Namesake ship won’t be moved to Brandon

The HMCS Brandon won’t be given a new home in Brandon after all, Mayor Jeff Fawcett has told the Sun.

The logistics and cost to transport the recently retired ship is too much for the city to handle, Fawcett said in a year-end interview on Monday.

The city will, however, be receiving some artifacts from His Majesty’s Canadian Ship, and a request for the navy to designate a future ship with the same name has been made, he said.

Conversations have also started on potentially getting a naval reserve base in the city.

Fawcett said the logistics and costs of getting the 55-metre Kingston-class vessel to Brandon through the Rocky Mountains was “just outrageous,” and would be in the tens of millions of dollars.

“It can’t be sailed, so it would have to be cut up and come from B.C.,” Fawcett said.

The ship was decommissioned at a ceremony in Esquimalt, B.C., in late September. In recent months, Fawcett and Brandon-Souris MP Grant Jackson have worked to find a way to bring the ship to the Wheat City.

Fawcett said that has resulted in the city receiving items of importance like the anchor and propeller. Costs of transporting those items, timelines and where they will be stored are still being figured out.

The bell is being kept by the Armed Forces to be displayed in museums, as is standard for ships.

Talks with high-ranking officials — including National Defence Minister David McGuinty and Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, the highest-ranking member of the navy — have gone well, Fawcett said.

Jackson said that the navy and defence officials were “quite happy” that the city was so keen on getting the ship and preserving its history.

Despite those positive conversations, Jackson said it became clear that getting the vessel to the city wasn’t feasible. That included a former plan of sailing it to Thunder Bay and then bringing it by land to Brandon, avoiding the Rockies.

“Defence department officials do not have confidence in sailing it on open seas through the Panama Canal up around (to Thunder Bay),” Jackson said on Tuesday.

While the ship is still floating in Esquimalt, its sailing life is over, he said.

He added that the “staggering” dollar-figure of going over the Rockies could be better spent elsewhere.

“The defence department quite rightly needs to be prioritizing their new defence spending on acquiring new infrastructure and equipment that makes our forces more capable to deal with the challenges of today and of the future,” Jackson said. “And that’s quite rightly where those tax dollars should be spent.”

Going through the process of trying to get the ship to the city was worth it, he said.

“It was probably always going to be a significant challenge to get a significantly sized naval warship completely intact to a Prairie city. But there was no reason why we shouldn’t ask the questions,” he said.

He said the Prairies, and the Brandon area, have a history of people joining the navy, and so having artifacts to preserve that is important.

Jackson said the request for a new ship to be named the HMCS Brandon — which would be the third naval vessel with that name — has gone to a federal committee.

“The mayor and I remain optimistic that in the future, there could be another HMCS Brandon serving Canada in the oceans of the world.”

Fawcett said the officials he spoke to about the naming were “very open to it.”

In an email to the Sun in late October, a spokesperson for the defence department said the government donating items to namesake cities makes it possible for them to be displayed as public art or an attraction for local museums.

“Iconic pieces capture the spirit and legacy of the vessel, making history accessible to the public in a sustainable way,” a spokesperson said.

“These contributions will allow the most meaningful artifacts to live on, while avoiding the long-term expenses of large-scale restoration and upkeep.”

Options for how the ship will be disposed of are being explored, “with careful attention paid to environmental, safety and financial considerations,” the email said.

Jackson said from his research, ships are often sold for parts, used for target practice by the navy or for artificial reefs. Some ships are also sold off, although that likely wouldn’t happen with HMCS Brandon as it can’t go on open water anymore.

The MP said he believes that no decision has yet been made.

The HMCS Brandon was originally commissioned in 1999. It was crewed mainly by reservists and served “a variety of national and international operations and exercises, including fisheries and sovereignty patrols,” according to the federal government’s website.

Additionally, defence officials asked Fawcett and Jackson if setting up a naval reserve base in Brandon would be something the city is interested in, Jackson said.

Jackson said he and the mayor are going to meet with officials at HMCS Chippawa in Winnipeg — the only current naval base in Manitoba — to see what the feasibility of a base in the Brandon area would be.

“We know that the navy and all of the Canadian Armed Forces are quite short of people. We need to ramp up recruitment,” Jackson said.

“If another reserve unit in the city of Brandon would be helpful to overall recruitment, it’s certainly something that the mayor and I think would be good for the city, and it’s also good for Canada.”

A request for further information from the department of defence sent Monday afternoon wasn’t returned by press time on Tuesday. A spokesperson cited delays in gathering information because of the holiday season as a reason, but added that there likely wouldn’t be much to add since the statement provided in October.

» alambert@brandonsun.com