June 23, 2020 | Local, Security

RCMP plan to buy more armoured vehicles amid new scrutiny over policing tactics

By Jolson Lim and Victoria Gibson. Published on Jun 22, 2020 1:49pm

The RCMP is planning to add up to two new “Counter Assault Tactical Vehicles” to its arsenal, worrying critics who say it is a waste of taxpayer money and represents a growing militarization in policing in Canada.

The vehicles the RCMP plans to buy are “light-weight high mobility” armoured vehicles to be operated “primarily in urban areas,” according to procurement documents. The vehicles are to “discretely blend into public settings, and provide protection against small arms while remaining highly maneuverable.”

A request for industry feedback was published in late April. A contract is scheduled to be awarded in February 2021 with final delivery for summer 2023.

The purchase would add to the RCMP's stock of armoured vehicles that include 18 “Tactical Armoured Vehicles” owned since 2012 and two Cougar vehicles donated by the Department of National Defence in 2010.

These vehicles are intended to shield police officers in so-called “critical incidents,” such as armed standoffs, hostage takings and search and rescue missions.

The purchase of armoured vehicles by police in Canada has come under increasing scrutiny in wake of new protests over anti-Black racism and police violence. Halifax city council recently cancelled the purchase of an armoured tactical vehicle for its municipal police and re-allocated the $368,000 it planned to spend to the city's diversity office and for anti-racism initiatives.

Critics questioned the RCMP's plans to purchase the new vehicles.

“It shows police and politicians are failing to listen to what Canadians are saying about defunding police,” said Kevin Walby, associate professor at the University of Winnipeg's department of criminal justice.

“Each time the RCMP or other police agencies do something like buy more technology, it simply provides further evidence that police are archaic institutions that are non-responsive to real public needs and calls for justice.”

NDP MP Matthew Green said the planned purchases should be scrapped.

“It speaks to the shift away in our law enforcement, from keeping the peace as peace officers, to an extension of a paramilitary,” he said. “It's a bleeding of responsibilities between the military industrial complex and local policing.”

The existing fleet includes 18 vehicles delivered by Navistar Defence Canada in 2012 and manufactured in Mississippi. The contract was worth $15.2 million, with the cost to buy each vehicle more than $800,000.

The vehicles are essentially armoured personnel carriers refitted for civilian police. Similar vehicles were used in the Afghanistan conflict by the British military, Navistar said in 2012.

The RCMP was unable to confirm the possession of such vehicles prior to deadline last Friday. Earlier last week, when asked by iPolitics for a list of all armoured, tactical and “military-style” vehicles, a spokesperson cited “operational and security reasons” in refusing to disclose the items. iPolitics had initially asked on June 4 for a list of all RCMP vehicles excluding core vehicles such as sedans, SUVs, ATVs and motorbikes.

In 2014, the National Post reported that the RCMP's policy requires armoured vehicles to be used by emergency response team members only during critical incidents and not for crowd control. The vehicles can protect against bullets and explosives and carry a full tactical squad. They include gun ports, sentry hatches and a protected observation station.

Walby, who has researched tactical teams in Canadian policing, said armoured vehicles are primarily used by police in active shooter situations and for serving high-risk warrants, but he does not believe there are enough circumstances to justify having them.

“I would raise questions about the actual utility of them. I would raise questions about whether or not tactical members even think they are useful compared to the other fleet of vehicles that they have,” he said.

However, Mary Ann Campbell, a clinical psychologist who conducts psychological assessments of tactical team members for Saint John, N.B. police, said the vehicles are needed to protect police in special circumstances.

“It's not used for crowd control. It's not driven around as part of patrol services either. It's really used for the tactical team,” she said.

Campbell said there are “many factors that come into play” when weighing whether armoured vehicles should be used by civilian law enforcement and are representative of police militarization. Ultimately, she sees them as a “tool” for police that must be handled with care.

“The fact is, weapons and things like armoured vehicles are a part of how officers do their work,” she said. “If there's trust in the police force, there's trust in how they use this equipment — and not abuse it.”

Five RCMP armoured vehicles were deployed during the 2014 Moncton shooting that left three Mounties dead. The vehicles were also on scene during the 2014 Parliament Hill shooting. In May, an armoured vehicle was used in a drug-related search in Selkirk, Man., an operation that led to the arrest of two people and the seizure of one sawed-off shotgun, ammunition and drugs.

On June 15, an RCMP armoured vehicle and tactical team were deployed in response to a “mental health call” in Alberta Beach, Alta.

The vehicles can also sometimes be found in local parades and public events. Many local law enforcement in Canada own armoured vehicles. In one case, in Saint John, a private company donated an armoured vehicle to municipal police.

Pamela Palmater, a Mi'kmaq lawyer, Ryerson University professor and activist, said money that goes to buying and operating such vehicles is better spent on initiatives to fight poverty, support mental health and ensure clean drinking water for First Nation communities.

“We've really got to look at what are the issues here, and do we need tanks to resolve them,” she said.

Palmater added that it's often Indigenous peoples who face militarized responses from the RCMP, ones that may involve the deployment of heavily armed officers, helicopters and drones. She cited the January protests on Wet'suwet'en territory as an example.

Green said “over-investments in the militarization of police come at the expense of our ability to invest in the social determinants of health and the basic quality of life for people living in Canada.”

Sent a series of questions last week, including why more armoured vehicles were needed by the RCMP, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Bill Blair declined to comment, instead directing iPolitics to the agency stating such questions were operational in nature.

With files from Kirsten Smith

https://ipolitics.ca/2020/06/22/rcmp-plan-to-buy-more-armoured-vehicles-amid-new-scrutiny-over-policing-tactics/

On the same subject

February 13, 2019 | Local, Aerospace

Senator critiques defence procurement process
by Chris Thatcher An Ontario Senator says defence procurement needs better oversight and an improved process if it is to avoid the problems affecting the government's efforts to replace the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) CF-188 fighter jet fleet. “The fiasco of fighter jet replacement is the best example of a procurement system that is cumbersome, bureaucratic and beset by political interference,” Senator Nicole Eaton wrote in an article originally published in The Hill Times. “Unless ministers start to devote close attention to the management of major projects, or until the process is overhauled, Canadians can continue to expect poor outcomes and wasted taxpayer dollars.” Eaton is a member of the Senate National Finance Committee, which launched a study last fall into the processes and financial aspects of defence procurement. It held its first hearing on Oct. 30 and expects to conclude later this year. In her article, the senator critiqued the process by which Conservative and Liberal governments have struggled to replace the aging CF-188 Hornets, noting that while both Canada and Australia are members of the U.S.-led Joint Strike Fighter program to develop the F-35, Australia received its first two operational F-35s in December while Canada, as part of an interim measure, is poised to take delivery of the first of 25 “well-used” Australian F-18s. “As we take possession of Australia's scrap, Canada is in the early stages of a minimum five-year-long process to pick a replacement for the F-18, which will be more than 50 years old before it is retired in the 2030s,” she wrote. The current government bears blame for creating some of the problems with the fighter file, she wrote, but “military procurement has bedeviled successive governments, Liberal and Conservative alike.” She attributed part of the problem to political interference for both partisan advantage and regional turf protection, but said the main reason for “paralysis in military procurement in Canada is it is too cumbersome and bureaucratic. Process is paramount and results are secondary. “There are layers of committees, depending on the size of the project, with membership from Public Services and Procurement Canada, National Defence, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development,” she wrote. “The consensus-based decision-making process on which these committees operate is supposed to avoid a big mistake — no doubt an appealing quality for a risk-averse bureaucracy, but the downside is the system is not conducive to fast action. Simply put, the buck stops nowhere.” Eaton suggested that bureaucratic morass has resulted in an inability to spend allotted project budgets, an indication the government could struggle to fulfil the commitments laid out in its 2017 defence policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE). “In the last fiscal year, the policy projected capital spending of $6.1 billion, yet only $3.7 billion was spent. This year, $6.55 billion is called for under SSE, but total appropriations to date amount to $4 billion,” she noted. “Given this poor track record, the idea that military spending can be cranked up by 70 per cent over 10 years, as envisioned in Strong, Secure, Engaged, looks increasingly fanciful. At the Finance committee's first hearing on the procurement system, Patrick Finn, assistant deputy minister, Materiel at the Department of National Defence, and André Fillion, assistant deputy minister for defence and marine procurement at Public Services and Procurement Canada, faced a barrage of questions on ongoing participation in the F-35 program, the authorities and mandates of interdepartmental committees involved in military procurement, and about the challenge of balancing military requirements with equipment costs and opportunities for Canadian industry. “Buying a fighter plane isn't like buying a compact car, and the role of the government is very important. We had to adapt our method of supply to the context of fighter jets,” Fillion told the senators. 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Some companies in Montreal do maintenance for the United States and other countries because they have the necessary knowledge,” he said. “This aircraft will really increase our fleet, and it is not the number of aircraft that counts; it is rather the hours of use in the future. We are looking for an aircraft that will remain in service for another 14 years. What is needed is enough hours on the structural side. We will be able to use these aircraft until the entire fleet is no longer in service.” https://www.skiesmag.com/news/senator-critiques-defence-procurement-process
January 4, 2019 | Local, C4ISR, Security

Canada’s domestic spy agency looking to hire hackers and data scientists
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October 29, 2020 | Local, Naval

Defence Watch: New dates set for budget watchdog's reports on major naval projects
David Pugliese Two reports by the parliamentary budget officer looking into the costs of major Canadian naval equipment projects have been delayed. The Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates had unanimously passed a motion in June to request the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer undertake a costing analysis of the Royal Canadian Navy's new joint support ships as well as the leasing of the Asterix supply ship from a private firm. The PBO study was to also look at the cost of building the joint support ships in Canada at Seaspan shipyard in Vancouver. The committee asked that the PBO report be provided by Oct. 15. Another motion from the committee, passed later in June, asked the PBO to examine the $60 billion price tag of Canada's proposed new fleet of warships – the Canadian Surface Combatant or CSC. Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux was tasked to investigate the cost of the CSC as well as examine the cost of two other types of warships: the FREMM and the Type 31. That study was supposed to be presented to the committee by Oct. 22. But those original motions from the committee expired when Parliament was prorogued. So new motions have to be provided to the PBO. The Commons committee passed a new motion on Oct. 19 on the Asterix and Joint Support Ship analysis. That analysis is to be delivered by Nov. 30, PBO spokeswoman Sloane Mask told this newspaper. A date for the analysis to be made public has not yet been determined. “Currently, we are also in the process of confirming the revised timelines for the CSC report,” she added.There is particular interest in the defence community about what the PBO determines is the current price-tag of the Canadian Surface Combatant project. Last year the Liberal government signed an initial deal on CSC that is expected to lead to the eventual construction of 15 warships in the largest single government purchase in Canadian history. Lockheed Martin offered Canada the Type 26 warship designed by BAE in the United Kingdom. Irving is the prime contractor and the vessels will be built at its east coast shipyard. Construction of the first ship isn't expected to begin until the early 2020s. But the Canadian Surface Combatant program has already faced rising costs. In 2008, the then-Conservative government estimated the project would cost roughly $26 billion. But in 2015, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, then commander of the navy, voiced concern that taxpayers may not have been given all the information about the program, publicly predicting the cost for the warships alone would approach $30 billion. The overall project is currently estimated to cost around $60 billion. “Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving) Halifax yard and materials,” according to federal government documents obtained by this newspaper through the Access to Information law. But some members of parliament and industry representatives have privately questioned whether the CSC price-tag is too high. There have been suggestions that Canada could dump the Type 26 design and go for a cheaper alternative since the CSC project is still in early stages and costs to withdraw could be covered by savings from a less expensive ship. Canada had already been pitched on alternatives. In December 2017, the French and Italian governments proposed a plan in which Canada could build the FREMM frigate at Irving. Those governments offered to guarantee the cost of the 15 ships at a fixed $30 billion, but that was rejected by the Canadian government. The other type of warship the PBO will look at is the Type 31, which is to be built for the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Those ships are to cost less than $500 million each. In 2017, then Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette estimated the CSC program would cost $61.82 billion. The entry of the BAE Type 26 warship in the Canadian competition was controversial from the start and sparked complaints that the procurement process was skewed to favour that vessel. Previously the Liberal government had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service with other navies would be accepted on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky. Unproven designs can face challenges if problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating. But the criteria was changed and the government and Irving accepted the BAE design, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain's Royal Navy. https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/canada/defence-watch-new-dates-set-for-budget-watchdogs-reports-on-major-naval-projects-512897/

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