Business

CDR: Mr. McCarthy, thank you for joining me. You’re relatively new to the role of CEO at Seaspan, so what do you feel you can bring to the shipyard that will enable success? 

John McCarthy: I have now been at Seaspan Shipyards in a senior leadership role for four and a half years and have been intimately involved in the business, so this is a very natural transition. When you look at my background, I have 37 years in shipbuilding, eight of those in Canada and nearly three decades in the US and international yards building surface combatants. 

As we have seen in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, there has been a combination of the traditional and the new in both tactics and technologies. While primarily a land and air conflict there is no doubt that international concern about naval security is growing. With submarines as a known force multiplier, their numbers have been increasing in navies large and small around the world.

The National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) is a long-term, multibillion-dollar program to renew the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Canadian Coast Guard fleets. Announced in 2010, the strategy is meant to provide economic benefits to Canadians while revitalizing Canada’s marine industry.

The Government of Canada’s newly released Indo-Pacific strategy offers a remarkably frank assessment of the evolving security environment in calling out China’s “rapid and dramatic modernization of the People’s Liberation Army, including its offensive technological capabilities and geographic reach” and North Korea’s, “increasingly frequent and reckless testing of missiles.” 

For CDR’s annual DEOY feature, we asked Ottawa Bureau Chief, James Careless, to profile this seasoned executive.

CDR recently sent Ottawa Bureau Chief, James Careless, to sit down with Canada’s Minister of National Defence, Anita Anand, for an exclusive interview on the CDR Radio Podcast.

Prelude to Crimea 2.0 or a Larger Strategic Campaign?