12 février 2018 | Local, Aérospatial
It will be 2022 before the Royal Canadian Air Force receives all of the used Australian fighter jets the Liberal government intends to purchase, says senior defence official.
The plan was rolled out with much fanfare at the end of last year because the air force has faced — in the words of Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan — an "urgent capability gap" and is not able to meet its NATO and Norad commitments at the same time.
Pat Finn, who is in charge of the materiale branch of National Defence, told CBC News in a recent interview a final agreement is still months away.
He is confident, however, everything will come together.
Delivery is "staggered over three years," Finn said.
The Trudeau government announced in December it would buy 18 used Australian "classic" FA-18s as an interim measure to bolster the air force until the entire Canadian fleet of CF-18s is replaced, beginning in the mid-2020s.
It had wanted to buy brand new Boeing Super Hornets, the newer, bigger, more advanced version of the FA-18 and CF-18. The plan was scuttled when the manufacturer, Chicago-based Boeing, filed a trade complaint against Canadian aerospace giant Bombardier.
No price tag for the Australian deal was released at the time of the formal announcement, which was made by Sajjan and Public Works Minister Carla Qualtrough.
Finn said those details are still being worked out.
The Liberal government said in December the first used fighters, which were purchased by Australia around the same Canada bought its CF-18s, would arrive by January 2019.
Finn said the delivery schedule is being finalized, but he anticipates receiving the first two warplanes by the summer of that year.
Another one would follow by the end of the year, but much depends on the Royal Australian Air Force and how quickly it retires the fighters and the age of what's being offered.
"They, of course, release aircraft as they get aircraft," Finn said. "We do not necessarily want the oldest aircraft, so we would like to have an ongoing discussion."
He said there is some flexibility and if "summer '19 turns into" something a few months later because they can get a better jet, then it's something that can be negotiated.
The Australian government is in the process of seeking permission to sell the planes because they were originally manufactured in the U.S.
Once the Australian warplanes arrive in Canada, they will need to be given life-extension modifications that will bring them up to the standard of the CF-18s, which have been modified to continuing flying until 2025.
It stands in stark contrast to the urgency with which the Liberals initially painted the shortage of fighter aircraft.
"In 2025, the CF-18s will not be able to fly, and it is important that we move very quickly in filling this capability gap." said Sajjan in June 2016.
Finn said the air force is managing the capability gap by making more CF-18s available for operations on a daily basis.
"We're basically working right now to increase the availability of our current airplanes," he said.
Experts say that would mean pouring more than expected into the maintenance budget in order to keep fighters on the flight line.
One defence analyst said the government has a strange definition of urgent.
"Nothing about the handling of this file lines up with the identification of it as an urgent need, either the interim or the permanent purchase," said Dave Perry, an expert in procurement at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
He said he believes it will present a political headache for the Liberals come the next election.
"The fact that this government may, at best, have a couple of second-hand aircraft before the next election after having identified an urgent need to acquire new fighter aircraft is just incredible," he said.
When the Australian deal was announced, the government also laid out a timeline for the full replacement of the CF-18s, which were purchased in the 1980s, but extensively modified and upgraded in the early 2000s.
Public Works recently held a consultation day with defence contractors, but Perry says no one seems to understand why it will take until the early 2020s to launch the competition.
When the former Conservative government was struggling over whether to buy the F-35 stealth fighter, it conducted extensive research on the alternatives and possible types of warplanes Canada would need.
That research, which conceivable could move things along faster, was largely discarded by the Liberals and is gathering dust on a shelf, Perry says.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/aussie-fighter-jets-1.4530875
25 août 2022 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
Today, Defence Minister Anita Anand and General Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), visited 5 Wing Goose Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador, where they met with members of the Canadian Armed Forces stationed at the base, and thanked them for their important work and dedication to protecting Canada.
24 septembre 2018 | Local, C4ISR, Sécurité
Catharine Tunney · CBC News Organized crime is moving online and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is struggling to keep up, according to a briefing note prepared for RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki when she took over the top job earlier this year. The memo, obtained by CBC News under access to information law, may launch a renewed battle between the national police service and privacy advocates. "Increasingly, criminality is conducted on the internet and investigations are international in nature, yet investigative tools and RCMP capacity have not kept pace," says the memo tucked into Lucki's briefing book. "Growing expectations of policing responsibilities and accountability, as well as complexities of the criminal justice system, continue to overwhelm the administrative demands within policing." In 2016 nearly 24,000 cybercrime-related cases were reported to Canadian police, up 58 per cent over 2014. The report's authors note that cybercrime tends to be under-reported. Encryption of online data has a been a persistent thorn in the RCMP's side. Lucki's predecessor lobbied the government for new powers to bypass digital roadblocks, including tools to get around encryption and warrantless access to internet subscriber information. "Approximately 70 per cent of all communications intercepted by CSIS and the RCMP are now encrypted ... 80 organized crime groups were identified as using encryption in 2016 alone," says the 274-page document. Some critics have noted that non-criminals — journalists, protesters and academics, among others — also use encryption tools online and have warned any new encryption legislation could undermine the security of financial transactions and daily online communication. Ann Cavoukian was Ontario's privacy commissioner for three terms; she now runs Ryerson University's Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence. She called the RCMP's push for more online policing power "appalling." "I guess we should remind them that we still live in a free and democratic society where people have privacy rights, which means that they should be in control of their personal information," she said. "If you're a law abiding citizen, you get to decide how your information is used and to whom it's disclosed. The police have no right to access your personal information online, unless of course they have a warrant." Lucki was specifically warned about criminal suspects "going dark," a term used to describe the gap between the lawful ability of police forces to obtain online evidence and changing technology. She also was advised the RCMP's court-authorized arsenal (things like court orders and "computer network exploitation techniques," which cover hacking) are "rapidly declining." "Get more efficient," said Cavoukian. Parliamentary committee promises to study issue A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said that "encryption is critical to safeguarding our cybersecurity, privacy and the digital economy." "However, it has also created gaps for law enforcement and national security agencies," wrote Scott Bardsley in an email. Earlier this year, the House of Commons' public safety and national security committee released a 76-page report that recommended "no changes to the lawful access regime for subscriber information and encrypted information be made." But the committee didn't shelve the issue, promising instead to study the evolving challenges. "The government will support the standing committee on national security and public safety in its continued work to study these and other emerging technological issues related to cybersecurity," wrote Bardsley. "It will also continue to examine options to ensure agencies have the resources necessary to gain access to decrypted data required to address criminal activity." Cavoukian predicts "a real fight" over the issue. Bardsley says the government has pledged $116 million over five years, and $23.2 million per year after that, to help create the national cybercrime coordination unit, which would help "provide digital investigative advice and guidance to Canadian law enforcement." The RCMP didn't meet CBC's deadline for a comment. Attrition issues The briefing binder also flags the RCMP's persistent problem with replenishing its ranks when officers retire or otherwise leave the force. "The RCMP has a growing vacancy rate that exceeds its present ability to produce regular members at a rate that keeps pace with projected future demands," it warns. As of April 2018, there were 1,122 funded vacant regular member positions —a vacancy rate of 5.6 per cent. That's down slightly from the previous year, when the vacancy rate was 6.6 per cent. The briefing note says that in the last five years, there has been a "dramatic" increase in the number of new recruits needed to fill operational vacancies and evolving program requirements. About 1,280 cadets were expected to be enrolled in 2018-2019, up from 1,152 the previous year. In 2016, CBC News reported that the RCMP was dropping its requirement that applicants be Canadian citizens, and that it would accept applications from permanent residents. The RCMP also loosened entrance requirements to deal with a wave of retirements, low pay and the need to expand its pool of potential new officers. Starting this month, the RCMP is dropping its requirement that applicants must be Canadian citizens. It will now accept permanent residents. Post-secondary graduates no longer will have to write an entrance exam that measures aptitude for police work and the force will no longer require a physical abilities evaluation before people submit an application. With files from the CBC's Kathleen Harris. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/lucki-briefing-binde-cybercrime-1.4831340
29 août 2023 | Local, Aérospatial
In episode 21 of the Pilot Project Podcast, McNaughton shares what flying with the Canadian Forces Snowbirds is like, and much more.