10 août 2018 | Local, Terrestre
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN
Saudi Arabia is expecting a full apology from Canada for a tweet that raised questions about human rights issues in the Middle East country.
It is unlikely that would be coming anytime soon.
So the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Canada continues.
In recent days, Riyadh suspended diplomatic ties with Canada, expelled the Canadian ambassador and recalled its own envoy to Ottawa after Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and her department criticized the regime on Twitter for its arrest of social activists, demanding their immediate release.
Angered by the condemnation, Saudi Arabia has also tried to sting Canada's economy by halting future trade and investment deals and by cancelling lucrative scholarships that would have seen 15,000 of its citizens study in Canada. One media report said Saudi banks and pension funds were ordered to sell off their Canadian assets, although that report remains unconfirmed.
Bloomberg News has reported that any move by Saudi Arabia to stop new investments and unload assets in Canada is likely to have limited impact. Saudi assets in Canada are confined mainly to stakes in upscale hotel operators, some small stock holdings in companies like Canadian National Railway and grain facilities, Bloomberg noted.
What is interesting is what Saudi Arabia hasn't done.
It is still willing to sell oil to Canada and has not put any roadblocks on that money-making venture. The Saudi Press Agency confirmed Thursday that the “diplomatic crisis” wouldn't affect the kingdom's petroleum sales to Canada. But that has also raised questions in Canada about why we are buying oil from Saudi Arabia when we have such large reserves ourselves?
The big question is whether the Saudis will withdraw from its $15 billion deal to buy Light Armoured Vehicles from General Dynamics Land Systems of London, Ont.?
It could happen but such a move would likely only hurt the Saudis. They need the vehicles and to negotiate a new contract with another arms supplier, plus get delivery of that equipment, could take years.
Then there is the supply of parts and other support for the existing LAVs that the Saudis previously purchased from General Dynamics. Would shutting down all links to the LAV supply chain make sense for the Saudis?
Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Thursday he was still unsure if the General Dynamics contract would be affected.
Defence Watch submitted a series of questions to General Dynamics asking whether it would be halting production of LAVs destined for Saudi Arabia and would GD continue to provide spare parts for LAVs already delivered? “General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada declines to comment,” spokesman Doug Wilson-Hodge stated in an email.
11 février 2022 | Local, Terrestre
Créé en septembre 2021, Inkas Aerospace & Defense compte déjà un important catalogue de systèmes d'interception. Cette division est dédiée aux interceptions de la société canadienne spécialisée
25 septembre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial
By: Frank Jordans, The Associated Press BERLIN — Germany is looking to sell a secondhand surveillance drone that has cost the country more than 700 million euros ($823 million) to Canada — without many core components it needs to fly. A defense ministry reply to lawmakers from the opposition Left Party states that Germany has decided to "begin concrete negotiations with Canada for the sale of the Euro Hawk aircraft, two ground stations and possibly certain spare parts." The government response, dated Sept. 19 and obtained by The Associated Press, adds that Germany isn't currently in talks with any other country or organization about the sale of the drone. In a statement Monday, Germany's defense ministry confirmed talks with Canada were planned, but declined to comment on a possible sales price or date. Officials at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin weren't immediately able to comment. Germany ordered the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk variant in 2000 to use for long-distance reconnaissance, but later canceled the order because of skyrocketing costs and revelations that the prototype wouldn't be certified to fly in Europe. Then-Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere acknowledged in 2013 that the drone was a write-off, telling lawmakers it was better to have a "horrible end than a horror without end." Last year, the government acknowledged that the development and procurement of the prototype, a signals-intelligence sensor called "ISIS" and spare parts, and the completion of seven test flights had cost about 681 million euros since 2007. A further 24 million euros were spent on preparing for a resumption of temporary test flights. According to the government's latest response to Left Party lawmakers, which hasn't been published yet, the drone has already been "demilitarized." This entailed the removal of American-made radio equipment, the GPS receiver and aerials, as well as all encryption and the flight control system. Rather than laboriously delete individual software components, technicians chose to perform a "hardware uninstallation" — removing all hard drives containing sensitive U.S.-made software. "The question is what a buyer would do with such a gutted aircraft," said Thomas Wiegold, a German journalist who runs the defense website Augen Geradeaus . "Without GPS navigation and in particular without flight control systems, the drone would hardly be able to fly." Andrej Hunko, one of the Left Party lawmakers who submitted questions to the government, said the drone now only has "scrap value." "The sale will therefore recoup at best a small portion of the tax money spent," he said. "I expect the loss will amount to several hundred million euros (dollars)." Hunko, whose party objects to airborne military surveillance, said the drone's ground stations might still fetch a market price. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/09/24/germany-looking-to-sell-costly-rarely-used-drone-to-canada
6 avril 2022 | Local, Aérospatial
When Boeing submits its proposal for the Canadian Multi-Mission Aircraft project to replace the CP-140 Aurora, it is likely to be the P-8A Poseidon. We take a closer look at the Poseidon’s potential.