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October 18, 2022 | Local, Other Defence

Canada's 'tenuous hold' in Arctic could be challenged by Russia, China, says top soldier | CBC News

Canada’s hold on the outer reaches of its Arctic territory is “tenuous” and will face significant challenges from both Russia and China in the future, the country’s top military commander warned a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wayne-eyre-arctic-russia-china-defence-1.6621040

On the same subject

  • Military Procurement: What the New Cabinet Can Learn From Australia

    November 19, 2019 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Military Procurement: What the New Cabinet Can Learn From Australia

    By Lee Harding The Liberal government announced its new cabinet on Nov. 20—the very same day the Canadian Global Affairs Institute hosted its annual event on the topic of military procurement. Given that an overhaul in that area is sorely needed, Canada can learn a lot from Australia, Ian Mack wrote in a recent report for the institute. Mack is uniquely qualified to make that assessment, having worked with both governments in their process of awarding contracts for military sea vessels. While he believes both countries had an acceptable result, his report, titled “Another Way to Buy Frigates,” suggests the Canadian approach adds work, balloons costs, and delays success. The re-elected Trudeau government should take note. The Liberals proposed significant changes to Canada's defence procurement system during the election campaign, but it will be a tall order to change this process. The land down under is isolated in a less secure part of the globe, without a nearby superpower like the United States to watch its back. So if Australia is far more diligent about defence than Canada, it might be due to necessity. The last time Canada had a proper and comprehensive white paper on defence was 1994. Australia has had three in the 21st century. Australia's effectiveness goes from the top down, something Canada knows nothing of. As Mack explains, “Canada, uniquely among its allies, has multiple government departments and central agencies significantly involved in the minutiae of its major military procurement projects.” These include Defence; Treasury Board; Finance; Public Services and Procurement; Justice; Innovation, Science and Economic Development—and even more. Meanwhile in Australia, the minister of defence is responsible for all aspects of navy shipbuilding. This includes setting operational and technical requirements, securing funds, developing a plan to benefit domestic industries, and satisfying the legal aspects of procurement. Each country had a project management office of roughly the same size, but Canada's was, frankly, less competent. Australia's office had many knowledgeable contractors working alongside the Department of Defence, whereas Canada's team had many from the public service and armed forces with “little or no applicable experience or knowledge,” according to Mack. “In Canada, significant effort was expended on regular reporting to layers of senior governance,” he says in the report. But it was paperwork and process for its own sake, and impractical in its effect. “Despite the onerous reporting demands, only a few key decisions were rendered and rarely in a timely manner. The opposite was the case in Australia.” In seemingly every aspect of development, Canada made things rigid, complicated, and fragmented, while Australia made them flexible, cohesive, and collaborative. Canada made stand-alone contracts for each sequence of the process. Australia worked with contractors to establish “end-to-end accountability.” Canada's initial request for proposal included hundreds of technical requirements that bidders had to prove. Australia had few mandatory requirements, but worked alongside bidders to explore their respective proposed solutions. In Canada, the intellectual property, liabilities, and insurance requirements were debated at length and only decided hours before the request for proposal was made. Hundreds of criteria got a numerical score, and the sum of all scores won the bid. Canada was “preoccupied” about a public appearance of fairness and avoiding lawsuits. (Nevertheless, the controversy over former Vice-Admiral Mark Norman and complaints from Irving Shipbuilding over the bid for a navy supply vessel shows it failed at this.) Shipbuilders bidding in Australia were confident of a fair system without any of those things. The department did not announce its evaluation criteria, nor was the evaluation report the only factor. Instead, the department stated its objectives and worked collaboratively with three potential bidders in their respective approaches. In Mack's words, this left “the competition to be more about assessing apples, oranges, and bananas” than about tallying up numerical scores. Mack says he could not make the Canadian system work like Australia's because the procurement, request for proposals, and resulting contracts were done outside of the Department of National Defence. At the time, he was “simply unaware of the intricacies of the Australian approach” because he hadn't yet been exposed to it. Regardless, he had already surmised that Canadian bureaucrats “did not want changes to their tried and true ways of doing business” and clung to “adherence to prescriptive and traditional methodologies.” https://www.theepochtimes.com/military-procurement-what-the-new-cabinet-can-learn-from-australia_3150065.html

  • Canada announces Lockheed as top-ranked bidder for future fighter, begins negotiations for F-35 - Skies Mag

    March 30, 2022 | Local, Aerospace

    Canada announces Lockheed as top-ranked bidder for future fighter, begins negotiations for F-35 - Skies Mag

    Negotiations could begin as early as this week between the Canadian government and Lockheed Martin for the acquisition of 88 F-35A Lightning II fighter jets.

  • Canada’s air medical transport providers say collaboration, communication are keys to pandemic response

    April 22, 2020 | Local, C4ISR, Security

    Canada’s air medical transport providers say collaboration, communication are keys to pandemic response

    Posted on April 22, 2020 by Lisa Gordon As news of the novel coronavirus – first identified in Wuhan, China in late December – began to percolate its way through the mainstream news media, a few staff members at Ornge, Ontario's air medical transport provider, began to take notice. “It piqued our interest quite early on, since many of us had been through SARS [in 2003],” said Justin Smith, chief flight paramedic. “We began to figure out what PPE we had and what would be required to move forward.” Canada's first case of the novel coronavirus, later named COVID-19, was reported on Jan. 15, 2020. Subsequent cases occurred gradually through the end of February, all among travellers who had returned to Canada from countries affected by the virus. The number of Canadian cases increased sharply in March, and that's when Ornge activated its pandemic plan. Smith was outlining the organization's response during a webinar hosted by the Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) on April 21. Moderated by association president and CEO, Cameron Curtis, the discussion was billed as a town hall meeting focused on the Canadian air medical community's pandemic response. In addition to Ornge, representatives from Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service (STARS) and B.C. Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) participated in the panel. Ornge, which operates 13 bases across Ontario with a mix of rotary, fixed-wing and land-based patient transport assets, has so far moved 209 confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients. Overall, 57 per cent were moved with land vehicles, 24 per cent with the Pilatus PC-12 fixed-wing fleet and 19 per cent with its Leonardo AW139 helicopters. So far, the total number of missions Ornge is performing has dropped by about 35 to 45 per cent across the board. Medical director Dr. Michael Peddle attributed that decrease to the cancellation of non-urgent elective procedure transports as well as about a 10 per cent decline in urgent cases compared to last year. Communication has been critical to developing Ornge's pandemic response. Smith said a joint clinical/operational committee has been formed and meets daily to tackle questions that come up about personal protective equipment (PPE), for example, or the way paramedics carry out clinical procedures. Added Peddle: “We discuss active challenges within the fleet. We write operations clinical guidelines – a living document for all frontline staff including aviation AMEs [aircraft maintenance engineers] and paramedics. It outlines operational management processes, PPE, decontamination etc. One of the things we've found very important is communication with frontline staff.” Ornge has implemented weekly town hall meetings for all staff, where some clinical and operational information is provided and questions are answered. In addition, an internal web page provides further resources. “From a process perspective, we've made some changes to our pairings and our staffing to make sure we have capacity if we have issues with our workforce being sick or unable to attend work,” said Peddle. Overall, staffing has been adequate to this point, but Ornge has built a plan for surge management to help it meet the needs of communities across Ontario, if required. While all Ornge employees are screened when they come to work, the patient transport provider has also rolled out some additional skills, said Peddle, including prone ventilation and expanded rapid sequence intubation. A standing item on the organization's checklist is an evaluation of current PPE standards. Ornge medical staff wear gowns, gloves, face shields and eye protection, in line with Ontario guidelines. “One of the mainstays of our approach has been do what you know and do it perfectly,” Smith commented. “We instituted PPE donning and doffing checklists and created a PPE utilization flowchart. As we know in transport medicine, where you don and doff your PPE can vary. We found the flowchart reduced anxiety because it provided rules, including for the pilot group.” While fixed-wing pilots have a high rate of PPE “burn,” it's much lower with rotary-wing. Helicopter pilots don't usually have to help with patient onboarding due to the AW139's self-loading stretcher system. Keeping safe is the priority Ornge is not the only air medical provider who has noticed an overall drop in missions during the pandemic. STARS operates a fleet of Airbus H145, BK117 and Leonardo AW139 helicopters from three bases in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan and one in Manitoba. STARS has been slowly acquiring new H145 aircraft since April 2019, and plans to replace its BK117 and AW139 fleet with a total of nine H145s. “We're actually seeing a decreased mission volume,” said Dave Evans, senior director, Clinical Services, STARS. “We're still transporting urgent patients, the typical heart attacks and strokes we would typically transport. ILI [influenza-like illness]-type transports account for 13 per cent of mission volume right now.” Fortunately, COVID-19 spread in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba has been below some of the predictive models, he added, and hospitals aren't necessarily overwhelmed yet. STARS has so far transported two confirmed COVID-19 patients since the numbers shot up about a month ago. “With the cancellation of pro sports . . . things got really busy within that first week, with the amount of info needing to be shared and the learnings coming out from Europe and China,” recalled Evans. “It became evident we needed to start a small group just to field all those questions from our crew. So we started the COVID Communications Working Group right away. Our role was to support our chief medical officer to make sure we're following best practices, medical evidence, provincial guidelines across the three provinces. Keeping safe was the priority.” The working group has been sending out frequent communications, both written and video, twice a week. STARS is lucky to have 100 per cent staffing right now, despite a dip in the beginning of the pandemic related to mandatory post-travel isolation. Staff are currently checked for symptoms before each shift, including temperature screening, with documentation required before crews can enter hospitals. Luckily, PPE procurement has been relatively painless and the organization is adjusting usage parameters in accordance with emerging evidence. The COVID Communications Working Group is being led by Dr. Jamin Mulvey, incoming STARS Calgary medical director, who also participated in the webinar. He was working in the U.K. with London Air Ambulance and returned to Canada early in the pandemic. “The biggest challenge is that with a lot of information out there, it's rapidly changing practices and emerging guidelines,” said Mulvey. “We're dealing with a lot of opinion and low-level evidence, and we're trying to sift through it effectively and make robust guidelines for our group. “Some areas that have been a little bit challenging is the discussion on what exactly is an AGMP – or aerosol generating medical procedure – and with non-invasive ventilation strategies, what are the relative risks of AGMP compared to, say, intubation.” STARS has moved away from non-invasive and high flow procedures on its helicopters unless absolutely necessary, based on very strict guidelines and discussion with the on-duty transport physician. Procedures are constantly being evaluated and adjusted where necessary, for both medical staff and flight crews. Jenny Thorpe is a flight nurse who handles stocking and preparedness ordering for the STARS base in Saskatoon, Sask. “Being on the front lines and directly involved in patient care, it's been a learning curve for myself and our crews,” she told the group. “A month ago, there was a high anxiety level. But we've worked as a group and with our leadership, just taking it one day at a time and realizing this isn't a fast process. It's a journey that won't be over quickly.” Thorpe said the team has found success by focusing on the little things that will keep them safe during a mission, such as following strict PPE donning and doffing procedures for medical crew as well as pilots. She is also an advocate of practice drills. “You can talk about PPE and being prepared, but if you haven't prepared and simulated it, you're going to miss steps. I encourage everyone to simulate caring for a COVID patient. “It's about slowing things down, making sure you're making your decisions with purpose and not reacting.” There is no emergency in a pandemic In Canada's westernmost province, the BCEHS team is following the same steady, purposeful path. “When we're doing a call, we've emphasized there is no emergency in a pandemic,” commented Dr. Steve Wheeler, BCEHS medical director, Critical Transfers and Aviation Medicine. “It all comes down to crew safety. We don't rush into it; we plan and make sure everything is set up. We don't run positive pressure other than intubation. If the patient needs to be intubated for the flight, our threshold is very low, we'll have them intubated in the sending facility. We try to methodically plan out the whole trip.” With six air bases throughout the province, BCEHS has also noticed call volumes have declined by about 30 per cent. “We're not doing the regular amount, we're doing one to two COVID transfers per day that are spread between rotor, fixed-wing and ground transports,” said Wheeler. He said the B.C. team's Australian manager established a network of about 15 global air medical organizations early on in the process. They met three times a week by Skype “to try to prepare for PPE, crew safety, medical procedures, how to ventilate or oxygenate patients in flight, etc. That was extremely helpful for us.” To prepare for a possible surge, BCEHS paused its paramedic training and released the instructors for work, placing some senior and junior students into station support roles. The organization examined available PPE options and decided to adopt Tyvek suits, which has decreased the PPE “burn” rate. The service also purchased 3,000 silicone half-mask respirators with reusable canisters and face shields. Educating its pilots was a high priority for BCEHS. They were heavily trained on donning and doffing PPE; they wear gowns instead of Tyvek suits. Wheeler said the pandemic has delivered several lessons to the province. “For us, this has highlighted to government and health authorities the need to improve and increase the capacity of our inter-facility transfers. Government announced yesterday they will provide five new aircraft. In every pandemic or catastrophe, sometimes there is opportunity.” https://www.skiesmag.com/news/canadas-air-medical-transport-providers-say-collaboration-communication-are-keys-to-pandemic-response

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