29 septembre 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense
Lee Berthiaume
OTTAWA — While the federal government is pressing ahead with plans to buy billions of dollars worth of much-needed equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence's top procurement official says COVID-19 is further slowing down some already delayed purchases.
The past six months have seen a number of major milestones for Canada's beleaguered military procurement system, including last week's unveiling of the first of 16 new military search-and-rescue planes after 16 years of delays and controversy.
Procurement officials are also now reviewing three bids that were received from fighter-jet makers at the end of July as Canada inches closer to selecting a replacement for the aging CF-18s following more than a decade of political mismanagement.
The list of recent successes also includes Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding having delivered the first of six new Arctic offshore patrol vessels in late July, while progress has been made on a number of other files, such as the long-overdue purchase of new engineering vehicles for the Army.
Yet some of those milestones would have been achieved earlier had it not been for COVID-19. And Troy Crosby, the Defence Department's assistant deputy minister of materiel, acknowledges many other projects are being affected as well.
That includes the more than 100 military procurements — roughly half of them dealing with new equipment and the rest focused on building new infrastructure on Canadian Forces bases across the country — that were listed as already delayed before the pandemic hit.
"COVID didn't speed anything up," Crosby said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "I think everybody would understand that that's going to have some impact. And exactly what that impact is difficult to tell right now."
Delays in military procurements can have several impacts. In some cases such the CF-18s, the Canadian Armed Forces is being forced to keep using equipment that was supposed to have been retired years ago. In others, delays drive up the cost of the new purchases due to inflation.
The projects most likely to be delayed due to COVID-19 are those in production, Crosby said. Examples include the construction of new naval ships by Irving and Seaspan ULC in Vancouver, which have had to adopt physical distancing and other COVID-19 measures at their shipyards.
"For the projects that are at a stage where the work is office-based ... once we got over that initial hump as everybody had to as we moved toward a remote-work posture, the work continued," said Crosby.
"If you're in a shipyard and you're trying to advance the production of a ship given all of the physical distancing requirements and the health and safety considerations, that's challenging."
Crosby has previously argued much of the frustration around military procurement is the result of unrealistic expectations born of a lack of understanding and appreciation for how the system — which is dealing with more projects than at any time in recent history — actually works.
COVID-19 has also prompted speculation the Liberal government could start cutting back on its promise, unveiled in 2017, to spend $553 billion on the military over the next 20 years. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told The Canadian Press earlier this month that the funding is "secure."
Asked about the spending plan — which is contained in the Liberals' defence policy and known as Strong, Secure, Engaged — Crosby said: "Strong Secure Engaged continues to be our focus and it laid out a program of work and we're trying to get that program of work delivered.
"It's been that way right through this whole COVID situation. That hasn't changed anything. ... The people in the materiel group, the people we're working with across government, we're all seized with the program forward."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2020.
12 septembre 2023 | Local, Sécurité
For decades, national security has been an afterthought for federal governments of all stripes. The problem, say the experts, is that Canadians themselves tend not to take their security seriously — and as a result, neither do the people they elect.
11 novembre 2019 | Local, Aérospatial
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN Boeing officials tell Defence Watch that the company will indeed be bidding on Canada's future fighter jet program. The firm will offer the Super Hornet for the Royal Canadian Air Force. There had been questions in the defence and aerospace industry about whether Boeing would proceed in the competition as concerns mount the procurement is rigged towards the F-35. But a Boeing official told Defence Watch on Thursday that the company is “100 per cent in.” The firm has submitted to the federal government the required information that outlines how it will meet various security requirements so the aircraft can operate within the U.S.-Canadian system. In July Boeing released a statement that it was still participating in the process but it had yet to make any final decisions on whether to take part in the Canadian competition. “We look forward to continuing to provide comments, reviewing the final RFP, and determining next steps at that time,” Boeing noted at the time. In late August, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence and Airbus Defence and Space informed the Canadian government of their decision to withdraw from Canada's future fighter competition. Airbus had been offering Canada the Eurofighter. Last year the European firm Dassault informed the Canadian government it would not be competing in the competition. It had been planning to offer Canada the Rafale fighter jet. The $19 billion competition has been dogged by allegations it is designed to favour Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth fighter. This newspaper reported earlier this year that the requirements for the new jets put emphasis on strategic attack and striking at ground targets during foreign missions. That criteria is seen to benefit the F-35. In addition, the federal government changed criteria on how it would assess industrial benefits after the U.S. government threatened to pull the F-35 from the competition. Saab has also confirmed it is proceeding in the competition, offering Canada its Gripen fighter jet. Airbus and the UK Defence Ministry noted that its decision to withdraw was the result of a detailed review of Canada's request for proposals which was released to industry on July 23. It pointed to the changes Canada made to the industrial benefits package to appease Lockheed Martin as well as the excessive security costs that U.S.-Canadian security requirements placed on a company based outside North America. “A detailed review has led the parties to conclude that NORAD security requirements continue to place too significant of a cost on platforms whose manufacture and repair chains sit outside the United States-Canada 2-EYES community,” the statement from Airbus and the UK Defence Ministry noted. “Second, both parties concluded that the significant recent revision of industrial technological benefits obligations does not sufficiently value the binding commitments the Typhoon Canada package was willing to make, and which were one of its major points of focus.” Bids must be submitted by the spring of 2020. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/boeing-confirms-it-is-taking-part-in-canadas-future-fighter-jet-competition
12 septembre 2019 | Local, Terrestre
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN A Carleton University research team led by Shulabh Gupta, a professor in the Department of Electronics, has received $1.5 million in funding from the Department of National Defence's Innovation for Defence, Excellence and Security program to create the next generation technology for electronic camouflaging. The project will develop an artificial electromagnetic veil to protect military equipment from enemy detection based on cutting-edge Metamaterial technology, according to a news release from Carleton University. The veil would cover the surface of the military asset and hide it from a range of detection methods operating is various spectral bands, including radio frequencies, infrared and optical. The project, officially known as the Artificially Intelligent Biomimetic Metasurfaces for Electromagnetic Camouflage, is a collaboration with the University of Ottawa and Polytechnique Montreal, Carleton University noted. “In much the same way an octopus dynamically senses and adapts to its background, changing its colour as it moves, these smart electromagnetic veils would be able to sense their backgrounds, even while moving, and in real time adapt to blend into their surroundings while protecting the important targets,” Gupta said in the news release. “While an octopus is only capable of hiding from the optical detection of predators, assets utilizing the new veil would be hidden from a broad range of detection.” For example, radar can detect and distinguish a vehicle driving through a forest because the vehicle reflects a different signal back compared to its background, the university noted. To prevent this, the veil on the vehicle would predict the signal being reflected back by the surrounding trees and mimic it, making the vehicle indistinguishable from the trees as it drove through the forest. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/dnd-funds-new-technology-at-carleton-university-that-could-protect-military-equipment