Canada Navy HMCS Whitehorse Retired

HMCS Whitehorse (MM 705) was paid off at Esquimalt, British Columbia on 29 September 2025, one of eight Kingston-class maritime coastal defence vessels retired by the Royal Canadian Navy in the autumn of 2025. Commissioned in 1998, the 970-tonne ship spent her career on coastal surveillance and sovereignty patrols, route survey and mine countermeasures work, counter-narcotics deployments in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, and multinational exercises. National Defence announced the drawdown in July 2025 as part of a fleet modernisation that concentrates crews on the Harry DeWolf-class Arctic offshore patrol vessels and the future River-class destroyers. Four of the twelve ships remain in service, with the last two due to pay off in 2028.