These three companies submitted bids for Canada’s fighter competition

On the same subject

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  October 18, 2023 | Local, Security

  Senior leaders produced no documents on high-profile case of Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, DND claims

  National Defence claims documents don't exist are false, major general says

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  January 18, 2018 | Local, Aerospace

  U.S. isn’t worrying about Canada and missile defence, says Obama adviser

  By Tim Naumetz. Published on Jan 11, 2018 4:49pm Canadians don't have to wring their hands over whether the country should sign on to the U.S. ballistic missile defence system, says a former top defence adviser to President Barack Obama. Washington is paying more attention to bigger Canadian defence issues such as the long-delayed acquisition of a fleet of new modern fighter jets, Lindsay Rodman, former director of defence policy and strategy for Obama's National Security Council, said in a Canadian interview streamed earlier this week. Rodman, a temporary U.S. expatriate who now is an international affairs fellow at the University of Ottawa, said in a podcast interview with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute that the missile defence question is not a major issue in U.S. military and security circles. “The question of ballistic missile defence has been really surprising to me since I came to Canada a little over a year ago now,” Rodman said in the interview with Global Affairs institute vice-president David Perry. “It is just not on the forefront of anyone's mind in the United States, but it is one of the first things that any Canadian wants to talk to you about the U.S. American alliance,” said Rodman, an attorney who also served in the Pentagon as Obama's senior adviser for international humanitarian policy. “The U.S. is much more concerned with just making sure that NORAD is healthy, that the NATO alliance is healthy, that our homeland defence is being well supported, and we know that we don't depend on Canada for ballistic missile defence. “We do depend on Canada's fighter capability in terms of how we've planned our North American defence, so making good on the promises that Canada has made is going to be more important than new promises that Canada could make in the future, which would be something like ballistic defence.” The Global Affairs Institute offered the podcast up earlier this week, but the interview was recorded on Dec. 18, the same day U.S. President Donald Trump released his administration's first national security strategy. It was only two years after President Obama released his second national security strategy, which Rodman said should have been in place for four years under the normal U.S. four-year cycle for renewing national security and military strategies. While explaining U.S. views on Canadian defence positions — particularly the first Canadian defence strategy released by the Trudeau government last June — Rodman told Perry that while Canada's overarching defence positions have rarely diverged after a change of government, Trudeau's new personal and political approaches to Canada's role in the world may have made a difference. “I would say that Justin Trudeau, just by nature of his international sort of celebrity status, brought a new cachet to Canada, and that's pretty useful,” she said. “Certainly, being in Canada now and learning the ins and outs about the political system a little bit more, I can appreciate the nuances in Canada's position much better.” Canada's new defence policy specifically ruled out Canadian involvement in U.S. ballistic missile defence, even after the topic had been raised multiple times in four months of cross-country consultations that preceded the defence review in 2016. Still, by last December, even Trudeau signalled that the government has not yet ruled the possibility out, and several military experts have advocated Canada's participation in a series of House of Commons and Senate committee hearings. “For a very close ally like Canada, the most important thing is interoperability,” said Rodman. “We not only depend on Canada to potentially help us out in the world, but in terms of our homeland defence there's no one we depend more on than Canada. We really need everything to be interoperable.” The most important question facing the government as it slowly moves toward a 2025 target for acquiring a fleet of 88 new fighter jets could be how the most sophisticated warplane in the world — the Lockheed Martin F-35 strike fighter — fares as it goes through a competition that will decide which aircraft Canada will buy. Interoperability with U.S. warplanes has been a central part of the argument favouring the F-35 acquisition for Canada. https://ipolitics.ca/2018/01/11/u-s-isnt-worrying-canada-missile-defence-says-obama-adviser/

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  April 1, 2019 | Local, Naval

  Two federal ministers offer lifeline for Quebec’s Chantier Davie shipyard

  By Kevin Dougherty QUEBEC—Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Families, Children and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos offered hope on Friday that the Chantier Davie shipyard in Lévis, across the St. Lawrence from the provincial capital, would soon be busy working on federal shipbuilding contracts. Chantier Davie is well-placed to be awarded contracts to build three new federal ferries and is also a contender to win contracts to refit Canada's 12 naval frigates, noted Duclos, who is also MP for Québec riding, taking in the city's core. Morneau has been using a pause this week in Parliament to travel across Canada touting the benefits of the budget he presented March 19. He was asked after his chamber of commerce speech about specific commitments for the Quebec City region, such as Mayor Régis Labeaume's proposed tramway and the repainting of the rust-marred Quebec Bridge. “The money is there for the tramway,” Morneau said. There is also federal money to repaint the bridge, the finance minister added. But negotiations are continuing with the province. Asked about a proposal for more rapid, more frequent passenger rail service between Montreal and Quebec City, Morneau said, “We need to have more information.” Then he added, with a smile, “If we had more Liberals MPs (from the region), that would make it easier.” Last January, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau left his chamber of commerce audience in Quebec City cold, rejecting appeals to grant Davie a contract to build a new supply ship for the Royal Canadian Navy. “The navy doesn't need a second supply ship now,” Trudeau said, in reply to representatives of Davie's union and representatives of nearly 900 companies in Davie's supply chain. Chantier Davie, as Canada's oldest and largest shipyard has been known since a 2012 ownership change, is dependent on the boom-bust cycles of stop-and-go government contracts. In 2011, when the Conservative government was awarding billions of dollars in shipbuilding contracts, Davie, then bankrupt, was excluded, with all future navy and coast guard ships to be built by smaller shipyards, Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax and Seaspan in Vancouver. In 2015, before the federal election, Davie proposed to the Conservative government of Stephan Harper that it convert a German container ship into a supply ship for the navy. Ottawa was in a jam then after Canada's two outdated supply ships had been scrapped and the navy was relying on the Spanish and Chilean navy supply ships. Davie delivered the Asterix supply ship on time and on budget in 2017. Since that time, the company has been calling on Ottawa to order the Obelix, a twin supply ship to the Asterix for the navy. On Thursday, visiting Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said if he was prime minister, the Obelix would go ahead, winning applause from his chamber of commerce audience. Scheer also endorsed the “third link,” Premier François Legault's pet project, the plan, which is yet to reach the planning stage, to build a third bridge or tunnel across the St. Lawrence. Joël Lightbound, who with Duclos makes up the two-MP Liberal caucus in Quebec City, where the Conservatives dominate, deadpanned to reporters, “One more step and Mr. Scheer would have promised world peace and the return of the Nordiques.” On Friday, it was the turn of the two Liberal ministers. Asked by a reporter what commitments the Trudeau government was prepared to make for Davie, a major employer in the region, Morneau called Davie “important for our industry in Canada.” Morneau suggested that if reporters spoke to Davie representatives at the luncheon, “You will see the smiles on their faces.” Duclos added that Davie was “wrongfully harmed” by being excluded from the Harper government's National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. “There are things that the previous government did that our government cannot undo,” he added. In helping Davie, the federal government agreed to its offer to convert three icebreakers, built for cancelled offshore oil-drilling projects, for the Canadian Coast Guard. “You saw the three icebreakers we acquired a few months ago,” Duclos said. “The first icebreakers the government has acquired in 25 years.” Frédérik Boisvert, vice-president of Davie and one of the Davie representatives at the chamber of commerce luncheon, said the ferry and frigate refit contracts have not been awarded yet. But Davie is confident. “We're extremely well-positioned,” he said. “You can quote me on that, given that the other two shipyards are at full capacity.” The Morneau budget called for replacing the MV Madeleine, linking Quebec's Îles de la Madeleine with Prince Edward Island; the MV Holiday Island, running between P.E.I. and Nova Scotia; and building a new ferry for Marine Atlantic, linking Newfoundland to the continent. “They have to be built in Canada,” Boisvert said. “The two other shipyards are at full capacity so, logically, it's coming to us,” he said. “Maybe (there will be) an announcement before the end of June.” On the frigate refits, Davie is hoping to get contracts to refit at least four of the warships. “Negotiations are underway, and they should be wrapped up soon.” https://ipolitics.ca/2019/03/29/two-federal-ministers-offer-lifeline-for-quebecs-chantier-davie-shipyard/