Canada's submarines re-emerge as potent international force

They run silent and they run deep.

But, the problem with Canadian submarines being largely out-of-sight, out-of-mind and overshadowed by the army in Afghanistan is that Canadians can't connect with the notion that Canada's submarines have emerged as a potent force on the international stage.

Unfortunately, to date, the biggest news story involving Canada's four diesel-electric Victoria Class submarines -- taken over from the United Kingdom in a 1998 eight-year, lease-to-buy agreement -- was the October 2004 fire aboard HMCS Chicoutimi while in transit from Britain, killing one Canadian submariner and injuring nine others.

There is good reason why the lethal fire received the negative news coverage: a fire is one of the absolute worst things that could ever happen aboard a submarine and it did.

But, coupled with the mostly-unfair criticism they received for being acquired second-hand from the British, who launched them between 1990 and 1992, many likened them to used-car lemons.

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