Standing aboard the deck of a ship in Halifax Thursday morning, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced major upgrades to Canada's fleet of 12 Halifax-class frigates.
Harper, flanked by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay and Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, said the $3.1 billion project will begin in 2010, and the work will be done by Canadian shipyards.
He said the ships have proven their value to Canada time and time again in peacekeeping efforts around the world, disaster relief, maintaining Arctic sovereignty and protecting Canada's coasts.
"Today we are announcing our intention to proceed with a refit of the entire Halifax-class fleet," Harper said from the deck of the frigate HMCS Halifax.
"New updated equipment will make these ships stronger, safer and better able to do all that we ask them to do. They are the backbone of the Canadian navy so by upgrading them we are making the entire navy stronger."
From Halifax, Harper was set to head to Saskatchewan where he is expected to announce a $1.5-billion program for biofuels, The Globe and Mail reports.
Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald and Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert are both at odds with the federal government, claiming the March 19 budget breaks a key promise to exclude non-renewable natural resources from the formula used to calculate equalization payments to the provinces.
Neither MacDonald nor Calvert were scheduled to be in the cities where Harper was making the announcements, and both said they had not received details about the announcements or formal invitations to attend.
But Harper said the two levels of government rarely expect to be included in each other's announcements, so it shouldn't come as a surprise.
MacDonald told reporters on Wednesday that he would be very disappointed if Harper planned to make a good news announcement for his province without having given him any prior notice about it.
"If it's good news for Nova Scotia, I'm quite surprised that I would not be aware," MacDonald said in Bridgewater, N.S.
Harper and MacDonald have been feuding over the budget's handling of offshore oil resources. MacDonald claims the prime minister has broken his promise not to claw back the province's offshore energy sector when calculating equalization payments.
MacDonald, along with Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, claims the move negated the Atlantic accords which were signed in 2005, and intended to protect them from clawbacks to equalization.
MacDonald was in Truro Thursday while the prime minister was an hour away in Halifax.
"There's no better place I'd rather be," MacDonald joked to reporters, referring to the strained relations between the two leaders.
In Saskatchewan, Harper is expected to make another spending announcement at a grain terminal in the south-central part of the province near the Gardiner Dam close to Strongfield.
The announcement will likely focus on biofuels. The government pledged in the budget to provide $1.5 billion over seven years in incentives for producers to move towards renewable alternatives to gasoline and diesel, such as ethanol and biodiesel.
Tensions have been high between Ottawa and Saskatchewan since Calvert asked the courts whether the budget -- and its treatment of natural resources -- is legally sound.
Calvert, who will be in Iqaluit meeting with other Western premiers when the announcement is made, says his province will lose $800 million each year under the new equalization formula.
He said he has also been left completely out of the loop about the Thursday announcement.
"I am surprised to learn of his visit via The Globe and Mail," Calvert told The Globe by telephone on Wednesday.
"I am not even sure what the announcement is - if it is something new or a reannouncement of monies in the federal budget. All I can gather is that it has some relationship to biofuels."
