Top Aces Achieves Record-breaking 75,000 Hours of Air Combat Training

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  January 19, 2023 | Local, Aerospace

  Department of National Defence to increase funding contribution for Inuvik Airport runway upgrades

  January 19, 2023 – Inuvik, Northwest Territories – Department of National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces Today, the Member of Parliament for the Northwest Territories, Michael V. McLeod, announced on behalf of the Minister of National Defence, Anita Anand, that the Department of  National Defence will be increasing its investment in the Inuvik Airport runway by $80 million, for a total investment of $230 million. Funding will be provided to the Government of the Northwest Territories and will be used to complete the remaining work required to extend and modernize the Inuvik Airport’s 6,000-foot main runway. Upgrades to the Inuvik runway are primarily focused on improving the airfield’s suitability to operate larger and heavier aircraft, which is an important enhancement to NORAD and the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) ability to operate in the North and Arctic. This work is vital to ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces continue to have the capability to meet emerging security challenges across the North and Arctic, and aligns with Minister Anand’s June 2022 announcement of Canada’s plan to modernize its NORAD capabilities.  As a central transportation hub in the Western Arctic and a growing community, Inuvik is a key location to deliver on our goals in the Arctic while creating opportunities for Indigenous and Northern communities. Construction on the runway upgrades is expected to be completed in 2027. The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring Canadian Armed Forces personnel have the Northern infrastructure they require to effectively train and perform their duties. Funding for this project will also generate well-paying jobs and economic opportunities for residents of the Beaufort Delta region during construction. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2023/01/department-of-national-defence-to-increase-funding-contribution-for-inuvik-airport-runway-upgrades.html

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  May 7, 2019 | Local, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  Scheer government would seek to join U.S. missile defence program

  By Alex Boutilier Ottawa Bureau OTTAWA–Andrew Scheer will announce tomorrow that a Conservative government would start talks with the Trump administration to join the U.S. continental missile defence program, the Star has learned. While the U.S. has sought the Canadian government's co-operation on a missile defence program since the early 2000s, successive governments — both Liberal and Conservative — have refused. But two Conservative sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed Scheer will announce a future Conservative government would pursue joining the program, which seeks to detect and stop missile attacks on the U.S. and its allies. Scheer will also announce his party's desire to “modernize” NORAD, the joint Canada-U.S. aerospace defence system, one source who had seen the text of the speech said. The announcements will come as part of a speech Scheer is scheduled to deliver Tuesday in Montreal on the Conservatives' approach to foreign policy. The speech is the first of five policy speeches Scheer is slated to deliver over the next five weeks. Scheer has released little in terms of policy since winning the Conservative leadership in May 2017, leading to Liberal attacks that he doesn't have a plan, especially on the environment. The speeches could blunt that criticism, while giving voters a better sense of what the Conservatives expect to include in their election platform. In addition to foreign affairs, Scheer will deliver speeches on immigration, the economy, “confederation” and the environment. The issue of a ballistic missile defence treaty with the United States has been a contentious one for successive Canadian governments. In 2005, then-prime minister Paul Martin refused to sign a deal with the Bush administration. Stephen Harper rebuffed similar requests from president Barack Obama, and the current Liberal government was similarly cold to the idea in its recently released defence policy overhaul. “The threats facing North America have evolved significantly in the air and maritime environment ... and weapons technology, including ballistic and cruise missiles, has advanced tremendously,” the defence framework reads. “Canada's policy with respect to participation in ballistic missile defence has not changed. However, we intend to engage the United States to look broadly at emerging threats and perils to North America, across all domains, as part of NORAD modernization.” Canadian governments' reluctance to join the American missile defence shield has typically had more to do with domestic politics than national security or defence considerations, according to Eugene Lang, an adjunct professor at the Queen's University school of policy studies. “There's been a lot of political sensitivity around it for Canadian governments that were feeling it was going to be controversial for Canada to sign on to this thing,” said Lang, who served as chief of staff to two Liberal defence ministers. “That was certainly the case in the early 2000s with the Bush administration because the Bush administration's foreign and military policy was deeply unpopular in Canada. Now the Trump administration's military and security policy, I don't know if it's deeply unpopular (but) we know Trump is deeply unpopular.” Whoever wins the upcoming federal election will likely face increased pressure from the Trump administration to participate — and help pay for — a planned update of the U.S. ballistic missile defence system. In January, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will deploy a new space-based system for detecting and stopping ballistic missiles aimed at the U.S. and its allies. But Trump also said that the allies who benefit from that defence system will be expected to pay their share of the cost. With files from the Canadian Press https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/05/06/scheer-government-would-seek-to-join-us-missile-defence-program.html

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  October 3, 2018 | Local, Aerospace

  Canada's fighter jet debacle: This is no way to run a military

  Opinion: In many NATO countries, national defence is a bipartisan or nonpartisan issue. Those governments don't use defence as a political tool By David Krayden Last week the United States Marine Corps flew the F-35 joint strike fighter into combat for the first time. That same day, one of the fighters also set a first: crashing in South Carolina — fortunately without the loss of life. As military aviators would remark, crap happens (or words to that effect). The state-of-the-art fighter jet first flew as a prototype in 2006 and has been flying with the United States Air Force since 2011. The Royal Air Force in the U.K. also uses the F-35. And just this year, in a moment of sheer historical irony, the Royal Australian Air Force took delivery of its first F-35s. Why irony? Because just as Australia was welcoming its new jets to its defence inventory, Canada was at the doorstep begging for Australia's used F-18s. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan had come calling because politics had again intervened in Canada's storied but sorry defence procurement planning. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, not knowing what to do with the obsolescent CF-18s — ordered by his father in the late 1970s for a 1982 delivery — had been musing about buying some Super Hornets from Boeing but had decided not to in a peevish fit of trade retaliation. Of course the Super Hornets were only a “stop-gap” measure anyway, as both Trudeau and Sajjan emphasized. The contract to replace the entire fleet of aging CF-18s would be delayed again because Trudeau did not want to buy the previous Conservative government's fighter replacement choice: the F-35. But there's an additional irony here. The F-35 was not just the choice of the Harper government. It was initially selected by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. The primary reason: interoperability with our primary allies. The U.S., U.K. and Australia would all be buying the F-35 so it just made sense. I was working at the House of Commons at the time for the Official Opposition defence critic, who thought the decision to participate in the development, and eventually, the procurement of the F-35, was a refreshing but rare moment of common-sense, non-political defence planning on the part of the government. Full article: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadas-fighter-jet-debacle-this-is-no-way-to-run-a-military