From 511 to 612: How Leonardo & IMP plan to overhaul the Canadian Cormorant - Skies Mag

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  11 février 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

  'Strategic messaging': Russian fighters in Arctic spark debate on Canada's place

  Bob Weber / The Canadian Press Recent Russian moves in the Arctic have renewed debate over that country's intentions and Canada's own status at the top of the world. The newspaper Izvestia reported late last month that Russia's military will resume fighter patrols to the North Pole for the first time in 30 years. The patrols will be in addition to regular bomber flights up to the edge of U.S. and Canadian airspace. "It's clearly sending strategic messaging," said Whitney Lackenbauer, an Arctic expert and history professor at the University of Waterloo. "This is the next step." Russia has been beefing up both its civilian and military capabilities in its north for a decade. Old Cold-War-era air bases have been rejuvenated. Foreign policy observers have counted four new Arctic brigade combat teams, 14 new operational airfields, 16 deepwater ports and 40 icebreakers with an additional 11 in development. Bomber patrols have been steady. NORAD has reported up to 20 sightings and 19 intercepts a year. Commercial infrastructure has kept pace as well. A vast new gas field has been opened in the Yamal Peninsula on the central Russian coast. Control and development of the Northern Sea Route — Russia's equivalent of the Northwest Passage — has been given to a central government agency. Russian news sources say cargo volume is expected to grow to 40 million tonnes in 2020 from 7.5 million tonnes in 2016. Canada has little to compare. A road has been completed to the Arctic coast at Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories and work for a port at Iqaluit in Nunavut is underway. The first Arctic patrol vessel has been launched, satellite surveillance has been enhanced and a naval refuelling station built on Baffin Island. But most northern infrastructure desires remain unfilled. No all-weather roads exist down the Mackenzie Valley or into the mineral-rich central N.W.T. Modern needs such as high-speed internet are still dreams in most of the North. A new icebreaker has been delayed. Nearing the end of its term, the Liberal government has yet to table an official Arctic policy. Global Affairs Canada spokesman Richard Walker said in an email that the government is "firmly asserting" its presence in the North to protect Canada's sovereign Arctic territory. Walker said Canada cooperates with all Arctic Council members, including Russia, to advance shared interests that include sustainable development, the roles of Indigenous peoples, environmental protection and scientific research. "Given the harsh environment and the high cost of Arctic operations, Canada believes that cooperation amongst Arctic nations is essential," Walker wrote. "While we perceive no immediate military threat in the Arctic region, we remain vigilant in our surveillance of our Northern approaches." Canada needs to keep pace if only because it can't count on the current international order to hold, said John Higginbotham of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo. "If the globalized system fragments, we're going to get a world of blocs. The blocs will have power to close international shipping channels. "It's a dreadful strategic mistake for Canada to give up our own sea route." Arctic dominance would also give Russia a potent card to play, said Rob Huebert of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. "It gives you presence," he said. "Whenever there's issues that happen to occur elsewhere, we've already seen the behaviour of the Russians — they start doing overflights of other countries to bring pressure." Norway, the Baltics and the United Kingdom have all reported increased airspace violations, Huebert said. Few expect Russian troops to come pouring over the North Pole. The country is sticking with a United Nations process for drawing borders in Arctic waters and is a productive member of the eight-nation Arctic Council. "There's vigorous debate over whether their posture is offensive-oriented," Lackenbauer said. "The Russians insist this is purely defensive. It also offers possibilities for safe and secure shipping in the Northern Sea Route. "They're not doing anything wrong." Canada would be mistaken to ignore the awakening bear, said Ron Wallace of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Calgary. "It's important for Canadians to be aware of their Arctic and the circumpolar Arctic and what's going on in the North," he said. Canada is unlikely to take much from Russia's command-and-control style of development, Wallace said, but there are lessons to learn. Combining civilian and military infrastructure is one of them. "That's the kind of thinking I haven't seen here, but that's the thinking the Russians are using," he said. "They see the northern trade route as an excuse to put up military bases at the same time they're working with the Chinese to open up trade routes for the export of their resources." That would also help fulfil federal promises to territorial governments, said Wallace. "Somewhere in the middle there is a better policy for northern Canada." — Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960 https://www.burnabynow.com/strategic-messaging-russian-fighters-in-arctic-spark-debate-on-canada-s-place-1.23629355

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  19 juillet 2023 | Local, Aérospatial

  Bombardier Defense delivers Global 6000 to Saab’s GlobalEye program - Skies Mag

  The Global 6000 aircraft is ready to be transformed by Saab into its Airborne Early Warning and Control solution known as GlobalEye.

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  10 mai 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

  ASSESSING THE DAMAGE FROM CANADA’S FIGHTER REPLACEMENT FIASCO: NEW MLI REPORT

  OTTAWA, ON (May 6, 2019): In a hard-hitting new Macdonald-Laurier Institute report, MLI Senior Fellow Richard Shimooka takes a critical look at the government's approach to replacing Canada's aging fleet of CF-18 fighters. In the report, titled The Catastrophe: Assessing the Damage from Canada's Fighter Replacement Fiasco, he argues that Ottawa's performance on this file mirrors the SNC-Lavalin Scandal and the Mark Norman Affair. “At their heart, these two incidents represent attempts by the Liberal government to circumvent established processes to meet their partisan interests,” Shimooka explains. “This description is just as apt for the fighter program.” Canada is a participant in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program that has been developing the F-35s. These fighter jets were slotted to replace the RCAF's aging CF-18s, but after the program was mired in political scandal under the previous government, the Liberal government changed plans. “During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberal Party promised not to buy the F-35 jets, but instead to use a competition to identify and subsequently purchase a lower-cost competitor... this decision proved to be impossible, unethical, and potentially illegal,” writes Shimooka. From billions of dollars being wasted on a procurement process to fix a contrived capability gap to potentially threatening Canada's defence relationship with the US, the report finds that political interests have consistently been put above Canada's defence needs. Shimooka argues that “the decisions made [regarding fighter jet replacement] were purely for reasons of political interest: not a single one could be claimed as being in the country's national interest.” The “fiasco,” as Shimooka describes it, has caught the attention of both Canada's Office of the Auditor General (OAG) and senior US officials. According to documents never before seen by the public, the OAG had specifically cautioned the government against its chosen course of purchasing Australian Hornets as an interim measure in a draft report – and the final OAG report was heavily revised to obscure that recommendation. Worse still, letters from US officials reveal that “resentment and distrust towards the government of Canada had grown, particularly within the US Air Force.” These letters, which again have not been made public until now, outline the significant strategic and economic benefits that have already been accrued from being part of the JSF Program. Yet they also contain an implicit (but clear) threat that Canada could be kicked out of the Program – if Ottawa continues with its current policy of trying to obtain guaranteed industrial benefits that, by their very nature, are not allowed under the JSF Program. “There was a complete lack of logic of Canada's policy, which seemed to ignore basic facts about membership in the JSF program, including clear advantages in cost and capability that the F-35 provided.” Despite these persistent, high-level issues with the government's chosen approach on the fighter jet replacement, the file has avoided serious public scrutiny. Shimooka finds that this happened in large part due to the successful gag orders levelled by the government. “The government has also suppressed negative viewpoints within and outside the Department of National Defence, allegedly up to and including the deletion of portions of Memos to Cabinet that highlighted why certain decisions should not be taken.” Moving forward on the file may prove to be difficult; defence procurement woes have plagued Canada since Confederation, and the issues with the fighter jet replacement are deeper than just purchasing the right aircraft. Worse still, Shimooka says that the brunt of the burden of consistently poor decision-making in Ottawa will be borne by the RCAF itself. “While the negative consequences are clear for Canada as a whole," Shimooka explains, "no community has felt the impact more than the RCAF. As a result of this government's policies, its ability to conduct its most basic function, the defence of Canadian sovereignty and that of our allies, is diminishing rapidly.” “It is a sad state of affairs.” To read the commentary in full, click here. https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/assessing-damage-canadas-fighter-replacement-fiasco-new-mli-report/