The Canadian Defence Minister, Bill Graham, has said he has not ruled out the possibility of suing the British Ministry of Defence over the purchase of four secondhand submarines.
A Canadian board of inquiry has convened in Scotland to investigate the cause of last week's fire off the Co Mayo coast on one of the boats, the HMCS Chicoutimi, in which an officer was killed and two others were injured.
Mr Graham was speaking in Glasgow after visiting the Chicoutimi at a navy base in Faslane, where it arrived back yesterday after being towed from the north Atlantic.
He said the fire had damaged the submarine to an unimaginable degree.
The Chicoutimi and three other submarines were sold to Canada by the Royal Navy in 1998.
The blaze, which broke out on board the submarine on Tuesday, is suspected to have been caused by an electrical fault.
