September 14, 2018 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR
In late 2011, the Department of National Defence decided that the rafts it was using to carry out search and rescue operations in open water were due for an update.
Part of DND's sea rescue kit, the new rafts needed to be compact and durable, but they also had to inflate reliably at temperatures as low as -50 C in the frozen expanses of Canada's North. If they didn't, lives could hang in the balance.
Enter Benoit Corbeil and his team at Tulmar Safety Systems, who found a way to create a light, durable raft that could be safely airdropped, and would inflate manually on the ice or automatically in water. With a fully enclosed canopy, those rescued can now be immediately sheltered from the cold wind and freezing ocean spray.
The responsibility to save lives is what drives people like Benoit and thousands of other Canadians working in the defence and security industries to continue creating innovative solutions to complex problems.
In my role as the head of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), I'm often struck by the sheer level of creativity and talent in our sector. But it shouldn't come as a surprise because we've been gathering evidence on this for a few years now.
Flexible, collaborative and fruitful
In May, CADSI – in partnership with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and Statistics Canada – released the latest State of Canada's Defence Industry report. We found that defence and security companies were behind $400 million worth of research and development (R&D) in 2016, resulting in an R&D intensity close to 4.5 times higher than the Canadian manufacturing average.
Our members – now more than 900 of them across Canada – aren't doing this work in a vacuum, of course. They are collaborating with partners in academia, government and supply chains to push boundaries and develop brand new technologies.
DND's new Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) Program will help encourage even more of this type of cooperation, allocating $1.6 -billion over two decades to innovative solutions that address Canada's defence and security challenges. Sixteen initial challenges have been identified, and start-ups, SMEs, corporations and academics have all been invited to apply. The first contracts were awarded in August, with more coming in fall 2018.
But our industry's work is already having tangible, real-world impacts for average Canadians. In July, for instance, global satellite operator Telesat – a company headquartered right in Ottawa – launched the Telstar 19 VANTAGE. This powerful satellite will connect communities across Nunavut with faster and more reliable broadband, opening the territory to the world. We featured Telesat vice-president Michele Beck's contributions to this project in our My North, My Home campaign.
Full article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/heres-why-canadas-defence-industry-innovation-cianfarani/
March 27, 2023 | Local, Aerospace
The Canadian government has submitted a letter of request to the U.S. government for the acquisition price of 16 Boeing-built P-8A Poseidon aircraft to replace the RCAF fleet of CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft.
November 15, 2018 | Local, Land
by Yves Engler Will they cancel the contract or won't they? In order to understand Ottawa's decision making process regarding General Dynamics' massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia one must look closely at industry lobbyists. While the Trudeau government is under substantial public pressure to rescind the $15 billion Light Armored Vehicle sale, to do so would challenge the company and the broader corporate lobby. Last week a senior analyst with the GD-financed Canadian Global Affairs Institute boldly defended the LAV sale. "There has been no behavior by the Saudis to warrant canceling this contract", said David Perry to the London Free Press. Perry must have missed the Kingdom's violence in Yemen, repression in eastern Saudi Arabia and consulate murder in Istanbul. Two weeks ago Perry told another interviewer that any move to reverse the LAV sale would have dire consequences. "There would be geopolitical implications. There would be a huge number of economic implications, both immediately and in the wider economy... canceling this, I think, would be a big step because as far as I understand the way that we look at arms exports, it would effectively mean that we've changed the rules of the game." Amidst an earlier wave of criticism towards GD's LAV sale, the Canadian Global Affairs Institute published a paper titled "Canada and Saudi Arabia: A Deeply Flawed but Necessary Partnership" that defended the $15-billion deal. At the time of its 2016 publication at least four of the institute's "fellows" wrote columns justifying the sale, including an opinion piece by Perry published in the Globe and Mail Report on Business that was headlined "Without foreign sales, Canada's defense industry would not survive." Probably Canada's most prominent foreign policy think tank, Canadian Global Affairs Institute is a recipient of GD's "generous" donations. Both GD Land Systems and GD Mission Systems are listed among its "supporters" in recent annual reports, but the exact sum they've given the institute isn't public. The Conference of Defence Associations Institute also openly supports GD's LAV sale. Representatives of the Ottawa-based lobby/think tank have writtencommentaries justifying the LAV sale and a 2016 analysis concluded that "our own Canadian national interests, economic and strategic, dictate that maintaining profitable political and trade relations with ‘friendly' countries like Saudi Arabia, including arms sales, is the most rational option in a world of unpleasant choices." Of course, the Conference of Defence Associations Institute also received GD money and its advisory board includes GD Canada's senior director of strategy and government relations Kelly Williams. Full article: https://original.antiwar.com/yves_engler/2018/11/13/saudi-arabia-and-the-canadian-arms-lobby/
May 31, 2019 | Local, Naval
(CercleFinance.com) - Thales, dans son rôle d'intégrateur, annonce avoir attribué des contrats clés pour les nouveaux navires de soutien interarmées du Canada. Des contrats ont ainsi été attribués à DRS Technologies Canada, située à Ottawa (Ontario), et à OSI Maritime Systems, située à Burnaby (Colombie-Britannique). ' Dans le cadre de son contrat avec Thales, OSI fournira et facilitera l'installation d'un système intégré de passerelle et de navigation (IBNS). Le système intégré de navigation et tactique d'OSI est un système entièrement évolutif conforme aux normes de l'OMI (Organisation maritime internationale) et de l'OTAN. DRS Technologies Canada Ltd., quant à elle, fournira les systèmes de communication internes, qui comprennent le système de communication vocale et tactique sécurisée, le système téléphonique du navire et le système principal de diffusion et d'alarme ', explique Thales. https://www.abcbourse.com/marches/thales-attribue-des-contrats-pour-des-navires-canadiens_472019_HOp.aspx