Le ministre Sajjan marque le début de la construction du quatrième navire de patrouille extracôtier et de l’Arctique

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  20 décembre 2019 | Local, Autre défense

  Canadian Forces had valuable ‘insights’ in Afghanistan, defence minister says following damning U.S. report

  By Charlie Pinkerton. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canadian Forces deployed to Afghanistan contributed useful insights to American forces, whose past military operations in the country have drawn new scrutiny following The Washington Post's publication of the so-called Afghanistan Papers. The documents obtained and published by the Post are the product of hundreds of interviews carried out by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR). SIGAR was mandated to complete a series of reports exploring the effectiveness of its nearly two-decade, close to trillion-dollar mission that it began as a retaliation against al-Qaeda for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The documents fought for in court by the Post include notes, transcripts and audio recordings that the subjects had been promised would not be made public by the government. They provide a thorough look at the frustrations and concerns of top U.S. brass and a lack of understanding of the conflict by the American military and its government. One of the revelations of the Afghanistan Papers is the that as the conflict continued, top American military officials considered it an unwinnable conflict. Sajjan completed three Afghanistan tours, where he worked in intelligence before working directly with top American troops as an adviser. In giving his take on how the Canadian perspective compared to that of the Americans during the mission, Sajjan said the Canadian Armed Forces had a better understanding of the realities of the conflict than its closest allies. READ MORE: A year-end Q&A with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan “I would say the insights the Canadians provided were actually very useful. That's one point that I'm trying to get across here, and I appreciate the Americans coming out and talking about this now,” Sajjan said. “Canadians were providing a very good perspective, very early on, to have a much more, I would say, accurate account of what is happening,” One passage the Post highlighted from the thousands of pages of documents to underscore the discontent with the conflict by U.S. officials was an interview with Douglas Lute, a former top army general who became an adviser on the Afghan war in the White House. “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn't know what we were doing,” Lute said. “What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.” Sajjan said good decisions were made only with an “accurate” and “good understanding” of the Afghanistan conflict. From 2001 to 2014, 40,000 Canadians served in Afghanistan. There were 158 Canadian soldiers killed. On top of its military effort, Canada has provided more than $3 billion in international assistance to Afghanistan since 2001. In talking about Canada's operations in Afghanistan, Sajjan also defended well-known Canadian-led aspects of the mission, such as the Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT, but known colloquially as omelette) and its stabilization-focused whole-of-government approach to the conflict. “What I'm trying to say here is that the work that Canada did there was highly valued and I appreciate other allies coming out with different perspectives,” Sajjan said. https://ipolitics.ca/2019/12/19/canadian-forces-had-valuable-insights-in-afghanistan-defence-minister-says-following-damning-u-s-report/

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  4 mai 2020 | Local, Terrestre

  Liberals set to break promise to buy back ‘all’ assault weapons in Canada

  The Liberal government is walking back an election promise to buy back “all" military-style assault rifles in Canada, opting instead to allow current owners to sell their weapons to the government or to keep them under a grandfathering process, federal officials say. The measure is set to anger both sides of the gun-control debate, who are already polarized over the looming ban of a number of semi-automatic weapons. The partial buyback program is the latest example of the Liberal Party of Canada promising strict gun-control measures during an election and then backing off in government. Under grandfathering, new weapons sales will be stopped, but current owners will be allowed to keep their banned weapons at home under certain conditions. The broad details of the buyback program were provided by federal officials, whom The Globe and Mail is not identifying because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Alison de Groot, of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association, said a partial buyback program is “bad public policy” and doesn't make sense. “It is totally ineffective and a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said. “Canadians will not be safer.” Nathalie Provost, who was hit by four bullets during the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in which 14 women died, said a partial buyback is another disappointment in her 30-year battle for gun control. She said she understands the logistical difficulties of a full buyback, but blamed the situation on a series of failures by successive governments to enact strong gun-control measures. She was particularly critical of the elimination in 2012 of much of the federal long-gun registry under the previous Harper government. “I'm so angry, you can't imagine,” said Ms. Provost, who is part of a gun-control group called Poly Remembers. As previously reported by The Globe, the federal government is implementing its election promise to ban military-style assault rifles in Canada. Federal officials said the government has adopted a list of nine weapons to be prohibited in Canada, including firearms such as the AR-15, the Ruger Mini-14 and the Beretta CX4 Storm that have been used in mass shootings, in Canada or abroad Provisional list of recommended prohibited firearms Estimated numbers in Canada M16, M4, AR-10, AR-15 Sandy Hook, New Zealand, Las Vegas, Orlando Mini-14 Polytechnique 83,570 16,860 M14 Moncton Swiss Arms Classic Green 5,230 1,340 Vz58 Quebec Mosque CZ Scorpion EVO 3 11,590 1,810 Beretta CX4 Storm Dawson College SIG MCX and SIG MPX 1,510 1,000 Robinson XCR Guns above 20 mm calibre 1,830 30 Guns with muzzle energy above 10,000 joules 600 MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GOVERNMENT OF CANADA The ban, which has been made through a cabinet decision, is set to be announced and take effect shortly. The government expects that banning the nine platforms and their variants will scoop up close to 1,500 different models in the country, totalling tens of thousands of individual firearms. In addition to the nine platforms, prohibitions are expected to be placed on guns with a muzzle energy exceeding 10,000 joules, which would snare .50-calibre sniper rifles, and those with calibres in excess of 20 millimetres, a rare grade of firearm that includes some grenade launchers. “Those are the only two prohibitions that make sense,” said A.J. Somerset, author of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun and a former gunnery instructor with the Canadian Forces. “They seek to ban things around specifications. Going after individual models perpetuates the same failed approach." Mr. Somerset said that prohibiting specific models resembles a push in the 1990s to crack down on semi-automatic assault-style rifles under then-prime minister Jean Chrétien. Rather than passing comprehensive legislation, the government of the day sought to stamp out “military-style assault weapons” by identifying gun models through order-in-council. According to RCMP briefing notes, the orders-in-council were intended to be updated continually as new guns arrived on the Canadian market. For the most part, that never happened and gun manufacturers easily switched production to firearm models that circumvented the regulations. “As soon as they prohibit one model, other models will become popular – it's whack-a-mole,” said Alan Voth, a gun forensics consultant and retired RCMP firearms analyst. Mr. Voth said the 1990s prohibitions made Canada's classification system so convoluted that regional RCMP forensics labs would often disagree with one another over how certain firearm models should be classified. The government eventually centralized classification duties in Ottawa, in part to overcome regional discrepancies. Unlike the coming ban on specific assault-style weapons, the buyback program, and further gun-control measures being prepared by Ottawa, will need to be enacted through new legislation and are only scheduled to take effect next year. It remains unclear how much the buyback program will cost, but Ms. de Groot said the Liberals “grossly underestimated” the cost when they provided a $250-million price tag during the election. In a statement, Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus accused the government of using the “immediate emotion” of a recent mass shooting in Nova Scotia to “make major policy changes” such as the ban on assault weapons. The NDP and the Bloc Québécois both said they support a ban of assault weapons. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended the timing of the ban on Thursday, explaining his government was nearly ready to introduce the gun-control measures when Parliament suspended its regular activities in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-liberals-set-to-break-promise-to-buy-back-all-assault-weapons-in/

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  21 avril 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Update from the Council of Canadian Innovators - 17 April 20

  Good evening, Thank you to those who participated in this afternoon's update call with Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains. If you weren't able to join the call, we've uploaded the audio here: https://bit.ly/2VQHxZV We were pleased to have both Minister Bains and Iain Stewart, President of the National Research Council, on the call today to provide an overview of how the government plans to use the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) to support Canadian innovators who are ineligible for the 75% Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and other stimulus measures announced to date. Our call with the Minister comes on the heels of an announcement by the Government of Canada to increase IRAP's funding envelope by $250M and double the funding available for Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) with an investment of $962M. For more information about the new IRAP program announced today, visit https://nrc.canada.ca/en/support-technology-innovation/register-nrc-irap-innovation-assistance-program. And while the majority of the call today did focus on the IRAP program, more information about accessing support from the RDAs is expected in the coming days, and we'll update you accordingly. I'd like to pause and thank you all for participating in our national advocacy efforts to support the Canadian technology ecosystem. By showing up, being counted, and sharing your stories with your local government representatives and members of the media, you're helping to reorient Canada's economic policies towards the 21st century innovation economy and keep Canadians working. Your advocacy matters and your voices are being heard, as Minister Bains acknowledged on the call today. Advocacy is most effective when we all speak with one voice, and over the past number of weeks, you've all put on your jersey's for Team Canada, and it's made a difference. Congratulations to you all. You can see your advocacy at work in these articles published today in various Canadian newspapers: The Globe and Mail: Ottawa unveils $1.2-billion in pandemic funding for startups, small business Betakit: Federal government commits additional $250 million in IRAP The Logic: Navdeep Bains on Ottawa's plan to save Canadian tech amid COVID-19 Financial Post: Ottawa to provide $250 million to prop up strategic innovative firms hurt by COVID-19 Have a great weekend, Ben Benjamin Bergen Executive Director Council of Canadian Innovators \ Conseil Canadien des Innovateurs