24 mars 2023 | Local, Autre défense

JTF2 base expansion deal inked four months ago, but defence minister waited until Biden visit to make announcement

Construction is to start in May, indicating the project is well underway. The expansion project has already cost $800,000.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/jtf2-base-expansion-deal-inked-four-months-ago-but-defence-minister-waited-until-biden-visit-to-make-announcement

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  • Matt Gurney: Supporting local industry shouldn't be the first consideration in military procurement

    17 décembre 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Matt Gurney: Supporting local industry shouldn't be the first consideration in military procurement

    Rather than worrying about where things are built, a better question is: will Canadian soldiers be properly equipped? That's all that matters Matt Gurney Dec 16, 2020 • Last Updated 22 hours ago • 5 minute read It is almost a truism in Canadian public policy: We are terrible at military procurement. You hear that often. I've said it often. But it really isn't true. We only think we're terrible at military procurement because we are confused about what we're trying to do. Our military procurements are not about actually procuring equipment for the military. They're about creating jobs and catapulting huge sums of money into key ridings across the country. Once you shift your perspective and look at it that way, you realize very quickly that our military procurement system is amazing. It bats a thousand. The problem isn't with the system. We've just labelled it badly. If it were called the Domestic Defence Industry Subsidy Program instead of our military procurement system, we'd all be hailing it as a shining example of a Canadian public policy triumph. This is terrible. It has cost us the lives of our soldiers, and probably will again. But it's undeniable. Canadian politicians, Liberals and Conservatives alike, have long had the luxury of seeing defence as a cash pool, not a solemn obligation. And they sure have enjoyed that pleasure. Two recent stories by my colleague David Pugliese for the Ottawa Citizen have explored this theme: Our efforts to replace our fleet of frigates with 15 newer, more powerful ships is turning predictably complicated. The 15 new combat ships are part of a major overhaul of the Canadian fleet, which was neglected for many years and now must be modernized all at once. In February of 2019, the government chose American defence giant Lockheed Martin to produce the ships in Canada, using a British design. (How Anglosphere of us.) Companies that weren't selected to be part of the construction or fitting out of the ships are unhappy, Pugliese noted, and aren't bothering to hide it, even though they've abandoned their legal challenges. The sniping has continued, though, with spurned industry figures talking to the media about problems with the program. Jody Thomas, deputy minister of the Department of National Defence, reportedly told industry leaders to knock it off. “There's too much noise,” she reportedly said, adding that it was making the job of getting the new fleet built “very difficult.” Some of Thomas's irritation is undoubtedly the automatic hostility to scrutiny, transparency and accountability that's far too common for Canadian officials — our bureaucrats are notoriously prone to trying to keep stuff tucked neatly out of public view. But some of what Thomas said is absolutely bang-on accurate: Defence industry companies know full well that the government mainly views military procurement as a jobs-creation program, so are understandably put out to not get what they think is their fair share. Some Canadian companies have designed and developed critical communication and sensor gear for modern warships, Pugliese noted. This gear was developed with taxpayer assistance and has proven successful in service with allied fleets, but was not chosen for the new Canadian ships. And this is, the companies believe, a problem. Why aren't Canadian ships using Canadian-made gear? It's a good question, until you think about it for a moment. Then you realize that the better question is this: will the Canadian ships be properly equipped? That's it. That's all that matters. Will the new ships be capable of doing the things we need them to do? If yes, then who cares where we got the gear? And if no, well, again — then who cares where we got the gear? The important thing isn't where the comm equipment and sensors were designed and built. It's that the systems work when our ships are heading into harm's way. Assuming we have many viable options to choose from, then there are plenty of good ways of making the choice — cost, proven reliability, familiarity to Canadian crews, and, sure, even whether it was made in Canada. But supporting the local industry needs to be the last thing on the list. This stuff is essential. The lives of our sailors may depend on it working when needed. Cost matters, too, of course, because if the gear is too pricey, we won't have enough of it, but effectiveness and reliability are first. Treating military procurement as just another federal jobs-creation program is engrained in our national thinking But we talk about them last. Because we value it least. There probably is some value in preserving our ability to produce some essential military equipment here in Canada. The scramble earlier this year to equip our frontline medical workers with personal protective equipment is instructive. In a war, whether against a virus or a human enemy, you can't count on just buying your N-95 masks, or your torpedoes and missiles, from your normal suppliers. Unless Canada somehow gets itself into a shooting war without any of our allies in our corner, any time we are suddenly scrambling to arm up, our much larger allies are probably also scrambling to arm up, and they'll simply outbid us. (See again our current efforts to procure vaccines for an example of this unfolding in real time.) But we aren't at war now, and we can buy the damn ships from anyone. To the government's credit, it seems to be doing this; the pushback against the program seems mostly rooted in the government's decision to let the U.S.-British consortium chosen to build the new ships equip them as they see fit. The program may well derail at some point — this is always a safe bet with Canadian shipbuilding — but insofar as at least this part of the process goes, we're doing it partially right. Yes, we're insisting on building the ships here, but we aren't getting picky about the equipment that goes into them. That's probably wise. But that's about as far as the wisdom goes. Treating military procurement as just another federal jobs-creation program is engrained in our national thinking. It would have been good if COVID had knocked a bit of sense into us and forced us to, at long last, grow up a bit. But no dice. Oh well. Maybe next time. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-gurney-supporting-local-industry-shouldnt-be-the-first-consideration-in-military-procurement

  • Canadian government to spend estimated $800M more to keep aging CF-18s in fighting shape

    15 janvier 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

    Canadian government to spend estimated $800M more to keep aging CF-18s in fighting shape

    OTTAWA — The federal government is planning to invest hundreds of millions of dollars more to ensure Canada's aging CF-18s can still fight while the country waits for replacement jets, which were originally expected years ago. The extra money comes after the federal auditor general warned in late 2018 that Canada's fighter jets risked being outmatched by more advanced adversaries due to a lack of combat upgrades since 2008 and will result in new weapons, sensors and defensive systems for the fleet. Royal Canadian Air Force commander Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger estimated the added cost will be around $800 million, which is on top of the $3 billion the government has already set aside to extend the lives of the CF-18s and purchase 18 secondhand fighter jets from Australia. “Canada has a history of upgrading their fighter aircraft,” Meinzinger said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press. “It's a consequence of the fact that over time, threats ... advance as technology advances.” The air force did not initially plan any upgrades to the CF-18s' combat systems after 2008 because it expected to retire the last of the fleet by 2020, when a new fleet of jets was to have taken over. Instead, thanks to how successive governments have managed — or mismanaged — the jet file over the past decade, a competition to select a new fighter for the air force is only now underway. Even then, the last CF-18 isn't scheduled to be retired until 2032. The air force “imagined perhaps transitioning the fighter force a little bit earlier,” Meinzinger acknowledged, which is why the need to invest in the CF-18s' combat systems wasn't taken — or even apparent — earlier. “Because we anticipate flying the aircraft longer, this is why we're doing what we're doing to ensure we've got at least parity with the threats that we would see over that timeline before we can transition to the new fighter,” he added. The federal auditor general flagged concerns with the combat effectiveness of Canada's CF-18s in a report in November 2018, warning that the planes “will become more vulnerable as advanced combat aircraft and air defence systems continue to be developed and used by other nations.” The auditor general also found that even though the Department of National Defence had decided to invest money into the CF-18s to keep them flying past 2020, it “removed upgrades to combat capability,” in part because of “cost concerns.” Documents obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act show the auditor general's office initially wanted to say the fleet was “not fully capable for combat.” But defence officials said that could “compromise operational security” and suggested toned down language. “We've got an excellent capability,” Meinzinger said when asked about the state of the fleet. “The fighter force has got an outstanding reputation globally. They stand the watch 24/7, 365 under the NORAD rubric. ... I don't want Canadians to be worried about where we're at today.” The U.S. Marines are looking at keeping their F-18s — upon which the CF-18 is based — in the air until the 2030s, and Meinzinger said the two forces are working together to identify the best ways to do that. “We've made it a priority and we're moving as fast as we can to get it delivered,” he said. “Obviously our intent is always to ensure that we're making the investments such that we believe that we've got at least parity against the threats that we would face.” https://nationalpost.com/news/air-force-to-spend-hundred-of-millions-more-to-keep-cf-18s-fighting-fit

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

    3 octobre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

    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

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