said when asked if he was satisfied with the equipment of the troops in the NATO mission in Latvia.
An expert in defense said there is not much time to replace key systems.
Dave Perry, president of Canadian Global Affairs Institute, describes some of the main teams that the Canada military need to replace, update or add.
“We arrived here in several decades of governments kicking the can along the way, and I think we are at the point where we have run out of road,” said Dave Perry, president of Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “Our team is, in some cases, literally oxidizing.”
He said that Seoul’s proposal, regardless of whether it is not requested, deserves a serious consideration because it can fill some important emptiness quickly, an important consideration since we do not know what an industrial defense association with Europe will be like.
South Korea “is where some of our other allies have sought to quickly meet the ability delivery needs with great hurry. Poland is rebuilding its army largely with the support of South Korea,” said Perry.
“They already have a history to be able to provide large amounts of equipment in a very short time. The Canadian Armed Forces are at the point where we have really serious operational preparation deficiencies. We need to look for options that can meet at least some of our acquisition needs quickly.”
