Pubdate: Tue, 21 May 2013
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2013 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://thechronicleherald.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Tim Dunne
Note: Tim Dunne is a Halifax-based communications consultant and military
affairs writer.

HMCS TORONTO'S MISSION MISUNDERSTOOD

There are some columnists, correspondents and commentators I call 
RAVEs - reporters against virtually everything - who believe that 
Canada's engagement in international operations is a waste of tax 
dollars. Operations such as the RCN's participation in the 28-nation 
Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), they say, are unnecessary and expensive.

Canada's current contribution to the CMF, named Operation Artemis, is 
Halifax-based frigate HMCS Toronto. Since March 29, the ship has made 
three major drug busts, totalling almost 1,000 kilograms of heroin, 
in an area of the world internationally recognized as one where drug 
revenues contribute to terrorism.

The RAVEs tell us there is no proof these narcotics have anything to 
do with terrorism. However, CMF leadership disagrees. "The 
destruction of this cargo strikes at the financial heart of global 
terrorist organizations," says the Royal Australian Navy's Commodore 
Charles McHardie.

Illegal narcotics have other impacts. "Heroin, cocaine and other 
drugs continue to kill around 200,000 people a year, shattering 
families and bringing misery to thousands of other people, insecurity 
and the spread of HIV," Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN 
Office on Drugs and Crime, told the UN General Assembly last June.

This office reports that production, trafficking and sales of illicit 
drugs is a $400-billion-a-year industry. In its 2012 annual report, 
it says that $200 billion to $250 billion US could be needed for drug 
treatment, and an equivalent cost in productivity losses resulting 
from illicit drug use.

Removing these drugs from the global narcotic marketplace performs a 
service for Canada and the world.

HMCS Toronto is part of a responsive international force providing 
maritime security in an area where freedom of the seas is critical to 
international trade. The U.S. Energy Information Administration 
reports that the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, is the world's most 
important petroleum transit choke point, through which 16 million 
barrels of crude oil, 35 per cent of the world's petroleum supply 
transported by sea, pass each day.

The Indian Ocean and its major maritime choke points - the straits of 
Malacca, Sunda and Lombok - are also increasingly critical gateways 
for energy, manufactured goods and produce between the Indian Ocean 
and the South China Sea.

Much of the manufactured goods that Canadians purchase pass through 
here. The Baltic and International Maritime Council estimates that if 
maritime piracy off Africa's east coast and in the Gulf of Oman 
forces mercantile shipping to abandon the Suez Canal and head south, 
around the Cape of Good Hope, it will add at least 5,600 kilometres 
to shipping times, increasing fuel costs and salaries for each 
shipment, which will be passed to the consumer.

The deployment of HMCS Toronto and her predecessors places a Canadian 
warship in an area where the RCN can flexibly respond to any number 
of missions across a broad spectrum of potential operations, 
including humanitarian assistance, counter-terrorism, regional 
military engagement, and international diplomacy.

HMCS Ville de Quebec, in 2008, was the naval escort for 10 ships 
contracted by the UN World Food Program when these ships were the 
targets of pirates. This Canadian warship ensured the safety of these 
ships as they delivered 36 million kilograms of food aid to Somalia, 
enough to feed 400,000 people for six months.

Naval deployments such as Operation Artemis have other benefits. 
Seamanship, like all other professions, is not a natural skill, but 
one that is learned, honed and perfected. The more time our naval 
personnel are at sea practising their profession, the more capable 
they become, and the better they are at defending Canada's 
international interests.

This is a lesson that Great Britain learned in the 17th century that 
allowed her survival and sovereignty, and protected her status as a 
trading nation.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom