“When we arrived, we had an excellent opportunity to have a number of briefings after going to Yad Vashem. To go from a Holocaust memorial straight to the Naval Headquarters where I had the opportunity to review an honor guard was a very humbling opportunity,” Lloyd told the Post.According to Lloyd the discussion with his Israeli counterparts focused on future opportunities and where the two navies can work together.“We came to an agreement that our planning staff will get together and we will look at opportunities in 2019 to conduct operations together,” Lloyd said, adding that it could be anything from a Canadian frigate operating with an Israeli submarine to clearance divers, boarding operations and a number of other joint drills.“Let’s start small; success begets success and then we can continue to conduct operations, exercises and training from that perspective,” he said. THE HMCS Ville de Quebec, commanded by Commander Scott Robinson, left Halifax in July and has been at sea since then to support NATO’s assurance and deterrence measures in Central and Eastern Europe in Operation Reassurance of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2.The Standing NATO Maritime Groups (SNMG) are a multinational, integrated maritime force made up of vessels from various allied countries that help to establish a NATO presence, demonstrate solidarity and conduct routine diplomatic visits to different countries.“We are delighted not only to host the HMCS Ville de Quebec here in Israel, but also that the commanders of the Navy and Air Force in Canada are able to participate in this visit,” Canada’s Deputy Head of Mission Anthony Hinton told the Post on Thursday during a visit to the warship.
“This visit is a demonstration, overall, of the great military-to-military cooperation and ties that Canada and Israel have and the ties we have more broadly, government-to-government and people-to-people,” he added. Also on board the ship on Thursday was 94-year-old Maurice Lobe, who fought with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II before he moved to Israel to join the Palmah and fight in Israel’s War of Independence in the battles for Latrun and Ramat Rachel.“It’s such a privilege to be here,” he told the Post. “I’m in my 90s and been through both wars – and to be a Jew living in Israel, to be afforded this opportunity to be welcomed onto this ship, it’s amazing. It’s an honor to have been singled out to represent Canadians living in Israel. We have such a close relationship between our two countries.”