CANADIAN SHIPBUILDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1943, Page 6

CANADIAN SHIPBUILDING

4 INDUSTRY’S VAST EXPANSION. 300 COMBAT SHIPS LAUNCHED. OTTAWA. Ranking Canada as one of the world’s foremost shipbuilding nations, the Hon. C. D. Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply, announced recently that the Dominion’s ship construction programme increased in value by 20' per cent during the past three months, and he now envisaged an estimated expenditure of 900,000,000 dollars. Since the beginning of the war, Canada has launched nearly 300 combat ships, including corvettes, minesweepers, patrol boats, base ships and other vessels, and scores of cargo vessels have slipped down the ways. In addition, approximately 1,100 smaller craft, ranging from lifeboats to motor torpedo boats, have been launched, and more than 2,000 are still under construction.

The cargo vessel construction programme envisages the building of nearly 300 10,000-ton merchant vessels at a cost of approximately 600,000,000 dollars. More than 70 of these have already been delivered. The small boat programme involves an expenditure of some 13,000.000 dollars, and it is now approximately 75 per cent complete. In addition. 90 yachts and motor boats have been purchased, and 20 smaller craft have been chartered by the shipbuilding branch of the department. The purchase of these craft and the conversion of other ships for use in the transport of essential materials to theatres of war have absorbed another 8,000,000 dollars. Progress is well advanced on the construction of two destroyers of the Tribal class. Under the direction of the Controller of Ship Repairs and Salvage, extensive facilities for ship repairs have been provided at an approximate cost of 6,000.000 dollars. These facilities include a floating dry dock, new docking space, and additional machine shop buildings, and tools for repair work. Canada’s shipbuilding programme is being carried out in 21 major shipyards and 53 smaller boatyards located on the cast and west coasts, the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. The personnel of Canadian shipyards has grown to more than 50,000 workers, an increasing number of whom are women.