Trudeau directs ministers to cement fighter deal

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  28 juin 2023 | Local, Autre défense

  Senators call on feds to bring Indigenous communities into Arctic security planning | CBC News

  A Senate committee has delivered a forceful call for greater participation by Indigenous communities in shaping Canada’s Arctic defence and security.

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  7 décembre 2018 | Local, Aérospatial

  Senate committee outlines recommendations for Canadian SAR

  by Ken Pole As the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) gears up for the late 2019 arrival of the first of 16 new Airbus CC-295 fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) aircraft, a Senate committee said the government should consider the deployment of even more search and rescue (SAR) aircraft. “This would be a multi-year, mega-government dollar capital procurement project,” the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans acknowledged in an exhaustive new report, When Every Minute Counts: Maritime Search and Rescue. “Repositioning current aeronautical SAR assets is not feasible . . . at this time because the fleet is fully utilized.” The November 2018 report is based on more than two years of study and hearings, which wrapped up in October. While most witnesses were heard in Ottawa — including senior RCAF, Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and Transport Canada officials, as well as representatives of several industries — the committee also travelled to bases across the country as well as visiting officials and SAR facilities in England, Ireland, Norway and Denmark. RCAF fixed- and rotary-wing assets are a key element in covering nearly 18 million square kilometres of land and sea. In 2017, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centres in Victoria, Trenton and Halifax responded to 10,003 SAR calls, 62 per cent of them maritime. The committee predicts that the number of calls in the Arctic will increase as global warming results in a longer ice-free navigation period. Accordingly, the report recommends that the CCG establish additional primary search and rescue stations in the Canadian Arctic, where no SAR aircraft are currently based. It also calls on the Department of National Defence (DND) to authorize a pilot project which would see private civilian helicopters provide coverage in the North as well as in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the committee says “a disproportionately high number” of SAR incidents occur. In addition to the possible privatization of some missions (CHC Helicopter and Cougar Helicopters Inc. appeared before the committee), the committee also said the CCG should be an independent agency. “The Canadian Coast Guard . . . is hampered by its position within Fisheries and Oceans Canada, which leaves it at the mercy of the department for funding and prevents it from receiving long-term sustainable capital funding.” SAR reaction times were also an issue for the committee. It was told that the CCG's official time is 30 minutes from when a helicopter or ship is tasked until it departs, but that it usually takes less than 15 minutes in the case of a surface vessel, because they are probably on the water already. In comparison, the RCAF has a reaction time of 30 minutes during a typical eight-hour working day five days a week, and two hours at all other times. “Like the CCG vessels, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) crews are often airborne sooner than the targeted reaction time, around 20 minutes during working hours and one hour outside of working hours,” the committee notes. “However, there was considerable discussion regarding what witnesses called the CAF's ‘two-tier reaction time.' It was stressed that the two-hour reaction time guaranteed outside of working hours had . . . resulted in missions becoming recovery-oriented instead of rescue-oriented. In their view, the CAF should have a reaction time of 30 minutes, 24/7/365, like the CCG.” DND witnesses told the committee the concern had been addressed “to the extent possible” and it was the responsibility of SAR commanders in the three regions to align the 30-minute reaction time to coincide with the observed periods of greatest maritime SAR activity. “Overall, the committee was told that shifting the regular weekly schedules without increasing the total number of hours worked has improved readiness.” It also was told it was impossible for the RCAF to maintain 30-minute readiness at all times because “pilots and SAR aircrew members have a limit on how long they can engage in flying operations.” Sustaining a 30-minute target would require crews to remain poised on flight lines. “The two-hour reaction time allows the pilots and aircrews to be ‘fresh' and able to deliver a SAR response for up to 14, 16, 18 hours, which allows them to then go longer, further distances. Moreover, the increased level of readiness would require more aircraft, add more maintenance and necessitate infrastructure upgrades.” The committee says that despite improvements, Canada's SAR reaction time is “not at par” with other countries. “Aeronautical SAR assets operated in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark respond within 15 minutes during the day and between 30 and 45 minutes at night.” The committee says that given current shortfalls in the RCAF's pilot, flight engineer and SAR Technician cadres, it isn't possible to impose similar reaction times on RCAF crews. But it says it hopes the RCAF will reconsider its reaction time targets once personnel shortages are addressed. https://www.skiesmag.com/news/senate-committee-outlines-recommendations-for-canadian-sar

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  16 juin 2020 | Local, Naval

  Ottawa awards $2.4B contract to finish building navy's supply ships

  The decision signals the project won't be delayed by pandemic-driven deficit spending Murray Brewster · CBC News · Posted: Jun 15, 2020 2:45 PM The Liberal government has awarded a $2.4 billion contract to finish the overall construction of the navy's long-awaited supply ships. Today's announcement moves forward a Joint Support Ship program over a decade-and-a-half in the making. It also appears to signal the federal government remains committed to its multi-billion shipbuilding program despite record levels of pandemic-driven federal deficit spending. The contract, with Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyards, is for the construction of two replenishment vessels, Public Services and Procurement Canada said in a statement. Now that the construction deal has been signed, the overall price tag of the program — including design — is expected to be $4.1 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $3.4 billion. Seven years ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) predicted the cost would end up where it has — an estimate that was roundly criticized and dismissed by the Conservatives, who were in power at the time. "The government announcement today did not have a whole ton of detail, so it's hard to do an exact comparison, but I certainly think that PBO estimate from a long time ago has held up pretty well over time," said Dave Perry, an expert in defence procurement and vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. The first supply ship is to be delivered in 2023, and the second vessel is supposed to arrive two years later. The yard started construction on certain portions of the first ship in 2018, while final design work was still underway — something that alarmed and even baffled some defence and shipbuilding experts. 'Business as usual' With the federal deficit expected to swell to over $252.1 billion because of COVID-19 relief measures, many in the defence community had been speculating that existing spending plans for the supply ships would be curtailed or scaled back. In a statement, federal Public Services Minister Anita Anand suggested the Liberal government is committed to staying the course. "This contract award is yet another example of our ongoing commitment to the National Shipbuilding Strategy, which is supporting a strong and sustainable marine sector in Canada," she said. Perry said he takes it as a sign the Liberals intend to proceed with their defence construction plans in the face of fiscal and economic uncertainty. "It is an indicator that, despite being business under some very unusual circumstances, it is still government business-as-usual under COVID," he said. In the same government statement, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan pointed out that an enormous amount of preparation work has been done already and he's pleased the project is moving forward. "An impressive amount of work has already gone into the construction of these new ships, and I look forward to their arrival in the coming years." said Sajjan. Construction during COVID-19 A senior executive at Seaspan said work to adapt the design from the original German plan (the Canadian ship is based on the German Navy's Berlin-Class replenishment vessel) was completed last year and work on the superstructure of the first Joint Support Ship — started in 2018 — has been proceeding apace, even through the pandemic. "It is well advanced," said Amy MacLeod, the company's vice-president of corporate affairs. "We are ready to continue. We're very, very happy with the quality of the ship, the progress of the ship, the momentum that we have and the expertise we have gained." The shipyard did not pause construction due to the pandemic — but it did have to figure out ways to carry on under strict physical distancing rules. "We, like everybody else, had to understand how to run a business in a pandemic," said MacLeod. "We made a lot of changes on how we build our ships." Turnstiles to enter and exit the yard were eliminated and the company went high-tech with a "heat map" that shows where everyone is working and how much space there is between individual workers. "And where we couldn't ensure appropriate social distancing because of COVID, we stopped that work." Perry said the gap between the construction of the two supply ships worries him to a degree. Seaspan intends to construct an ocean science vessel for the coast guard under a plan agreed to with the Liberal government in 2019. Any delay or hiccup in the construction of that ship could mean the delivery of the second naval vessel is pushed back even further, Perry said. Extending the navy's range News of the contract will come as a relief to the navy. Having replenishment ships to refuel and rearm frigates would allow the navy to deploy entire task groups to far-flung parts of the world. "With these warships, the Royal Canadian Navy will be able to operate with even greater flexibility and endurance," said Vice-Admiral Art McDonald, commander of the navy. "These ships will not only form part of the core of our naval task groups, they also represent a vital and strategic national asset that will enable the Navy to maintain its global reach and staying power." A tortured history It was 1994 when the replacement program was first discussed. The deficit-slashing years of that decade meant the plan was shelved. Resurrected in 2004, the Liberal government of former prime minister Paul Martin hoped to have the ships in the water by 2008 to replace the three-decade-old supply ships the navy had been operating. Faced with cost estimates well over what they had expected, the Conservative government of former prime minister Stephen Harper shelved the Liberal plan on the eve of the 2008 federal election. More than five years later, the navy was forced to retire both aging supply ships after one of them was crippled by a devastating fire. The absence of replenishment capability led the Harper government to lease a converted civilian supply ship from a private company, Federal Fleet Services, which operates out of the Davie Shipyard in Levis, Que. That plan led to a political and legal scandal when the former commander of the navy, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, was accused of leaking cabinet secrets related to the plan. The Crown withdrew the charge a year ago after a protracted pre-trial court battle. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supply-ship-navy-seaspan-1.5612770