7 octobre 2019 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

With billions of dollars at stake, all parties promise to fix defence purchases

Every election, would-be prime ministers promise to cancel bad military purchases or processes, hurry along good ones, fix the mess once and for all

OTTAWA — The seemingly endless effort to replace Canada's CF-18s fighter jets passed a tiny milestone Friday: fighter-jet makers participating in the $19-billion competition were required to explain how they planned to make their aircraft compliant with U.S. intelligence systems.

For nearly a decade, Canadians have been inundated with talk of fighter jets without Canada ever buying them, an ever-worsening symbol of the failures of Canada's military procurement system.

Every election, would-be prime ministers promise to cancel bad purchases or processes, hurry along good ones, fix the mess once and for all.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer this week promised to “de-politicize” military procurement with new oversight bodies in cabinet and the Privy Council Office while working toward multi-partisan consensus on procurement projects in Parliament.

The Liberals promise to establish a new agency called Defence Procurement Canada, which suggests taking the entire function away from the four departments that now share responsibility for buying military kit.

The New Democrats and Greens promise, without detail, that they will ensure Canada's military gets the equipment it needs.

The origins of what we face today can be traced back to the end of the Cold War when Canada and its allies began to cut defence spending after a decades-long arms race with the Soviet Union.

There were concerns about whether or not you're getting the right kind of economic benefits

“We deferred purchasing new fighter planes and did the same thing with our frigate fleet,” says David Perry, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and one of Canada's foremost experts on defence spending and procurement.

“We just kicked the can down the road on fixed-wing search-and-rescue aircraft. There was a bunch of other projects that fit the same vein.”

The military had to use equipment for years longer than it was supposed to and the Department of National Defence lost most of its procurement experts.

But in the mid-2000s, the Forces' equipment problems were revealed in Kandahar: the military lacked transport aircraft to resupply its Afghanistan mission, artillery and tanks to support troops on the ground and helicopters to move them around.

Ottawa rushed into gear, purchasing transport planes, howitzers, helicopters and tanks in short order — in most cases without competitions. New equipment flooded in but there were some big failures, starting with accusations defence officials rigged the requirements for a new search-and-rescue plane to select a specific U.S. plane.

There was also a failed effort to buy new supply ships for the navy and, most explosively, a plan to buy new fighter jets, Lockheed Martin's F-35s, without a competition.

In 2012, auditor general Michael Ferguson blasted the Defence Department for failing to communicate the stealth fighter's risks, including escalating costs and schedule delays, to Parliament and decision-makers.

Dan Ross, who was the department's head of military procurement at the time, would later say defence officials had all the information and were willing to share it — the Harper government just wouldn't let them.

Either way, the public's confidence in the system and the government's ability to manage it were shaken. The F-35 purchase was scrapped. The Tories imposed new constraints to keep costs under control and ensure Canadian industry and communities benefit from defence contracts.

“There were concerns about whether or not you're getting the right kind of economic benefits, some significant concerns about whether or not process was being adhered to until you had this system recalibration where you had an injection of additional rules and governance,” Perry says.

That recalibration imposed a fundamental tension on the system: the need to get the best equipment possible, with the most benefit to the economy or local industry, at the lowest cost. Every big procurement is partly about the military's needs and partly about national industrial policy — and, that means, partly about politics.

Most procurements are still completed with minimal fuss. The problems largely lie with big, once-in-a-lifetime contracts like fighters and warships that are worth billions of dollars and are not only essential for the military to operate, but have the potential to benefit Canadian businesses and communities for years. The ones that involve billions of public dollars.

“You're trying to get the best bang for the buck for as little buck as possible,” says Queen's University professor Kim Nossal, who wrote a book entitled “Charlie Foxtrot: Fixing Defence Procurement in Canada” in 2016.

“The one comforting thing is that very few countries have got the balance right. All industrial countries, all of our allies, faces these kinds of pressures. They worry about jobs and costs and capability.”

Efforts to combine the three competing priorities can lead to bickering among federal departments, lawsuits from companies and politicians sticking their fingers in things.

Seconds after saying he would de-politicize the military procurement system this week, Scheer promised to negotiate the purchase of an interim naval supply ship from Quebec's Chantier Davie shipyard, which lobbied the Liberal government for years to ink such a contract without success.

Davie is one of Canada's big players in shipbuilding — and it's in much-contested political territory just outside Quebec City.

Alan Williams, who was the Defence Department's head of procurement from 1999 to 2005 and now advises companies on procurement matters, compares Scheer's promise on Davie to Justin Trudeau's promise in 2015 not to buy the F-35.

That's because while a government can decide to purchase a piece of military equipment, procurement laws — and Canada's international trade obligations — forbid it from choosing or excluding a specific product or supplier except under extreme circumstances.

Upon taking office, the Liberals twisted themselves in pretzels to get around the legal implications of their promise.

That twisting led to a plan to buy Super Hornets from a competing vendor. When that fell through, four years passed before an actual competition was launched — with the F-35 now one of three planes still in contention. In the meantime, the CF-18s will fly until 2032, reinforced with second-hand Australian F-18s to buy time.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/with-billions-of-dollars-at-stake-all-parties-promise-to-fix-defence-purchases

Sur le même sujet

  • Contrat d’achat des F-35 | Les négociations entre Ottawa et Lockheed Martin sur le point d’aboutir

    16 décembre 2022 | Local, Aérospatial

    Contrat d’achat des F-35 | Les négociations entre Ottawa et Lockheed Martin sur le point d’aboutir

    Les négociations entre le Canada, Lockheed Martin et le gouvernement des États-Unis concernant l’achat de 88 avions furtifs F-35 progressent. À un point tel que la ministre de la Défense nationale, Anita Anand, laisse entendre dans une entrevue à La Presse qu’elle pourra annoncer de bonnes nouvelles « bientôt ».

  • High cost of living dragging down Armed Forces morale, chaplain general warns | CBC News

    8 octobre 2023 | Local, Terrestre, C4ISR

    High cost of living dragging down Armed Forces morale, chaplain general warns | CBC News

    Military chaplains are seeing an increasing number of soldiers, sailors and aircrew who — squeezed by the soaring cost of living and stuck in a system that forces them to relocate — are in financial distress and seeking assistance.

  • Canada Wants Armed Drones in the Air by 2025

    14 août 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

    Canada Wants Armed Drones in the Air by 2025

    Ottawa is on the lookout for unmanned aircraft that can conduct long-range surveillance and precision air strikes. The program is expected to cost from $1 billion to $5 billion. By Justin Ling The Canadian government is finally forging ahead with plans to set up its own fleet of armed drones, joining several of its NATO allies. Ottawa is looking for an unmanned aircraft that can reach anywhere in its massive territory, keep an eye on its territorial waters, and, when necessary, acquire targets and fire missiles. It looks increasingly likely that Canada will be buying something resembling the MQ-9 Reaper, a preferred plane for the U.S. armed drone program. In a briefing for industry players, a representative from the procurement arm of the Canadian government laid out Canada's desire for its long-range, medium-altitude drone. The total cost for the program could range from $1 billion to $5 billion. Part of what makes a drone system more attractive than a conventional aircraft is that it can loiter over a target area for upwards of six hours, meaning it can track individuals for long distances and periods of time. A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence confirmed that “domestically, the RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft system) will be routinely used for surveillance and reconnaissance of Canadian Maritime approaches and the Arctic.” That sort of capability will be useful as the Northwest Passage becomes more easily navigable, and foreign ships begin moving through the Arctic seaway. As VICE News reported in 2017, the Canadian Air Force posited that its drones could aid in search-and-rescue operations in the Arctic; intercept drug shipments in the Carribean; bomb targets in Afghanistan; and surveil public protests in Toronto. The government spokesperson stressed that “while RPAS will not need to routinely carry weapons during operations in Canadian airspace, situations may arise that would require such capabilities.” As with any fighter jets flying in Canadian airspace, they stressed, they would be bound by Canadian law and the military chain of command. Abroad, the drones would operate under the same law of armed conflict that governs conventional aircraft. In 2015, not long after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected, Ottawa signalled interest in purchasing armed drones, which can be brought online much faster than the current generation of fighter jets—they require much less pilot training, for example. Upon taking office, Trudeau promised to reboot a procurement process to replace its aging CF-18 fighters—a process that is still moving sluggishly, as his government initially followed through on a promise to scrap plans to purchase the U.S.-made F-35, only to turn back around and allow it to vie for the contract all over again. As an interim measure, the Canadian military has had to buy a package of refurbished CF-18s to keep up its coastal surveillance and its obligations under NORAD, and to ensure it is able to participate in foreign operations if asked. The current drone plan, which would see the first aircraft arriving by 2024 and operational the following year, would go a long way to filling a potential and much-feared operational gap. Last year, the government announced two possible suppliers for the platforms: Quebec-based L3 Technologies and a partnership between the U.S. government and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. L3 Technologies is working with Israel Aerospace Industries to pitch a modified version of its Heron drone, which has become a favourite of the Israeli Defence Forces (Canada has actually leased these systems from Israel). General Atomics is proposing Canada buy the MQ-9B SkyGuardian—a successor to the MQ-9 Reaper and the MQ-1 Predator, which became synonymous with the Obama administration's overseas drone operations. Somewhat confusingly, L3 Technologies is also producing parts of the SkyGuardian platform. It's still possible that Canada could go with a third supplier. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/v7gqvm/canada-wants-armed-drones-in-the-air-by-2025?

Toutes les nouvelles