19 juin 2020 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

Why Canada’s Failure to Win U.N. Security Council Seat Is a Huge Loss for Justin Trudeau

BY KAIT BOLONGARO / BLOOMBERG

JUNE 17, 2020 11:42 PM EDT

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his top diplomat sought to put a brave face on their failure to secure a spot on the United Nations Security Council in one of the Canadian leader's biggest defeats yet on the world stage.

Trudeau waged a four-year campaign for a council seat in what he hoped would represent a vindication of his foreign policy — a staunch defense of pluralism and multilateralism at a time of global upheaval. But his brand of progressive politics sometimes fell flat and he's been criticized as being preachy on liberal values.

“We listened and learned from other countries, which opened new doors for cooperation to address global challenges, and we created new partnerships that increased Canada's place in the world,” Trudeau said in a statement Wednesday after the vote.

Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said at a press conference the country's campaign allowed Canada to renew and strengthen bilateral connections across the world.

The latest setback is just one of many recent struggles for Trudeau globally, including a deterioration of relations with China and Saudi Arabia and a disastrous state visit to India.

Not Back

But none, perhaps, are as big a personal setback for the prime minister as Wednesday's defeat. The government had seen a return to the security council as a fulfillment of the Canadian leader's promise — the day after he took power in 2015 — to bring the country “back” on the world stage.

“Many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world over the past 10 years,” Trudeau said at the time. “Well, I have a simple message for you: on behalf of 35 million Canadians, we're back.”

Canada received the support of 108 countries of a total 192 that voted Wednesday afternoon at UN Headquarters in New York. Norway and Ireland, Canada's two rivals, received 130 and 128 votes, passing the required two-thirds majority of 128 ballots.

“It's really the biggest embarrassment he will suffer in his prime minister-ship in Canada, particularly on international affairs,” said Shuvaloy Majumdar, a senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute and former adviser on foreign policy in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's conservative government.

Canada has now been overlooked for the second time in the past decade to become a non-permanent member on the agency's decision-making body.

https://time.com/5855483/canada-un-security-council-seat/

Sur le même sujet

  • SkyAlyne announces pan-Canadian team of experts for FAcT program

    20 août 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

    SkyAlyne announces pan-Canadian team of experts for FAcT program

    SkyAlyne, a partnership between Canadian aviation and defence companies CAE and KF Aerospace, has officially unveiled its expanded team of strategic subcontractors to pursue the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) Future Aircrew Training (FAcT) program. SkyAlyne is a qualified supplier for the FAcT program. Canadian-based companies ATCO Frontec, Bluedrop Training and Simulation, Canadian Base Operators, Canadian Helicopters, and SERCO Canada will add considerable expertise, experience and Canadian content to SkyAlyne's bid. PAL Aerospace is a notable new addition to the SkyAlyne team, bringing unparalleled Canadian experience in airborne surveillance and intelligence operations, sensor operator training, mission systems development and aircraft modification capabilities. The SkyAlyne team collectively employs more than 14,000 Canadians and operates in every region of Canada — from coast to coast to coast. “We are pleased to officially announce our pan-Canadian team of experienced partners,” said SkyAlyne board chair Tracy Medve. “Our goal is to work with the Royal Canadian Air Force to continue providing a world-class aircrew training program built by Canadians for Canadians. These partnerships will strengthen SkyAlyne's position and help us move towards our objective to retain this crucial military capability in Canada.” As the only Canadian-founded and Canadian-based qualified supplier competing for the FAcT program, SkyAlyne has unique experience and expertise in military pilot and aircrew training specifically for the RCAF. SkyAlyne's parent companies – CAE and KF Aerospace – currently deliver all phases of pilot training for the Royal Canadian Air Force through the NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC) program based in Moose Jaw, Sask./Cold Lake, Alta., and the Contracted Flying Training and Support (CFTS) program based in Southport, Man., respectively. The subcontractors announced as part of the SkyAlyne team have extensive experience working with the RCAF. Most also currently support the existing training programs managed by CAE and KF Aerospace. “This agreement further ensures that the FAcT program benefits from the very latest Canadian expertise and innovation in aircrew training,” said SkyAlyne president France Hébert. “If selected, SkyAlyne will train the next generation of Royal Canadian Air Force airwomen and airmen while helping grow Canadian small- and medium-sized businesses as well as local and Indigenous communities. The selection of the SkyAlyne team would be a win-win for the Royal Canadian Air Force and for the Canadian aerospace industry.” https://www.skiesmag.com/press-releases/skyalyne-announces-pan-canadian-team-of-experts-for-fact-program

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

    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

  • Recrafting the Fighter role

    7 janvier 2019 | Local, Aérospatial

    Recrafting the Fighter role

    ROBBIN LAIRD, © 2018 FrontLine (Vol 15, No 6) It's clear that combat capabilities and operations are being recrafted across the globe and, as operational contexts change, the evolution of the role of fighters is at the center of that shift. This year's International Fighter Conference held in Berlin provided a chance to focus on the role of fighters in the strategic shift from land wars to higher intensity operations. The baseline assumption for the conference can be simply put: air superiority can no longer be assumed, and needs to be created in contested environments. Competitors like China and Russia are putting significant effort into shaping concepts of operations and modernizing force structures which will allow them to challenge the ability of liberal democracies to establish air superiority and to dominate future crises. There was a clear consensus on this point, but, of course, working the specifics of defeating such an adversary brings in broader concepts of force design and operations. While the air forces of liberal democracies all face the common threat of operating in contested airspace, the preferred solutions vary greatly from one nation to another, so the conference worked from that common assumption rather than focusing on specific solutions. The coming of the F-35 global enterprise is a clear force for change. In one presentation, a senior RAF officer outlined how the UK would both contribute to and benefit from the F-35 global enterprise. “The future is now,” he began, as he laid out how he saw interactions among F-35 partners in shaping common and distinctive approaches to air power modernization driven by the introduction of the F-35. Full article: https://defence.frontline.online/article/2018/6/10980-Recrafting-the-Fighter-role

Toutes les nouvelles