3 mai 2021 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

Opinion | The Saturday Debate: Should Canada leave NATO?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created to contain the Soviet Union, which no longer exists, but now it seems designed to supply the milita...

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/the-saturday-debate/2021/05/01/the-saturday-debate-should-canada-leave-nato.html

Sur le même sujet

  • Nouvelle opportunité pour les étudiants canadiens de construire et lancer leurs propres satellites

    20 septembre 2022 | Local, Aérospatial

    Nouvelle opportunité pour les étudiants canadiens de construire et lancer leurs propres satellites

    L'honorable François-Philippe Champagne, ministre de l'Innovation, des Sciences et de l'Industrie, a annoncé aujourd'hui le lancement de CubeSats, une initiative canadienne en STIM (CUBICS), une nouvelle occasion pour les professeurs et les élèves de niveau postsecondaire de participer à une véritable mission spatiale. Dans le cadre de CUBICS, les équipes ont le défi de réaliser des projets qui contribuent à l'avancement des connaissances scientifiques dans des domaines prioritaires, comme les changements climatiques. L'Agence spatiale canadienne (ASC) prévoit d'accorder des subventions totalisant 3,4 millions de dollars à un maximum de 12 équipes pour la conception, la construction et le lancement d'un CubeSat, ou pour le développement d'un instrument scientifique ou d'une expérience autonome. S'appuyant sur les leçons tirées de l'Initiative canadienne CubeSats, l'ASC a l'intention de lancer une nouvelle opportunité CUBICS tous les trois ans afin de continuer à stimuler l'apprentissage des étudiants pour des années à venir. L'initiative CUBICS vise à bien refléter les besoins des équipes d'étudiants dirigées par un professeur, nouvelles ou expérimentées en leur permettant de s'engager dans une mission adaptée à leur niveau, à l'expertise qu'ils ont déjà et à leur degré de préparation. CUBICS est l'une des initiatives de l'ASC qui visent à doter les étudiants de l'expérience, des connaissances et des compétences nécessaires pour devenir des candidats recherchés pour occuper des postes dans le secteur spatial canadien. Des experts de l'ASC guideront les équipes dans la mise au point de leurs missions. https://www.canada.ca/fr/agence-spatiale/nouvelles/2022/09/cubics--des-satellites-pour-passionner-les-etudiants-pour-les-stim-et-former-la-main-duvre-de-demain.html

  • Arrival of used Aussie fighters pushed back to summer 2019 or later

    12 février 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

    Arrival of used Aussie fighters pushed back to summer 2019 or later

    Senior defence official says Canada will take used Aussie FA-18s as they become available 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. Ongoing discussions 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. Urgent purchase? 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

  • Family issues, desk jobs prompting exodus of RCAF fighter pilots

    17 décembre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

    Family issues, desk jobs prompting exodus of RCAF fighter pilots

    DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN The Auditor General's recent report on fighter pilots leaving the Royal Canadian Air Force sparked a lot of speculation on why that was happening. One of the claims made on social media was the pilots were leaving because the Canadian government didn't go ahead with the purchase of new fighter jets, specifically the F-35. This seems to be a brilliant piece of marketing by F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin and shopped around with glee by F-35 supporters. Unfortunately reality sometimes has a way of shooting down such bogus claims. RCAF commander Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger outlined for Members of Parliament recently the real reasons behind the fighter pilots leaving. “Certainly the feedback from those who are releasing is it's a question of family, challenges for their family,” Meinzinger explained to the Public Accounts committee. “There's a dimension of ops tempo, work-life balance, predictability in terms of geographical location, and then typically fifth or sixth are comments about financial remuneration.” “We find that, unless there's a degree of predictability and positive career management over that individual, we often find individuals who are vexed,” Meinzinger further explained. “They come up to a point where they may not have anticipated they were going to move, or we're asking them to move their family to a location where perhaps their spouse cannot find employment.” Another factor is that some fighter pilots are not happy being streamed into administrative jobs. They want to keep flying. “We find a lot of individuals often don't wish to move to headquarters and work in an office versus work in an aircraft,” the RCAF commander acknowledged. “We recognize that and respect it. But that dialogue, which must happen at the margin, before we force an individual to move, is very, very important.” Not one mention of Canada not having the F-35 or any other new fighter jet. The geographic location aspect has played into retention issues affecting other organizations supporting the RCAF. The federal government will create a new centre of excellence in Ottawa to support aircraft testing, a move that affects the Canadian military's Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, or AETE, which has been at Cold Lake, Alta. since 1971. Under the new plan AETE would be relocated to the international airport in Ottawa and partnered with the National Research Council Flight Research Laboratory and Transport Canada Aircraft Services Directorate to create a centre of excellence for flight testing and evaluation. Moving AETE will save $14 million a year and free up space for the arrival of more fighter jets at Cold Lake. But defence industry officials were briefed earlier on one of the other aspects behind the move. That involves the difficulty in attracting civilian researchers and trained support staff to Cold Lake and retaining the military personnel that were transferred there. A move of the facility to a larger centre, less isolated and where spouses can find employment, is expected to help solve recruitment and retention issues for this organization. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/family-issues-desk-jobs-prompting-exodus-of-rcaf-fighter-pilots

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