Deploying with Brits instead of U.S. ‘just a happy coincidence’

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It was a departure in two ways.

The Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec slipped out of Halifax Monday morning to join a United Kingdom carrier strike group on a seven-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific. Canadian warships regularly integrate with American carrier strike groups, but officials and military watchers insisted Monday the decision to sail with the Brits instead this time was a year or more in the planning and has nothing to do with U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent ramblings about making Canada the 51st state.

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“This is just a happy coincidence,” said Ken Hansen, a military analyst and former navy commander.

It’s “also a bit of a symbolic change,” he said.

“The government is talking about disconnecting or decoupling the diplomatic and economic aspects of our network with the Americans and now you could view it symbolically as just more of the same in a military way,” Hansen said. “We’ll never be able to decouple completely from the United States military for the role that we play in continental security and safety of our shipping and ports, but for this kind of thing, where they’re deploying to a foreign theatre, you can easily hook up with the Brits or the French or anybody you choose to because the NATO alliance makes all of that possible.”

Canadian warships frequently operate with U.S. Navy carrier strike groups and it’s rare that they join Royal Navy formations except when they happen to be sailing in the same waters, according to Paul Mitchell, a professor at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.

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But he doubts Canada decided to sail with the Brits instead this time because of Trump’s tough talk.

“Ship deployments are typically planned long in advance. Engagements with foreign task groups especially so,” Mitchell said.

And while last month’s Halifax visit by a French nuclear-powered submarine drew lots of eyeballs as Trump raised the temperature on Canada, that, too, would have been “planned well in advance,” Mitchell said.

“Bottom line: while timely, none of this was likely timed to coincide with recent events,” he said.

The frigate’s skipper is keen to be sailing with the Brits.

“This an excellent opportunity because now that the U.K. has their two carriers that they alternate for their deployments, I’ve had the opportunity to go over to their headquarters, meet with the command teams and the carrier task group commander,” said Cmdr. Peter MacNeil. “We’re being more than just interoperable, but being integrated into the carrier strike group.”

MacNeil didn’t want wade into Trump’s talk about taking over Canada.

“The best thing I can do is to keep this crew safe, conduct the operations to the best of my ability and my training after 20 plus years in the service,” he said. “I don’t have a political opinion; I carry out my orders.”

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Ville de Quebec’s journey will circumnavigate the globe, taking its 242 sailors across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, over into the South China Sea around the Pacific and back to the Atlantic, via the Panama Canal, then home to Nova Scotia.

The frigate will spend most of the deployment with a multinational naval force, led by HMS Prince of Wales, a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier.

“It’s the first time this ship has specifically deployed to the Indo-Pacific,” MacNeil said of Ville de Quebec. “So that’s very exciting for us and a key milestone.”

The routing and who the Canadian warship would be operating with “was solidified” over the last year, MacNeil said.

The journey will include a lot of war games.

“We’re going to conduct anti-submarine warfare serials, lots of exercises, training,” MacNeil said. “Being with the carrier, we have an opportunity to do lots of live tracking with live aircraft.”

There’s “always an inherent risk” involved in naval deployments, he said. “It could be anything from an incident within the ship where a piece of equipment fails to, perhaps, something emerges internationally.”

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For the next three weeks, sea training experts wearing red caps will put the ship’s crew through their paces “to give us some surprises, see how we react and let us enhance our standard operating procedures and how we’re going to deal with tactics in an emerging environment,” MacNeil said.

“Then we’ll be as ready as we can be should anything erupt worldwide.”

The Stadacona Band played Heart of Oak as Ville de Quebec left the dock, even though the navy is steering away from the naval march because the centuries-old anthem contains references to colonialism and slavery, and doesn’t represent everyone who wears the uniform, including women and Francophones. But the band also delved into more modern fare as families got one last chance to blow their sailors a kiss, including jaunty takes on the Spice Girls’ Stop and Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call me maybe.

Janet Whalen was at the dock to wave goodbye to her son, Bradley, a cook on Ville de Quebec.

Was she happier that he’s sailing with the Brits than the Americans? “Never really thought of it actually,” Whalen said. “But, at the moment, yes…. Just the way things are right now. It’s crazy.”

Carl McWilliams was on the pier in Halifax to send off his stepson, Nicholas Soucy.

“Right now, I’d rather British than American, absolutely,” McWilliams said of Ville de Quebec’s aircraft carrying dance partner for this deployment.

“I was in the navy. So, I myself would rather be sailing with the Brits right now,” he said. “It’s a good wake-up call for us.”

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