Part 3/11:
Amidst this chaos, South Korea’s defense company, Hanoa, has stepped into the void. Hanoa is competing with a German-Norwegian consortium for the lucrative contract, promising to deliver the submarines faster—potentially by the end of the decade—at around $2 billion per unit. Their plan involves replacing all four existing boats by 2035 and increasing the fleet to 12 submarines by 2042.
Hanoa has signed over 30 Canadian companies to handle maintenance, aiming to keep the entire process within Canada but relying heavily on foreign manufacturing. This outsourcing is a clear sign of Canada’s diminished ability to produce critical defense hardware domestically—an outcome of years of neglect in maintaining its defense industry.