On February 3, 2025, APF Canada was pleased to host Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, 38th Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, for a discussion on some of the critical maritime challenges and strategic imperatives facing Canada in the 21st century. After delivering opening remarks, the Vice-Admiral engaged in a conversation with APF Canada’s Vice-President Research & Strategy Vina Nadjibulla, before taking questions from the audience. Highlights from the discussion are summarized below.
Vice-Admiral Topshee emphasized the vital importance of maintaining a strong rules-based international order for Canada’s security and prosperity. This rules-based order has played a critical role in raising living standards worldwide by enabling trade, much of which is carried by sea.
In doing its part to uphold this rules-based order, Canada’s navy is now globally deployed, including to the Indo-Pacific. In the past, Canada’s defence presence in that region was inconsistent, but the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) has freed up resources, allowing Ottawa to have a Canadian ship permanently deployed in the Indo-Pacific theatre. This newfound consistency not only allows Canada to monitor significant developments in the maritime space but also demonstrates that Canada is in fact a Pacific nation.
Nevertheless, the Vice-Admiral acknowledged serious questions about shortfalls in the physical capacity of Canada’s military. The Pacific is a vast ocean, and the Indo-Pacific region is a surface-combatant theatre. Canada has only 12 frigates, all of which were commissioned for a 30-year lifespan between 1992 and 1996 but need to remain operational while Ottawa completes the construction of new ships, which are not expected to be finished until the early 2030s at the earliest.
Ms. Nadjibulla referred to recent reporting by The Economist that showed China is now producing 50 per cent of all ships and doing so at a rapid pace. What, she asked, might Canada be able to contribute, especially given that, for Canada, deploying to the Pacific requires a lot more resources and capacity than deploying to the Atlantic? The Vice-Admiral pointed out that even the U.S. is struggling to build ships at sufficient speed. Canada, meanwhile, is investing with precision and deliberation but faces serious questions about scale.
Some of Canada’s new naval capacity will, of course, need to be focused on the Arctic. While the Northwest Passage is not likely to become a viable commercial route, even with warming temperatures, the area will become more accessible and will attract growing interest from foreign actors, notably China, in the mineral resources and fishing stock. Legally speaking, Vice-Admiral Topshee remarked, this is not necessarily a threat to Canadian sovereignty; even if Canada loses the argument that the Northwest Passage is an international strait, Article 234 of UNCLOS gives Canada the right to regulate traffic in that area.
More concerning is an area of the high seas that lies beyond the 200-mile nautical limit and thus may become a site of international competition. As temperatures rise, fish are migrating northward, and fishing fleets will follow. Although there is currently a moratorium on fishing in some of those areas, that moratorium may not hold. Moreover, countries in the ‘Global South,’ many of whom are concerned about food security, will question why only Arctic nations should have exclusive access to those resources.
In this regard, China’s actions are worth watching. The Vice-Admiral noted that whenever a Chinese ship enters Canadian waters, it always complies with the legal obligation to request permission to do so. But there may be other motives underlying this behaviour: Beijing may be trying to establish a precedent of obligating others to request China’s permission when entering ‘their’ waters, including in the South China Sea. As Vice-Admiral Topshee pointed out, Canada does not necessarily agree with how Beijing interprets the ‘rules’ governing those areas.
Another challenge is that while the Canadian military can observe changes in others’ physical capabilities, it is much more difficult to discern intentions. For instance, China’s military has undertaken a massive peacetime build-up, and it is unclear what the purpose of this build-up is. Thus far, the indicators seem to be pointing in different directions. On the one hand, China’s coercive actions around the Second Thomas Shoal in the West Philippine Sea are troubling, as is its aggression in the waters around Taiwan. On the other hand, China has contributed positively through an anti-piracy mission around the Horn of Africa.
Vice-Admiral Topshee mentioned that at a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in April 2024, Canada and China referenced similar principles, such as the importance of keeping the seas open for everyone to engage in commerce. The divergence is in how different parties interpret those principles. That is why regular dialogue is so important — to get a better sense of what our counterparts are thinking.
Ms. Nadjibulla proposed that Canada needs a fundamental rethink of its foreign policy — including our assumptions about the U.S. That rethink should focus on an overall global strategy, recognition that the world has changed, and that Canada might need to develop new kinds of capabilities to respond to those changes. The Vice-Admiral agreed that Canada needs to have sophisticated discussions about these topics and trends.
• Edited by Vina Nadjibulla, Vice-President Research & Strategy, and Ted Fraser, Senior Editor, APF Canada.
