L'Australie, après les USA et le Canada, fournit six obusiers M777 à l'Ukraine

On the same subject

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  December 7, 2018 | Local, Aerospace

  Canadian military to contract out some maintenance work on aging CF-18s to free up front line technicians

  LEE BERTHIAUME OTTAWA THE CANADIAN PRESS PUBLISHED DECEMBER 3, 2018UPDATED DECEMBER 3, 2018 The Canadian military is looking to contract out some maintenance work on the country's aging CF-18 fighter jets as well as training to help address a shortage of experienced technicians. Defence officials revealed the plan during a Commons committee meeting on Monday, in which they also defended the time needed to pick a new jet for the air force and faced calls to reveal how much it will cost to upgrade the CF-18s' combat systems. The technician shortage was first revealed in an explosive auditor general's report last month in which the watchdog took aim at the Liberals' plan to buy second-hand Australian jets by warning the air force needed more technicians and pilots – not planes. A number of measures are being introduced to address both shortfalls, air force commander Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger told the committee, including the contracting out of more involved maintenance that usually takes place away from the front lines as well as some tech training. The initiatives will free up about 200 experienced aircraft technicians so they can work directly on planes in the field and keep them flying, Meinzinger said, adding in an interview after the meeting that the move would not affect combat readiness. Initiatives are also being introduced to better support military families, which Meinzinger identified as a key contributing factor in why many pilots and technicians are leaving, while the air force is looking at a new training model to produce more pilots. Even with these measures, Meinzinger said he expected it to take between five and seven years to have a full complement of pilots and technicians in time to start transitioning from the CF-18s to new state-of-the-art replacements. “We're putting our shoulder to the wheel,” Meinzinger told The Canadian Press. “This is a top priority. But it's going to take some time, obviously.” Defence officials faced pointed questions from members of Parliament on both sides of the table during Monday's committee meeting about the length of time it is expected to take for those new replacements to be selected and delivered. A request for proposals will be released in the spring, with bids due in early 2020. Another full year has been set aside to evaluate those bids and another for negotiations with the winner. Delivery of the first aircraft is expected in 2025 and the last in 2031. The Defence Department's head of procurement, Patrick Finn, underscored the complexity of the $19-billion project, which has been plagued by delays and political mismanagement for more than a decade as Canada has sought to choose a new fighter. Those complexities include the usual challenges evaluating and negotiating the capabilities of each of the four aircraft that are expected to compete, Finn said, as well as the industrial benefits to Canada and intellectual-property rights. At the same time, he added, the process for actually purchasing each of the planes is different given, for example, that Canada is a member of the F-35 stealth fighter project while the U.S. government would need to officially sign off on buying Super Hornets. In fact, Finn said the government has only limited flexibility in its schedule given that most manufacturers can only start delivering aircraft three years after an order is made – though he remained confident that the timeline would be met. The length of time was nonetheless a clear concern to some committee members. Officials were also grilled over the cost of upgrading the CF-18s' sensors, weapons and defensive measures after the auditor general found $3-billion in planned investments over the next decade was only to keep them flying and did not include their combat systems. The Defence Department's top bureaucrat, deputy minister Jody Thomas, told the committee that an analysis is underway, which includes consulting with the U.S. and other allies, and that a plan is expected in the spring. But opposition members challenged Thomas when she suggested that the department would not be able to provide cost estimates to the committee before being presented to the government, saying even if it is a matter of security, they are entitled to the information. “A unilateral declaration by a deputy or anybody that a parliamentary committee cannot have information is unacceptable,” NDP MP David Christopherson said. “There needs to be one more step to pursue that so that question, which is entirely legitimate in my opinion, can be answered in a way that respects the security and defence issues but also upholds the right of Parliament to demand any information they so choose.” https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-plan-for-combat-upgrades-to-aging-cf-18s-expected-in-may-defence

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  November 18, 2020 | Local, Aerospace, C4ISR, Security

  Des génies d’ici protègent les avions de chasse

  Une équipe québécoise d'élite d'une vingtaine d'employés en cybersécurité a inventé un outil informatique pour protéger les avions de chasse de l'armée. « Lorsqu'il y a intrusion, les dég'ts sont majeurs. Ça peut conduire à des écrasements ou à de l'interception d'information très sensible », explique calmement au bout du fil le PDG de StreamScan, Karim Ganame. Fondée en 2011, l'entreprise montréalaise compte parmi ses clients de gros noms des secteurs manufacturier et pharmaceutique connus que son grand patron préfère taire pour des raisons de sécurité. Ces dernières années, StreamScan a travaillé en étroite collaboration avec le Centre de la sécurité des télécommunications (CST) et le ministère de la Défense sur de nombreux projets à l'abri des regards. En gros, son outil détecte des anomalies. Par exemple, lorsqu'il y a des cyberattaques dans les avions, les systèmes informatiques vont se comporter différemment et la firme peut alors les alerter qu'une attaque est en cours. « Confiance en personne » Récemment, la PME a décroché un juteux contrat avec la Défense, qui s'intéresse à son puissant outil d'intelligence artificielle capable de sauver des vies, mais aussi de prévenir le vol d'informations ultras confidentielles. « On s'attend à ce que les alliés collaborent entre eux, mais on est quand même dans la Défense, et les intérêts peuvent varier en fonction de certaines circonstances ou de réalités géopolitiques. Bref, en cybersécurité, on a confiance en personne. Ça peut venir de n'importe où », analyse-t-il. Quand on lui demande si le Québec tire bien son épingle du jeu dans ce domaine, Karime Ganame en a long à dire sur les vice-présidents de grandes compagnies d'ici qui doutaient de sa capacité à fonder une entreprise. « On me disait que l'innovation en cybersécurité vient des États-Unis. J'ai dû leur dire : “Les États-Unis n'ont pas le monopole de la connaissance. Au Québec, on est capable de le faire”. Et on l'a fait », conclut-il. https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/11/09/des-genies-dici-protegent-les-avions-de-chasse

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  December 10, 2019 | Local, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Canada is rich - and cheap

  EUGENE LANG Eugene Lang is an adjunct professor at the School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “It's Canada, they have money,” Donald Trump said at last week's NATO summit. Most of what the U.S. President says is either exaggerated or false, but occasionally he sums up in a sentence what everyone knows to be true. After admonishing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the summit for Canada's failure to meet, or strive toward, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's defence-spending target of 2 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Mr. Trump pointed out an inconvenient truth. The President was saying Canada is rich and cheap. But just how rich is Canada? Among the Group of Seven -- a group of the richest countries in the world -- Canada enjoys the third-highest per-capita income and, since 2016, has led the G7 in economic growth. Canada also has the lowest net-debt-to-GDP ratio among those same seven countries, and the second-lowest national-government-deficit-to-GDP ratio. Which means, in essence, that Canada is the third-richest country in the G7 and the best in class with government finances. Successive governments in Ottawa have spent 20 years boasting about this strong national balance sheet to Canadians at every turn, and telling anyone abroad who would listen. This is why Mr. Trump knows that Canada does indeed have money. We are rich, at least compared with most other countries. But are we cheap? Canada spends about 1.3 per cent of GDP on national defence, tying us for fourth with Italy within the G7. Yet, Ottawa has never fully accepted the validity of the defence-spending-to-GDP measure. Both the Harper government – which signed the Wales Declaration, enshrining the 2-per-cent NATO target – and the Trudeau government have claimed input measures such as the GDP ratio don't tell the full story, and that output indicators are more meaningful. The defence output measure that is best understood is the extent to which a country's military is engaged in operations internationally. On that score, Canada looks terrible. We have fewer troops deployed abroad today on NATO, United Nations and other multilateral missions than in decades. To be sure, having influence internationally and carrying your fair share of global responsibility entails much more than the size or engagement of your military. Official Development Assistance (ODA), or foreign aid, is another important measure in this connection. Canada also ranks fourth among G7 countries in ODA as a percentage of gross national income (GNI). However, Ottawa is spending only 0.28 per cent, up slightly from 0.26 per cent last year, the lowest level this century. Fifty years ago, a World Bank Commission report, titled Partners in Development, recommended developed countries spend 0.7 per cent of GNI on aid. That Commission was chaired by Lester Pearson, former prime minister of Canada, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and a Canadian icon. Over the years, various Canadian governments have paid homage to Mr. Pearson's vision. Yet in the five decades since his report was published, Canada has rarely reached half of the Pearson target in any given year. Whether Ottawa likes or doesn't like input or output measures, or GDP or GNI ratios, doesn't really matter in the world of international politics. For better or worse, these are the indicators that are used to compare and assess the degree to which countries are living up to their obligations and responsibilities internationally. Imperfect as they are, these are measures of burden sharing. They are the statistics countries look at when considering whether Canada or any other country is pulling its weight globally. And on these measures, Canada looks middling at best, and bad at worst, by both international comparative standards. At the same time, we are among the world leaders in economic growth among developed countries, and we have held the gold medal in public finances for years. Rich and cheap, as it were. That was the essence of Mr. Trump's criticism of Canada this week at the NATO Summit. And foreign governments the world over know it to be true. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-is-rich-and-cheap/