[Baron von Kriterium]

You have to be careful citing the two costs in the NP article because the Canadian per/unit cost is over the entire life of the system. The US cost is the actual cost of the ship. That is, the Canadian cost includes all of the logistics, maintenance, ammunition, salaries, facilities upgrades, new facilities, software upgrades, etc, etc. Divide the number of ships by that total cost over the project's lifetime and you arrive at the Canadian unit cost. That's how Treasury Board accounts for these capital projects, which is not the same way the Americans do it.

There's a lot of blame to throw around and all parties deserve it. But I think it's the RCN that has to shoulder a lot of the blame because they keep adding to the wish list. The Government chose the 7000 tonne Type 26 design but the RCN wants the US 9000 tonne DDG-51 design. So RCN has managed to swap out many of the components from the original bid and seems to be successful (PSPC isn't saying "no") in swapping for components you will find on the DDG-51. The RCN is driving these changes, not Irving. Irving will build (perhaps poorly) whatever you tell them.

But BAE can't design, PSPC can't contract and Irving can't build while the RCN spends years treating ship architecture like an a la carte menu at a billion dollar restaurant.