Canada gets green light to buy King Air surveillance aircraft

On the same subject

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  December 27, 2018 | Local, Naval

  Feds, Irving ask trade tribunal to toss challenge to warship contract

  By Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press — Dec 25 2018 OTTAWA — The federal government and Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding are asking a trade tribunal to throw out a challenge to their handling of a high-stakes competition to design the navy's new $60-billion fleet of warships. In separate submissions to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, the federal procurement department and Irving say the challenge filed by Alion Science and Technology of Virginia does not meet the requirements for a tribunal hearing. Alion was one of three companies, along with U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin and Spanish firm Navantia, vying to design the new warships, which are to be built by Irving and serve as the navy's backbone for most of this century. While Lockheed was selected as the preferred bidder and is negotiating a final design contract with the government and Irving, Alion alleges the company's design did not meet the navy's requirements and should have been disqualified. Two of those requirements related to the ship's speed, Alion alleged, while the third related to the number of crew berths. Alion has asked both the trade tribunal and the Federal Court to stop any deal with Lockheed. But the government and Irving say the contract is exempt from normal trade laws, which the tribunal is charged with enforcing, because of a special "national security exception," meaning there is "no jurisdiction for the tribunal to conduct an inquiry." Another reason the challenge should be quashed, they argue, is that Alion is not a Canadian company, which is a requirement for being able to ask the tribunal to consider a complaint. Alion's challenge has been formally filed by its Canadian subsidiary, but the government and Irving say that subsidiary was never actually qualified to be a bidder in the competition — only its American parent. The responses from the government and Irving are the latest twist in the largest military purchase in Canadian history, which will see 15 new warships built to replace the navy's 12 aging Halifax-class frigates and three already-retired Iroquois-class destroyers. The trade tribunal ordered the government last month not to award a final contract to Lockheed until it had investigated Alion's complaint, but rescinded the order after a senior procurement official warned that the deal was "urgent." The procurement department has not explained why the deal is urgent. Lockheed's bid was contentious from the moment the design competition was launched in October 2016. The federal government had originally said it wanted a "mature design" for its new warship fleet, which was widely interpreted as meaning a vessel that has already been built and used by another navy. But the first Type 26 frigates, upon which Lockheed's proposal was based, are only now being built by the British government and the design has not yet been tested in full operation. There were also complaints from industry that the deck was stacked in the Type 26's favour because of Irving's connections with British shipbuilder BAE, which originally designed the Type 26 and partnered with Lockheed to offer the ship to Canada. Irving, which worked with the federal government to pick the top design, also partnered with BAE in 2016 on an ultimately unsuccessful bid to maintain the navy's new Arctic patrol vessels and supply ships. That 35-year contract ended up going to another company. Irving and the federal government have repeatedly rejected such complaints, saying they conducted numerous consultations with industry and used a variety of firewalls and safeguards to ensure the choice was completely fair. But industry insiders had long warned that Lockheed's selection as the top bidder, combined with numerous changes to the requirements and competition terms after it was launched — including a number of deadline extensions — would spark lawsuits. Government officials acknowledged last month the threat of legal action, which has become a favourite tactic for companies that lose defence contracts, but expressed confidence that they would be able to defend against such an attack. —Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter. Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2018/12/25/feds-irving-ask-trade-tribunal-to-toss-challenge-to-warship-contract-2/#.XCT7OFxKjIU

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  November 23, 2023 | Local, Aerospace

  Canadian Space Agency assignment focuses on Artemis II readiness - Skies Mag

  The Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut assignment matrix received a mission-oriented update on Nov. 22, centred around two astronauts.

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  January 8, 2021 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  Poor IT support hurting Canadian military operations, internal review finds

  Lee Berthiaume The Canadian Press OTTAWA -- An internal Defence Department report has warned that Canadian Armed Forces operations and security may be at risk due to major problems with how the military's computer networks are built and supported. The report follows a review of the Defence Department's information management and technology systems, which are described as "critical" to the success of Canadian military operations and training. That review uncovered a patchwork of IT systems across the Defence Department and Armed Forces that was not only inefficient and expensive to maintain, but also often out-of-date and poorly supported. The brunt of the report's criticism is directed at the technical support provided to the military by another federal entity, Shared Services Canada, the agency that took over management of most federal networks in August 2011. Nearly all defence and military officials who participated in the review were upset by the amount of time it took Shared Services to respond to requests for help, according to the report. In some instances, those delays harmed operations. The report cited one instance in which an email server that went down during an unspecified domestic mission couldn't be fixed right away because it was a weekend and Shared Services did not have staff on call. The reviewers also found that a quarter of requests for assistance made to Shared Services remained unresolved after six months, and the agency did not have anybody in Europe to help the hundreds of Canadian troops posted there. While the problems were partly attributed to a lack of appropriate IT resources and staff, the report also flagged the lack of an agreement between the Defence Department and Shared Services establishing clear expectations for network support. Without such an agreement, the report, defence and military officials believed Shared Services not only didn't understand their needs but also wasn't required to respond quickly, "which led to putting clients at great risk on a number of fronts, including security." Delays in tech support weren't the only point of contention between the Defence Department and Shared Services, with the latter upsetting the navy by requiring the removal of equipment that had increased bandwidth on warships. Shared Services also stopped supporting some older intelligence systems while they were still being used by the air force, army and navy, according to the report recently published on the Defence Department website. Defence Department spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier on Monday described the review as a "valuable tool" for improving IT support even as he defended the department's relationship with Shared Services Canada. "We have a good working relationship with Shared Services Canada and the two departments continue to work collaboratively to ensure the appropriate and timely delivery of IT services to DND/CAF," he said. "We are also reviewing our relationship with Shared Services Canada with a focus on improving the service delivery model to help better support the department and the Canadian Armed Forces." The internal report also took aim at the military's troubled procurement system, which was found to deliver IT equipment with inadequate or out-of-date technology. Poor planning was partly to blame but the report also blamed onerous levels of oversight. While that oversight was described as the result of cost overruns and delays on past IT projects, the report said that it nonetheless created new problems in delivering modern equipment. "The complex processes associated with the capital projects and procurement are very slow and cumbersome," according to the report. "The process cannot keep up with the rate of change of technology." Those delays -- and their potential impact on operations -- were also cited as a major reason for why a patchwork of IT systems and programs now cover different parts of the Defence Department and military. While that patchwork might serve the day-to-day needs of the military, it was also found to be inefficient and expensive. To that end, the reviewers could not pinpoint exactly how much was being spent by the Defence Department and military on IT services and support every year, but estimated it at more than $700 million. In response to the report, senior officials told reviewers that they were looking at ways to better calculate annual spending on IT and address the problems that have contributed to the creation of so many systems in the first place. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 4, 2021. https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poor-it-support-hurting-canadian-military-operations-internal-review-finds-1.5253148