The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) is taking the first tangible steps toward building a fleet of new warships, with plans to add up to 20 cutting-edge vessels at an estimated cost of $3.66 billion. The military told defense industry officials at an April 9, 2026, briefing in Ottawa that a request for information will be issued for the continental defense corvette.
The corvettes will be designed as homeland defense warships that can patrol and protect Canadian waters, all the way up to the Arctic ice edge, the Ottawa Citizen reported. The program is expected to adhere strictly to a “made-in-Canada” strategy, with Canadian shipyards, steel and technology leading the way.
Plans for a new fleet of corvettes have been around for years, but Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call to spend $366 billion on defense over the next decade has encouraged the RCN to proceed with the project.
The new vessels are expected to replace the Kingston-class maritime coastal defense vessels, consisting of 12 ships commissioned in the mid-1990s. Those are scheduled to retire from service by the end of 2028.
The Kingston-class fleet has served mostly in coastal patrol, mine countermeasures and training. But RCN leaders have argued that a mightier replacement is needed to address increasing threats in the Arctic and potential hybrid warfare.
So, continental defense corvettes will be heavily armed. “They’ll have the fight of the Halifax class,” Vice Adm. Angus Topshee told the Chronicle Herald newspaper in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in January.
The RCN’s Halifax-class frigates have an array of anti-ship, anti-air and anti-submarine weapons. The corvettes — at roughly 100 meters long — also must have a range of 7,000 nautical miles and be able to patrol for 30 days, defense companies were told.
Continental defense corvettes are viewed as a means to free up the RCN’s new River-class destroyers as well. The corvettes would allow the destroyers to focus on high-end threats, missile defense and overseas deployments, industry officials were told.
It is unclear when the RCN request for information will be released to defense companies. Topshee said he wants the first corvette to be produced and in the water quickly. “My heart tells me I need it in five years,” he told the Chronicle Herald.
At the April 9 briefing for defense industry officials, the RCN said it didn’t expect the contract for the corvettes to be awarded until 2030 and the first ship to be fully operational until 2039. But RCN officers said the schedule could be moved up if Canadian companies say they can build the ships faster, the Ottawa Citizen reported.