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  August 2, 2019 | Local, Aerospace

  444 Combat Support Squadron: Combat support from above

  By Ben Forrest & Mike Reyno On a given day in the remote, sparsely-populated terrain over Happy Valley-Goose Bay and rural Labrador, it is often cloudy or snowing, or both. The winters are brutal and long; the summers are warm and wet, and militaries from all over the world have used this rugged patch of land for austere weather training. If something goes wrong in one of these training exercises–an injury or any other kind of disaster–the pilots and medical technicians from 444 Combat Support Squadron are there in a hurry. This small but effective crew of 35 military personnel and five civilians provides rapid response during training exercises at 5 Wing Goose Bay using three CH-146 Griffon helicopters. On occasion, aircrews also perform utility transport and secondary search and rescue (SAR). “We try to have a real team-oriented atmosphere,” said Maj Ryan Snider, commanding officer of 444 Squadron. “You're not two ships passing in the night, as many other squadrons and Wings are. You get a chance to interact with people on a regular basis, and get to know them far better than you would at a normal [posting.]” The squadron, one of three Combat Support squadrons in the Air Force, draws a mix of new recruits and pilots and technicians with previous Griffon experience. Postings usually last three years, and they can be an effective way for new pilots to get their feet wet. “I love it,” said Capt Marc Saucier. “The area can be really challenging, just because everything's so remote. I don't think you find terrain like this anywhere else in Canada, where everything's so far apart. “But it's been really good. There's not enough people in Labrador to necessitate us being called out that often in the first place, but what we do, it's pretty different each time.” Pilots in 444 Squadron average about 300 flying hours a year, and the posting can also be a refreshing change for seasoned pilots who transfer from other bases. “This is nice with the family, because I'm home all the time, other than the odd night,” said Capt Neil Gabourie, a Griffon pilot who has also spent time with 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ont. 444 Squadron traces its history to 1947, where it was originally activated in Rivers, Man. It later transferred to St-Hubert, Que., where it operated the Sabre fighter jets, and then moved to Baden-Soellingen, Germany as part of Canada's commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The squadron disbanded in 1963, but was stood up about two months later and equipped with the CF-104 Starfighter, which it operated until 1967 before being disbanded again. Five years later the squadron was re-activated and renamed 444 Tactical Helicopter Squadron flying the CH-136 Kiowa. Stood down on Apr. 1, 1992, the squadron was reactivated in Goose Bay in 1993, now equipped with the CH-135 Twin Huey in a rescue and support role. The CH-135 was replaced by the CH-146 in 1996. Today, the squadron operates out of two large hangars that make up a fraction of 5 Wing's massive infrastructure footprint, supporting NORAD's North Warning System radar sites on utility missions and supporting SAR efforts in the area when CH-149 Cormorant helicopters from 9 Wing Gander are not available. “JRCC (Joint Rescue Coordination Centre) Halifax will call upon us from time to time,” said Snider. “They understand we're not a Cormorant ... there are limitations. But they still give us a call and say, ‘What can you provide?' And then we'll do our best.” A major development at 444 Squadron over the last year has been the ongoing replacement of SAR Technicians with Medical Technicians on Griffon flight crews. The transition began in 2018 and once complete, Griffon crews will have two pilots, a flight engineer and a med tech on board. Similar transitions are taking place at 417 Combat Support Squadron at 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alta., and 439 Combat Support Squadron at 3 Wing Bagotville, Que. “The med techs will come to us having already undergone their medical technician training,” said Snider. “We'll top up that training to give them familiarization ... to operate at the back of the cabin of the aircraft. We'll train them on spotter duties, and then we'll also train them on how to function on the hoist.” Whereas SAR techs can jump out of helicopters to perform rescues at sea, med techs are not trained in skydiving or water diving and are geared toward land-based operations, said Sgt Adam Blackwell, a med tech. They also use specific hoist, insertion and extraction methods for land-based operations. Med techs are trained as primary care paramedics and have diverse backgrounds that make them extremely versatile. “We also do a lot of clinical and hospital kind of work–not just emergent care, not just tactical care,” said Blackwell. “We are jacks of all trades in the medical field, and used as such in different postings.” Instructed originally by SAR techs during the initial transition, med techs at 444 Squadron have now reached a point where there is a senior lead med tech able to train the more junior members. Recruiting med techs to the relatively isolated community of Goose Bay can be difficult, but many are quickly attracted to the squadron's warm, tight-knit culture once they arrive. “It's a bit different,” said Blackwell. “But honestly, it's pretty fun. If you are an outdoorsy person, this is the place to snowmobile or have an ATV. The fishing here is pretty amazing, too.” The squadron may have experienced a shift in focus in recent years, but its core mission remains the same. “It's that standby response to military operations,” said Snider. “Different customers, different tactics, but the same purpose.” https://www.skiesmag.com/features/444-combat-support-squadron-combat-support-from-above/?utm_source=skies-daily-news-top-story

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  March 29, 2019 | Local, Naval

  SNC-Lavalin's legal woes are putting a $500M federal defence contract at risk

  Murray Brewster · CBC News A SNC-Lavalin contract with the Department of National Defence (DND) worth half a billion dollars comes up for renewal next year — when the Montreal-based engineering giant is expected to be on trial over corruption charges. The pending expiry of the $507 million contract to support the servicing of minor warships and auxiliary vessels, signed in 2011, sharpens the debate over what a guilty verdict would mean for the Quebec-based engineering giant and whether a conviction actually would mean subjecting the company to a 10-year ban on bidding for federal contracts. The stakes are high for DND. In addition to holding an important defence contract, SNC-Lavalin has access to a range of secret military drawings, equipment and intellectual property. Although its agreements are periodically reopened to new bids, the embattled corporation has been a reliable contractor for National Defence. A survey of active federal government contracts shows DND and Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) were the two biggest users of SNC-Lavalin services and construction during the current fiscal year. Across the whole of the federal government, SNC-Lavalin holds 53 'active' federal government contracts — 25 of them with DND — with a combined value of $670 million. A company with a big federal footprint The firm signed roughly $68 million in new or renewed agreements with the federal government ($23.7 million with DND and PSPC alone) in the current budget year up to the end of December. That figure excludes what could be a large number of smaller contracts worth less than $25,000 — contracts the federal government can award without competition. An inventory of those agreements is extremely difficult to track down, but PSPC acknowledged it awarded $146,522 in minor work to SNC-Lavalin in the current fiscal year. The RCMP laid corruption charges against SNC-Lavalin and some of its units in February 2015. All the charges relate to the company's operations in Libya. The charges allege that the company offered officials in that country $47 million in bribes and accuse SNC-Lavalin and two of its subsidiaries of defrauding various Libyan public agencies of approximately $129.8 million over 10 years, starting in 2001. The company has been at the centre of a political firestorm since early February, when The Globe and Mail reported that former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould felt pressured by the Prime Minister's Office to grant the company a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) — a legal tool which would have allowed the company to avoid a criminal trial by acknowledging fault and paying a fine, among other conditions. In defending their interest in a DPA for SNC-Lavalin, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others in his government have pointed to the scale of the engineering firm's business, the possibility it could be banned from federal government work and the number of people it employs. Scott Newark, a former Crown prosecutor who teaches at Simon Fraser University, said it's been clear from the outset that avoiding the federal contract ban has been SNC-Lavalin's main objective. The question of what would happen to those federal contracts should the company be convicted is a subject of debate, however. There are policy provisions that allow federal officials to cancel existing contracts and ban future bids from a company convicted of serious crimes, such as bribery. PSPC would only say the federal government would "assess the situation" if "a supplier becomes ineligible during the life of a contract" due to a conviction. The power to terminate or suspend a contract rests with federal bureaucrats, according to PSPC's Ineligibility and Suspension Policy. A company convicted of serious crimes can avoid being fired by the feds by signing an undertaking stating "that it will conduct business with Canada in an ethical and responsible manner." But there's never a guarantee that such an undertaking will be offered to a convicted company. Just three companies are currently banned from carrying on business with the federal government — all relatively small firms in Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. No ban on bidding during trial A spokesman for DND said there's nothing stopping SNC-Lavalin from continuing to bid on federal contracts as they appear, even during its trial. "These contracts were issued pursuant to Government of Canada contracting regulations, particularly as it concerns open, fair and transparent competitions," said Dan Le Bouthillier in an email. "Those regulations also stipulate that any company eligible to bid on Government of Canada contracts may continue to do so, so long as they meet the necessary requirements for the work." In an analysis piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Newark said PSPC is working on a revision of its 'integrity regime' policy to give federal officials more discretion to waive bans of individual companies contracting with the federal government. Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough has said her department is looking at eliminating fixed bidding disqualification periods and replacing them with a wholly discretionary determination — which would include the option of imposing no contracting ban at all. Even under the current system, Newark said, an order cancelling a company's federal contracts and banning it from future contracts following a conviction is far from a slam-dunk. "I checked on the Criminal Code and the Corruption of Public Foreign Officials Act and, of course, it's not in those statutes. It's not a mandatory consequence." he said. The integrity regime review has been underway in Qualtrough's department since 2017. Newark said he's amazed that nobody with the company or the federal government seems to have realized that a conviction for SNC-Lavalin could lead to something other than a 10-year contracting ban. "Why didn't anybody say, 'Hey wait a minute. We know what about this. We're changing our policy,'" he said. The head of procurement at DND attempted to reassure members of the all-party House of Commons defence committee during a hearing last month that SNC-Lavalin's "secret" work for the federal government does not pose an unacceptable risk. "We hold the intellectual property, the drawings and everything," Pat Finn testified on Feb. 28. "Irrespective of the circumstances in which the contract is terminated, we hold the material." https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snc-lavalin-s-legal-woes-are-putting-a-500m-federal-defence-contract-at-risk-1.5073996

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  December 20, 2019 | Local, Other Defence

  Canadian Forces had valuable ‘insights’ in Afghanistan, defence minister says following damning U.S. report

  By Charlie Pinkerton. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canadian Forces deployed to Afghanistan contributed useful insights to American forces, whose past military operations in the country have drawn new scrutiny following The Washington Post's publication of the so-called Afghanistan Papers. The documents obtained and published by the Post are the product of hundreds of interviews carried out by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR). SIGAR was mandated to complete a series of reports exploring the effectiveness of its nearly two-decade, close to trillion-dollar mission that it began as a retaliation against al-Qaeda for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The documents fought for in court by the Post include notes, transcripts and audio recordings that the subjects had been promised would not be made public by the government. They provide a thorough look at the frustrations and concerns of top U.S. brass and a lack of understanding of the conflict by the American military and its government. One of the revelations of the Afghanistan Papers is the that as the conflict continued, top American military officials considered it an unwinnable conflict. Sajjan completed three Afghanistan tours, where he worked in intelligence before working directly with top American troops as an adviser. In giving his take on how the Canadian perspective compared to that of the Americans during the mission, Sajjan said the Canadian Armed Forces had a better understanding of the realities of the conflict than its closest allies. READ MORE: A year-end Q&A with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan “I would say the insights the Canadians provided were actually very useful. That's one point that I'm trying to get across here, and I appreciate the Americans coming out and talking about this now,” Sajjan said. “Canadians were providing a very good perspective, very early on, to have a much more, I would say, accurate account of what is happening,” One passage the Post highlighted from the thousands of pages of documents to underscore the discontent with the conflict by U.S. officials was an interview with Douglas Lute, a former top army general who became an adviser on the Afghan war in the White House. “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn't know what we were doing,” Lute said. “What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.” Sajjan said good decisions were made only with an “accurate” and “good understanding” of the Afghanistan conflict. From 2001 to 2014, 40,000 Canadians served in Afghanistan. There were 158 Canadian soldiers killed. On top of its military effort, Canada has provided more than $3 billion in international assistance to Afghanistan since 2001. In talking about Canada's operations in Afghanistan, Sajjan also defended well-known Canadian-led aspects of the mission, such as the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT, but known colloquially as omelette) and its stabilization-focused whole-of-government approach to the conflict. “What I'm trying to say here is that the work that Canada did there was highly valued and I appreciate other allies coming out with different perspectives,” Sajjan said. https://ipolitics.ca/2019/12/19/canadian-forces-had-valuable-insights-in-afghanistan-defence-minister-says-following-damning-u-s-report/