tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66442874173779321242024-03-15T09:37:58.941-04:00The Canadian Armed Forces DispatchThe Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Dispatch is your one stop for all domestic and international news regarding the CAF. "Mentioned in the Dispatches" DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.comBlogger1402125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-52274162874467752492019-03-28T09:36:00.000-04:002019-03-28T09:36:10.182-04:00Questions Loom for Used F-18 Fleet with Budget Officer Report By: David Pugliese, <i>The Ottawa Citizen </i><br /><br />The Defence department’s procurement chief says the Royal Canadian Air Force might not need the seven used Australian F-18 aircraft being purchased for parts afterall.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first used Australian F-18 arrives at CFB Cold Lake earlier this month. It appears that not all 25 procured used jets will even be used. Australia has even asked for some of the engines be returned as a result of a shortage. </td></tr>
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<br />Canada is buying 25 used F-18s from Australia, with 18 of those to be flown and seven to be either stripped down for parts or used for testing. The aircraft to be flown will augment the existing RCAF CF-18 fleet until a new generation fighter jet can be purchased.<br /><br />But Pat Finn, the Department of National Defence’s Assistant Deputy Minister for Materiel, said there may be no need for the seven F-18s. “The seven, whether or not we actually take them at this point, we’re still looking at that,” Finn recently told the Commons defence committee. “What we’re actually finding is the number of spares that they’ve been able to provide to us is more than adequate. Rather than take aircraft apart and go through that cost, we’re taking the spares. We may not, in fact, at this point look at any of the seven.”<br /><br />It is unclear whether there will be a reduction in the cost of the purchase or the overall project cost if the seven airframes are not acquired.<br /><br />The DND also clarified what is happening with the engines on the Australian F-18s. Rumours have been circulating in the retired military community that the engines are being stripped out of the planes and given back to Australia.<br /><br />“Only the engines from the first two Australian F-18s (four engines total) are being returned to Australia, at their request,” explained DND spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier. “Australia needs those engines to meet their own operational requirements.”<br /><br />In order to take advantage of an advanced delivery date for the first two Australian aircraft, Canada agreed to return those aircraft’s engines to Australia, but the plan is to get an equivalent number of engines back at a later date, he added.<br /><br />“Canada has sufficient engines in reserve to support this plan and this will have no impact on operations,” Le Bouthillier stated. “We therefore found this to be a reasonable request, and agreed to it.”According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s recent report provides more details about the used Australian F-18s that Canada is purchasing. Eighteen of the 25 will eventually be flying, while the other seven will be used for spare parts and testing.<br /><br />Here are details taken from the PBO report:<br /><br />According to PBO calculations, the Canadian fleet is both slightly older and has experienced more usage than the Australian fleet. The average Canadian F-18 had accrued over 6,000 flying hours by the end of the 2017-2018 fiscal year. These calculations are supported by media reports indicating that by 2014, the CF-18s had accumulated over 5,700 flying hours on average, with over a third of the fleet already having flown over 6,000.<br /><br />Canada’s Department of National Defence has stated that the aircraft being purchased from Australia’s F-18 fleet are very similar to those currently in operation within the RCAF.<br />The fleet arrival profile consists of 2 aircraft in 2018-2019, 2 aircraft in 2019-2020, 8 aircraft in 2020-2021, and 6 aircraft in 2021-2022;<br />The aircraft will enter service approximately 6 months after being received;<br />The aircraft will each accumulate about 160 flying hours per year, in accordance with the recent experience of the Canadian CF-18 fleet;<br />Each Australian F/A-18 has accumulated an average of 6000 flying hours over the course of its operational history with the Royal Australian Air Force;.<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Shift-Book, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 1.333em; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.3; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-47315006979691626282019-03-28T09:31:00.001-04:002019-03-28T09:31:44.064-04:00Canada extends Iraq and Ukraine military missions to 2021 and 2022By: The Canadian Press<br /><br />Canada is extending its military missions in Ukraine and Iraq, both of which were due to expire at the end of the month.<div>
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The extensions shore up Canada’s contributions to the global effort to curb Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and to the fight against Islamic militants in the Middle East.<br /><br />Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland say the mission of about 200 Canadian Forces personnel in Ukraine will be extended to the end of March 2022.<br /><br /><br />The Forces have been involved in Ukraine since September 2015, helping train the country’s military, which is battling Russian-backed separatist forces.<br /><br />Canada will extend the Canadian Forces’ contribution to the Global Coalition Against Daesh and the NATO mission in Iraq, until the end of March 2021.<br /><br />Canada has about 500 military members in Iraq, including 200 who are part of a NATO training mission and 120 special forces who have been helping Iraqi forces root out Islamic State insurgents around the northern city of Mosul.<br /><br />Those are parts of Canada’s larger Middle East strategy, which also includes humanitarian assistance and diplomatic engagement in Iraq, Syria and the surrounding region.<br /><br />The decision to extend Canada’s commitment in Ukraine will be welcome news to that country as it continues to cope with Russia’s annexation of its Crimea region in 2014, and the continuing unrest in its eastern Donbass region, which is plagued by separatist rebels backed by Moscow.<br /><br />“The people of Ukraine know they can count on Canada,” Freeland said in a statement. “We are steadfast in our commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as it works toward a stable, democratic and prosperous future.”<br /><br />Ukraine is bracing for Russian interference in its upcoming presidential election on March 31.<br /><br />Former foreign-affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy is leading a delegation of Canadian election monitors to Ukraine.<br /><br />Freeland said Canada will host an international conference on Ukraine’s economy and political reforms in July that will include foreign ministers from the European Union, the G7 and NATO countries.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-18713613185812837932019-03-28T09:28:00.002-04:002019-03-28T09:28:58.397-04:00CSOR Concludes Ex. FLINTLOCK 2019<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A member of Canadian special forces conducts training with African forces during Exercise Flintlock. CANSOFCOM photo </td></tr>
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By: David Pugliese, <i>The Ottawa Citizen </i><div>
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Earlier this month Canadian special forces were in Africa taking part in the annual U.S.-led Exercise Flintlock.<br /><br />Canada’s participation in Flintlock 2019 started in Burkina Faso on Feb. 18 and went until March 1.<br /><br />Elements of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) from Petawawa participated in the exercise, which is part of Canada’s commitment to counter-terrorism and capacity-building in the Sahel region.<br /><br />CSOR personnel worked with the Forces Armées Nigeriennes in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkino Faso. CSOR also had a staff officer working in the Joint Military Headquarters in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.<br /><br />The Canadian Forces Health Services Group also sent a mobile surgical resuscitation team to provide primary medical support to the exercise.<br /><br />In total, around 50 Canadians took part in the exercise.<br /><br />Like in previous years, CSOR focused on providing training in firearms, patrolling and night operations and the Law of Armed Conflict</div>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-71410216593536802182019-03-28T09:25:00.000-04:002019-03-28T09:25:12.020-04:00Canada-UN at Odds on Restrictions for C-130 Deployment to Africa By: Lee Berthiaume, <i>The Canadian Press </i><br /><br />OTTAWA — The United Nations is pushing back against restrictions Canada wants to put on the use of a military transport plane it promised to deploy in Africa.<br /><br />Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first announced in November 2017 that Canada would send a C-130 Hercules to Uganda as part of a larger package of pledges to the UN.<br /><br />The idea at the time was for the plane to ferry troops, equipment and supplies from the UN's logistics hub in Entebbe to different peacekeeping missions around the region.<br /><br />Multiple sources say the offer of the plane came as a surprise to the UN, and the plan has run into numerous snags as Canadian, Ugandan and UN officials wrangle over the details.<br /><br />One UN official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, says Canada recently provided a list of conditions about where and when the plane can be used.<br /><br />Those included a stipulation the plane only fly in daylight and only between Entebbe and five locations that, according to the UN official, either don't have any peacekeeping units or are easily accessible by road.<br /><br />As a result, the UN told Canada the arrangement did not meet its needs.<br /><br />Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan spokesman Todd Lane would not comment specifically on the concerns raised by the UN, but both sides say they continue to talk about the aircraft.<br /><br />"We continue to be in discussions with the UN on how we can deliver on this pledge in a way that best fits the UN's current requirements," Lane said in an email.<br /><br />News of the back-and-forth comes just ahead of a major peacekeeping summit in New York Friday, the first since Canada hosted a similar gathering in Vancouver, where Trudeau pledged the Hercules plane.<br /><br />It also coincides with the UN pressing Canada to extend its mission in Mali by two-and-a-half months to prevent a gap in lifesaving medical evacuations.<br /><br />Canada has eight helicopters and 250 peacekeepers in Mali providing medical evacuations to injured UN troops and workers. Operations are due to end on July 31, though Romanian replacements won't arrive until mid-October.<br /><br />Both episodes speak to the UN's apparent frustration with Canada, said University of Montreal peacekeeping expert Jocelyn Coulon, who served as an adviser to then-foreign affairs minister Stephane Dion.<br /><br />"What I can't understand from the Canadian government is why it is so complicated to negotiate with the UN," Coulon added in an interview from France.<br /><br />"Canada seems to be dragging its feet every time the UN is asking something, and it doesn't seem to be complicated with NATO when you have to provide troops and material for Latvia or even to renew our commitment in Ukraine."<br /><br />The Trudeau government announced last week that it was extending Canada's military missions in Ukraine and Iraq by several years, but has yet to respond to the UN's request on Mali.<br /><br />The problem is that there's no champion for peacekeeping at the top levels of government, said Walter Dorn, a peacekeeping expert at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.<br /><br />That extends to Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who Dorn said are preoccupied with Russia and the U.S., while defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance has been very particular about where to send troops.<br /><br />"So it just leads to all these delays."DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-20209800690109396052019-03-28T09:22:00.000-04:002019-03-28T09:22:21.992-04:00Canadian Peacekeepers Evacuate Wounded French Soldiers in MaliBy: Lee Berthiaume, <i>The Canadian Press </i><br /><br />Canadian peacekeepers were called upon to evacuate several wounded French soldiers in Mali earlier this month after their patrol was ambushed while hunting for militants along the border with Niger.<br /><br />The previously unreported incident marks the first time the Canadians have been asked to help non-United Nations forces in Mali, where the French have been conducting counter-insurgency operations since 2014.<br /><br />READ MORE: <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4850502/canadian-peacekeepers-mali-challenges/">Canadian peacekeepers in Mali challenged by geography, shifting violence</a><br /><br />Canada has eight helicopters and 250 military personnel in Mali, where they have been providing emergency medical evacuations and transporting troops and equipment across a large swath of the remote African country.<br /><br />The Canadians have conducted seven other medical evacuations since August, all of which involved injured UN troops and workers.<br /><br />In an interview with The Canadian Press, the commander of Canada’s task force in Mali said the UN and France have agreed to help each other in extreme circumstances and that his peacekeepers did their jobs by helping save lives.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prime Minister Trudeau visiting CAF members in Mali earlier this year. </td></tr>
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“I wouldn’t want people to presume or assume that we’re supporting counterterrorism efforts,” said Col. Travis Morehen. “But it’s really at this point about saving allied lives.”<br /><br />News of the French evacuation comes as the federal government is contemplating a formal UN request to extend its peacekeeping mission in Mali, which is currently set to end at the end of July.<br /><br />France has about 3,000 heavily armed soldiers in Mali and the surrounding region hunting militants linked to al-Qaida, the Islamic State and other extremist groups through what is known as Operation Barkhane.<br /><br />While Operation Barkhane has been credited with keeping the numerous Islamic extremist groups in Mali off balance, it has also been accused in some corners of contributing to instability in the region.<br /><br />READ MORE: <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4445091/jeff-semple-canadian-peacekeepers-mission-mali-counterterrorism/">Canada’s on a new kind of mission in Mali — mixing peacekeeping with counterterrorism</a><br /><br />According to media reports, a French patrol was operating near Mali’s border with Niger on March 10 when they were ambushed by a vehicle packed with explosives and a group of militants on motorcycles.<br /><br />Fifteen French soldiers were reportedly injured, two seriously before the militants fled.<br /><br />The Canadians first learned about the attack when a French officer at the Operation Barkhane camp in Gao called while it was still happening and indicated an emergency medical evacuation might be required, said Morehen.<br /><br />The French counter-terror mission operates largely independently from the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, but Morehen says there is a good working relationship between the two.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Many critics have raised questions about Canada's mission in Mali - even asking if it is considered as Counter-Terrorism? </td></tr>
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<br />That includes the French providing air-traffic control services to the UN around Gao, the northern Malian city that is home to several military bases, including one belonging to Barkhane and another where the Canadians are located.<br /><br />The French also boast a more capable hospital than the UN, Morehen said, which is why the Canadians often end up bringing any wounded peacekeepers that they pick up in the field to the Barkhane camp.<br /><br />“So our pilots go over there and make sure that we have our flying procedures correct and we have a technical arrangement with them as well for medical support,” Morehen said.<br /><br />“There’s lots of sharing between us, which is all blessed by our governments.”<br /><br />READ MORE: <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4534953/mali-canada-peacekeeping-un-report-deterioration/">UN reports sharp deterioration in Mali since Canadian peacekeepers arrived</a><br /><br />Three Canadian helicopters were quickly deployed with approval from the UN mission commander in Bamako, Morehen said, and arrived at the scene about two hours later, at which point the fighting was over.<br /><br />Because of the distance, the two smaller Griffon escorts were redirected to a nearby town to refuel while the larger Chinook, which is configured like a flying hospital, continued back to Gao alone with the injured French soldiers.<br /><br />“It does increase the risk,” he said, “but we balanced it against the need to get those wounded back to medical facilities as soon as possible.”<br /><br />While he agreed that it was “the right thing to do,” Walter Dorn, an expert on peacekeeping at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, said the evacuation nonetheless risked linking the UN and French missions in some minds.<br /><br />“The risk is that we are associated with Barkhane and we then become subject to more attacks and the line between peacekeepers and counter-insurgency fighters is blurred,” Dorn said.<br /><br />Morehen pushed back against such suggestions, insisting the evacuation was an extremely rare circumstance and that anyone who wants to target the UN – which has suffered dozens of casualties in Mali – will do so no matter what.<br /><br />“The people that want to do people harm here, they’ve already got it formulated in their mind,” he said. “I don’t see how fathomable it is that we would be targeted because we gave a medevac to French forces.”DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-12457514017543410762019-03-28T09:18:00.000-04:002019-03-28T09:18:09.780-04:00Federal Budget turns a blind eye to Canada's military needs<br />By David Krayden, <i>National Post </i><br /><br /><h2>
Opinion: Were the Liberals ever serious about their big defence plan? They cut defence spending in 2018 and are ignoring it in 2019</h2>
Last week’s federal budget offered relatively modest spending with targeted funding after years of spending from a government that seemed to believe the deficit will solve itself. Unfortunately, the Canadian Armed Forces again escaped the finance minister’s gaze and for the second consecutive year, national defence is conspicuous by its absence from the budget.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Canadian soldier provides security as medics assist German troops during a medical evacuation demonstration on the United Nations base in Gao, Mali, on Dec. 22, 2018.<span class="img-author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span itemprop="creator" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Adrian Wyld/CP</span></span></td></tr>
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You might recall the fanfare when Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan released the Liberals’ defence policy review in 2017: “Strong, Secure, Engaged.” It was already more than six months overdue and there was a feeling among defence analysts and most journalists that the Liberals had to deliver a document that suggested serious resolve.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">HMCS Windsor, one of Canada’s Victoria-class long range patrol submarines, returns to port in Halifax on June 20, 2018. Andrew Vaughan/CP</td></tr>
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Sajjan promised a whopping 70-per-cent increase in defence spending, pledging to drive funding up to $32.7 billion from $18.9 billion. Naval ships, combat-support vehicles and 88 fighter jets would be replaced through “an open and transparent competition.”<br /><br />But there was one large disclaimer. All of this would happen over the next decade, assuming the realities of 2017 would remain constant during that period. How well would any government have done predicting the military needs of 1942 based on the geopolitics of 1932?<br /><br />In any case, we’ve yet to see any indication that the Liberals were serious about the plan. They cut defence spending in 2018 and have ignored it in 2019.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Canadian soldier prepares to leave base in Gao, Mali, on Aug. 1, 2018, to take part in an operation as part of the United Nations mission in that country.<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;"> </span><span class="img-author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span itemprop="creator" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">AFP/Getty Images</span></span></td></tr>
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Was there an alternative motive to the 2017 defence review? Canada was still in the midst of NAFTA negotiations with an American president who was increasingly critical of our defence contribution, especially as it pertained to NATO. Donald Trump had repeatedly cited Canada as one of the deadbeat members of NATO that refuses to fund its military at two per cent of its GDP — despite having promised to do so and notwithstanding that we have done so in the past. With Budget 2019, Canada is no closer to meeting that pledge, spending 1.23 per cent of its GDP on national defence.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">A photograph taken out the window of a Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris tanker shows a CF-18 Hornet fighter jet being refuelled in the air over Vancouver on Feb. 18, 2010. Master Corporal Andrew Collins, 14 Wing Imaging</td></tr>
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s desultory approach to defence capital acquisition may well be defined by the fighter jet fiasco that grows more bizarre with every twist and turn of the story. It was the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien that joined the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter development program. It was Stephen Harper’s Conservative government that dithered on procuring the aircraft. It is the current Trudeau government that decided to start the whole process again. In the meantime, the Liberals considered buying some interim Super Hornets from Boeing before ultimately deciding to pick up some used Australian F-18s — just as the Royal Australian Air Force took delivery of its first F-35s.A<br /><br />Perhaps the best speech of this year’s just-concluded Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa was delivered by former chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier. Hillier, whose career was defined by integrity and a politics-be-damned leadership style, told the conservative gathering that if Canada “buys a fighter aircraft that is anything but the F-35, we will have lost our minds.”<br /><br />The last prime minister who consistently funded the Canadian military was Louis St-Laurent. All successive administrations — Liberal and Conservative — have to varying degrees played the shell game with defence spending. While lauding a capital acquisition project here, they will starve another project over there to pay for it. While promising consistent funding, they will squeeze the military at the first opportunity when a fiscal need emerges elsewhere.<br /><br /><br />They will squeeze the military at the first opportunity<br /><br />With defence procurement being so hamstrung by petty politics and policy inertia, no amount of government funding can guarantee a combat-capable military if those dollars are not efficiently and effectively spent. As Hillier said, “Our acquisition process in Canada, in particular for the Department of National Defence, is abhorrent. It is pointless to give the Department of National Defence increased spending if you then tie them in a Gordian knot where they can’t actually spend the money.”<br /><br />Sadly, that’s exactly what we’re doing.<br /><br />—<i> David Krayden is a former Royal Canadian Air Force public affairs officer and legislative assistant on Parliament Hill. He has worked in print, radio and television journalism and is currently the Ottawa bureau chief for The Daily Caller, a Washington-based media outlet.</i></div>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-80752391309763424352019-01-11T11:18:00.001-05:002019-01-11T11:18:55.924-05:00Disappointment Emerges as Canada’s Peacekeeping mission in Mali nears Halfway Mark<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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By: Lee Berthiaume, <i>The <span style="background-color: rgba(246, 213, 217, 0.984);">Canadian Press </span></i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">Canadian soldiers watch as a helicopter provides air security during a demonstration on the United Nations base in Gao, Mali, on Dec. 22, 2018.<br />ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS</td></tr>
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Nearly halfway through Canada’s 12-month mission in Mali, questions and disappointment are emerging over what some experts see as the Trudeau government’s lack of interest in the country – and peacekeeping in general.<br /><br />Mali has been racked by violence and instability since a rebellion and coup in 2012, and there are fears that Islamic extremists and criminal organizations will run wild there and across the wide expanse of Africa south of the Sahara Desert.<br /><br />Canada has had about 250 military personnel and eight helicopters in Gao, Mali, to provide medical evacuations and logistical support since August, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says is helping make a difference.<br /><br />“The peace process is unfolding in Mali,” Mr. Trudeau said during a whirlwind visit to Gao on Dec. 23. “Certainly our presence here is allowing it to unfold more quickly than it otherwise would be, but it is a difficult situation.”<br /><br />Keep your perspectives sharp & informed with The Globe's Opinion newsletter.<br /> <br />The United Nations is reporting limited signs of progress there over the past three months, as slight improvements in the political and humanitarian situation have been marred by a dramatic spike in violence.<br /><br />That includes a marked increase in the number of improvised explosive devices targeting peacekeepers and officials, as well as several co-ordinated attacks on UN bases and staff.<br /><br />Yet several experts say they were hoping the peacekeeping mission would serve as a way for the Trudeau government to deepen its engagement in the UN, Mali and the Sahel region, none of which has happened.<br /><br />Rather, they argue the government appears to have little actual interest in Mali or peacekeeping, in spite of spending millions of dollars on both.<br /><br />“The Canadian contribution to MINUSMA [the UN mission in Mali] will be forgotten quickly,” said Bruno Charbonneau, an expert on Mali at Laurentian University in Sudbury.<br /><br />“It’s a quick in-and-out that … changes nothing to UN peacekeeping in Mali or in general, and certainly changes nothing to the situation in Mali and the larger Sahel.”<br /><br />The country has been one of the top recipients of Canadian foreign aid for the past several years, which experts say is helping. It has also received some of the $450-million set aside in 2016 for peace programs.<br /><br />Yet the Trudeau government has repeatedly rejected the prospect of extending the Mali mission by several months to minimize a gap between when the Canadians stop flying in July and the arrival of Romanian replacements in the fall.<br /><br />That stands in sharp contrast to the repeated extensions of Canada’s military missions in Latvia, Ukraine and Iraq, none of which falls under the auspices of the UN.<br /><br />“I have to wonder: Why not the UN? Why not Mali?” said Walter Dorn, an expert on peacekeeping at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.<br /><br />There were suggestions in July that Canada would step up its presence and involvement in Mali, when officials revealed plans to send up to 20 police officers and spend millions of dollars to help the UN train local security forces.<br /><br />While Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s office said Tuesday that two police officers have undergone pre-deployment training and will arrive in Mali later this month, it did not provide a timeline for when the rest would be deployed.<br /><br />Meanwhile, experts say the government’s overall long-term plans for Mali remain shrouded in mystery – including its plan for aid funding.<br /><br />“My colleagues and I are trying to make the case for more involvement [in Mali], but have the impression of speaking to a relatively disinterested audience,” said Jonathan Sears, an expert on Mali at the University of Winnipeg.<br /><br />Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s spokeswoman, Byrne Furlong, on Tuesday commended the Canadian military’s work in Mali, even as she asserted the government’s commitment to “promoting peace and stability in the world.”<br /><br />“We are proud of the important work the women and men of our Canadian Armed Forces are doing to help set conditions for durable peace, development, and prosperity in Mali,” Ms. Furlong said in a statement.DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-54490230038838509702019-01-04T13:12:00.003-05:002019-01-04T13:12:54.969-05:00Canada Finalizes Deal for 25 Australian F-18s; RCAF will fly used jets Summer 2019 By: David Pugliese, <i>The National Post </i><div>
<br />Canada has finalized a deal to buy 25 used fighter jets from Australia, the first of which are expected to be operating by this summer, says the top procurement official at the Department of National Defence.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">Royal Australian Air Force F-18 Hornet pilots wave to the crowd as they taxi down the runway after performing during the Australian International Airshow at the Avalon Airfield near Lara southwest of Melbourne on February 24, 2015.PAUL CROCK/AFP/Getty Images</td></tr>
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“The first two aircraft will be here this spring,” Pat Finn, assistant deputy minister for materiel at DND, told Postmedia in an interview. “I would say it could be by the summer the first couple are on the flight line and painted with the maple leaf.”<br /><br />A second group of planes would arrive later this year. Eighteen of the Australian F-18 aircraft will eventually be flying for the Canadian Forces, while another seven will be used for testing and spare parts.<br /><br />Canada is paying Australia $90 million for the aircraft. The federal government originally estimated the purchase of the Australian jets would cost around $500 million, but Finn said that price reflected every aspect of the associated deal, not just the cost of purchasing the jets. Canada is also acquiring extra spare parts, the Australian jets will have to be outfitted with specific Canadian equipment and software and testing will be needed.<br /><br />The $500-million project estimate also included $50 million in contingency funds to cover any problems and another $35 million for the salaries of all civilian and military personnel involved over the life of the project. An additional $30 million will be spent on new infrastructure needed to accommodate the aircraft.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="479" src="https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/qmi_es_rcaf_cf_18_hornet_fighter_jets_isis_22.jpg?quality=60&strip=all" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Royal Canadian Air Force CF-188 Hornet jets from 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta are refuelled by a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 340th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron on October 30, 2014, over Iraq during the first combat mission in the area of operations, supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Perry Aston</td></tr>
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<br />Those costs add up to $360 million, Finn said. But DND also plans to upgrade its existing fleet of CF-18s with new communications gear and equipment required to meet regulations to operate in civilian airspace, improvements which the Australian jets will also eventually receive at a cost of around $110 million, an amount that brought the original estimate to nearly $500 million.<br /><br />The Liberal government had planned to buy 18 new Super Hornet fighter jets from U.S. aerospace giant Boeing to augment the Royal Canadian Air Force’s CF-18s until new aircraft can be purchased in the coming years.<br /><br />But in 2017 Boeing complained to the U.S. Commerce Department that Canadian subsidies for Quebec-based Bombardier allowed it to sell its C-series civilian passenger aircraft in the U.S. at cut-rate prices. As a result, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump enacted a tariff of almost 300 per cent against the Bombardier aircraft sold in the U.S. In retaliation, Canada cancelled the deal to buy the 18 Super Hornets, which would have cost more than US$5 billion.<br /><br />Instead of buying the new Super Hornets, the Liberals decided to acquire the used Australian jets.<br /><br />Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has said the extra jets are needed to deal with a “capability gap,” as Canada does not have enough fighters to handle its commitments to NATO as well as protecting North America.<br /><br />But Conservative MPs say the capability gap doesn’t exist and was concocted by the government to delay a larger project to buy new jets, a competition that might end up selecting the F-35 stealth fighter that during the 2015 election campaign the Liberals vowed never to purchase.<br /><br />In the fall of 2016, then-Royal Canadian Air Force commander Lt.-Gen. Mike Hood told senators that the Liberal government brought in a policy change which required the RCAF to be able to meet both its NATO and North American air defence commitments at the same time. That, in turn, created the capability gap, he said. Hood said he was not told about the reasons for the policy change.<br /><br />In November 2018 Auditor General Michael Ferguson issued a report noting that the purchase of the extra aircraft would not fix the fundamental weaknesses with the CF-18 fleet which is the aircraft’s declining combat capability and a shortage of pilots and maintenance personnel.<br /><br />“The Australian F/A-18s will need modifications and upgrades to allow them to fly until 2032,” the report said. “These modifications will bring the F/A-18s to the same level as the CF-18s but will not improve the CF-18’s combat capability.”<br /><br />“In our opinion, purchasing interim aircraft does not bring National Defence closer to consistently meeting the new operational requirement introduced in 2016,” Ferguson’s report added.<br /><br />The Canadian Forces says it is bringing in new initiatives to boost the numbers of pilots and maintenance staff.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-36580626932338967612018-12-14T10:15:00.002-05:002018-12-14T10:19:00.942-05:00Second iAOR Supply Ship Not Needed: TrudeauBy: David Pugliese, <i>Defence Watch</i><br />
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As the <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/crowns-change-of-strategy-in-vice-admiral-mark-norman-case-bound-to-raise-questions">legal battle over the fate of Vice Admiral Mark Norman</a> was being played out in an Ottawa court Wednesday just a short distance away in the House of Commons the country’s political leaders were dealing with a related issue.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for Asterix iAOR" src="http://wpmedia.ottawacitizen.com/2018/05/screen-shot-2018-05-15-at-5-45-17-pm.png?w=640&h=220" height="220" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MV Asterix, accompanying Royal Canadian Navy ships, replenished two US Navy vessels at the same time in the North Atlantic this week. The USN ships are USS Bainbridge and USS Mitscher. March 2018</td></tr>
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Norman is charged with one count of breach of trust for allegedly providing information to Davie Shipbuilding which had entered into a deal with the previous Conservative government to provide a supply ship to the Royal Canadian Navy.<br />
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Conservative leader <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/tag/andrew-scheer">Andrew Scheer</a> questioned the Liberal government why it was not moving ahead with having Davie provide a second supply ship – the <i>Obelix</i> – to the navy. Scheer said the navy needed the second ship. “The Prime Minister has to stop playing political games and before <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/tag/christmas">Christmas</a> should award that contract to Davie,” he told the Commons. “What’s he waiting for?”<br />
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But Trudeau accused Scheer of playing “petty politics.”<br />
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“The armed forces did an assessment,” Trudeau explained. “They don’t need the <i>Obelix</i> and for him to suggest that we should buy it anyway is pure base politics, the worst politics. We make our decisions based on facts. We recognize the quality of work done by Davie shipyard and we do want them to get good jobs but we are not going to make up work for political reasons.” Trudeau's comments follow the same line as comments made by Minister of Transportation Marc Garneau in December of 2017.<br />
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Reports from the Royal Canadian Navy indicate that there is a need for a second supply ship on the West Coast - but for now, the <i>Asterix</i> will be shared between both coasts until the new <i>Protecteur-Class AORs</i> are built by Seaspan and in service around 2026.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for mv obelix" height="305" src="https://www.capital-executive.gr/photos/w_1200px/2303ac_a.obelix.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M/V <i>A.Obelix </i>is a container ship which is available for immediate purchase and conversion into a second interim-auxiliary oil replenishment ship for the Royal Canadian Navy. Davie Shipbuilding and Federal Fleet Services is offering this to the Government of Canada, and says it could have the <i>Obleix</i> operational as an iAOR by early 2020; six years before the <i>Protecteur-Class </i>AORs are available. </td></tr>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-11368185469841053352018-12-12T14:06:00.000-05:002018-12-12T14:06:25.183-05:00New RCAF Aircraft to be Operational in 2026; but No Decision on Replacement YetBy: David Puligese,<br /><br />The Royal Canadian Air Force will be operating the first nine aircraft from its new fleet of fighter jets starting in 2026, Department of National Defence officials say.<br /><br />But at least one member of parliament questions whether the federal government will be able to meet its timetable to replace the CF-18 fighter fleet with advanced aircraft.<br /><br />MPs on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts received more details on Monday about the Liberal government’s plan to buy 88 new fighter jets. Aircraft expected in the competition include Lockheed Martin’s F-35, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab’s Gripen and the Boeing Super Hornet.<br /><br />Pat Finn, assistant deputy minister for material at the DND, told MPS that the formal request for proposals will go out in the spring of 2019. Negotiations would be held in 2021 and a contract awarded in 2022.<br /><br />“We have tried to be very judicious and not have too risky a schedule to try to achieve some of that,” Finn explained to MPs. “But from the bids until the signing of the contract is where we’ve given ourselves two years for the competitive dialogue, the final negotiations and the various approvals we need to get, signing the contract in 2022.”<br /><br />The first aircraft would be delivered in 2025. Finn said this schedule has been shared with all the potential bidders and “they’re comfortable with that approach.”<br /><br />Jody Thomas, the DND deputy minister, told MPs that the plan is to “achieve initial operating capability by 2026 with nine advanced fighters ready to fulfill the NORAD mission.”<br /><br />But one committee member, Conservative MP Pat Kelly, was wary of whether the aircraft acquisition would proceed as scheduled.<br /><br />The plan, he told Finn, doesn’t leave a lot of margin for error. Everything would have to run like clockwork to meet the timetable and Kelly questioned if that would even be possible given the track record of defence procurement over the years. “We just don’t have time in this for the kinds of delays and the kinds of failures of procurement that we have seen in other programs,” Kelly said. “I shudder to think of what many Canadians listening to this hearing might think about. What has the potential to go wrong to get to 2025? I’m going to leave it at that.”DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-79689235121615586362018-12-12T14:00:00.000-05:002018-12-12T14:00:23.785-05:00HMCS Calgary Witnesses Possible Violations of North Korean Sanctions on Patrol in Pacific By: Lee Berthiaume, <i>The Canadian Press</i><br /><br />OTTAWA -- The crew of a Canadian warship in the Pacific had front-row seats to potential violations of UN sanctions against North Korea during a recent patrol in the East China Sea -- but was under orders not to intercept any suspicious vessels, the ship's commander says.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HMCS Calgary - <i>Halifax Class Frigate </i></td></tr>
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Crew members on HMCS Calgary instead took photos and collected other information, Cmdr. Blair Saltel said Tuesday.<br /><br />"We saw several ship-to-ship transfers at sea and by the markings -- based on the intelligence that we had -- some of those were associated with ... potential violators of those sanctions," Saltel said.<br /><br />"We maintained a (distance), and that's in (accordance) with the entire approach to the operation. We took pictures, we passed that information to the higher authorities and the expectation is that could be used for legal sanctions."<br /><br />HMCS Calgary is the first Canadian military vessel to deploy to the area after the federal government agreed earlier this year to help the U.S. and other allies crack down on smuggling designed to subvert sanctions against North Korea.<br /><br />Western security officials have previously accused Russia and China of exporting oil to North Korea -- or at least turning a blind eye as their companies do -- which would be a violation of sanctions. Both countries have denied the charge.<br /><br />While the Canadian frigate did not intercept any vessels, Saltel said the mere presence of a Western warship was enough in some cases to cause the other vessels to turn tail and run.<br /><br />"We noted in a few instances that the transfers would wrap up quite quickly and they would have to escape. So our presence disrupted several of the transfers. But we had no intention of actually doing something as forceful as boarding or blocking a ship."<br /><br />The Calgary and the navy's interim support ship, MV Asterix, are wrapping up a six-month deployment in the Pacific off Asia, during which they also participated in several multinational military exercises and visited several countries.<br /><br />One of the main objectives was to demonstrate Canada's naval presence in a part of the world that is growing increasingly important to Canadian prosperity and international security.<br /><br />Saltel said the deployment has included being shadowed by Chinese naval vessels in the South and East China Seas, which has become routine for Western military ships operating in the area amid growing tensions over competing territorial claims.<br /><br />The U.S., the United Kingdom and other allies have made a point of sailing close to disputed islands and through disputed waters claimed by China, prompting several close calls and tense moments as the latter flexes its muscles.<br /><br />The situation in the South China Sea, in particular, has been compared to a powder keg, as Chinese and U.S. naval vessels have almost collided as the U.S. navy has conducted "freedom of navigation" operations.<br /><br />Saltel said he was not directed to do anything like that, and while HMCS Calgary did sail near the disputed Spratly Islands, its course was intended to save fuel and not to send a message to China.<br /><br />The Canadian officer said his Chinese "shadows" acted professionally and "never really came within a distance that I would have considered unsafe."<br /><br />HMCS Calgary's recent deployment was also unique for being the first to involve the Asterix, a converted civilian vessel that the federal government is leasing from Quebec-based Davie Shipbuilding until permanent support ships can be built.<br /><br />The Asterix is captained and crewed by civilians except for a small contingent of military personnel who are responsible for providing fuel and other supplies at sea. Saltel said it has conducted about 50 such replenishments with the Calgary and allies.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-34474286366572462032018-12-12T13:29:00.001-05:002018-12-12T13:29:43.066-05:00Government Gets OK to award $60B Shipbuilding Contract to Lockheed Martin CanadaBy: David Pugliese, <i>The National Post</i><br /><br />A federal trade tribunal has rescinded its order preventing the federal government from awarding a contract to Lockheed Martin Canada for a new fleet of warships for the Canadian navy.<br /><br />The Canadian International Trade Tribunal ordered the government on Nov. 27 to postpone the awarding of the contract for the $60 billion Canadian Surface Combatant project while it investigated claims that Lockheed Martin’s proposed vessel doesn’t meet the military’s needs.<br /><br />The firm is offering Canada the Type 26 warship designed by BAE in the United Kingdom.<br /><br />Alion, one of the companies that submitted a bid on the project, filed a complaint with the trade tribunal alleging the process was flawed and that BAE’s Type 26 can’t meet Canadian requirements. Alion has also filed a legal challenge in federal court, asking for a judicial review of the decision by Irving and the government to select the BAE design. Alion argues the Type 26 cannot meet the stated mandatory requirements, including speed, that Canada set out for the new warship, so it should be disqualified.<br /><br />But on Monday the CITT lifted its order, even though it has determined it will examine the Alion complaint. Mélanie Lalonde, CITT’s deputy director of communications, said Tuesday that the tribunal cannot comment on ongoing proceedings.<br /><br />A delay in awarding contracts would be contrary to the public interest<br /><br />But the decision came after Andre Fillion, an assistant deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada, wrote to request the order be removed. He noted that “the procurement of goods and services to which the Alion Complaint pertains is urgent, and that a delay in awarding contracts would be contrary to the public interest.”<br /><br />Alion’s legal team objected, noting that “no reasons, nor any justifications, are provided to support this claim.”<br /><br />The CSC program, the largest single government purchase in Canadian history, will see the eventual construction of 15 warships at Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax. Lockheed Martin Canada says the Type 26 will meet all of Canada’s requirements. The government hopes to be in a position to have a contract ready for signature by early next year.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Irving Shipbuilding facility is seen in Halifax on June 14, 2018. Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press</td></tr>
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<br />The CITT hearings into the Alion complaint could take as long as 90 days.<br /><br />Alion had offered Canada the Dutch De Zeven Provinciën Air Defence and Command frigate, which the firm says meets all of Canada’s requirements. It also noted in its court application that the requirements and other parameters of the surface combatant project were altered 88 times during the process and that the changes diluted the requirements for a new warship, allowing the government and Irving to pick “an unproven design platform.”<br /><br />The entry of the BAE Type 26 warship in the competition was controversial from the start. Previously, the government had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service with other navies would be accepted for the bidding process, on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky — unproven designs can face challenges as problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating.<br /><br />But that criteria was changed and the Liberal government and Irving accepted the BAE design in the process, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain’s Royal Navy, but it has not been completed.<br /><br />Company claims about what the Type 26 ship can do, including how fast it can go, are based on simulations or projections.<br /><br />The two other bidders in the surface combatant program have ships actually in service with other navies so their capabilities are known.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-32199308849396622102018-12-12T11:49:00.001-05:002018-12-12T11:49:55.334-05:00Quebec Pushing for more Federal Shipbuilding WorkBy: David Pugliese, <i>Defence Watch</i><br /><br />Quebec’s National Assembly has unanimously adopted a motion in support of the federal government re-examining the National Shipbuilding Strategy and how work on that strategy is allocated. The motion on Friday calls for more work to be directed to Quebec-based Davie Shipbuilding.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MV Asterix departs Halifax Harbour on 11 April, 2018 for the Pacific coast to work with Maritime Forces Pacific. Canadian Forces photo.</td></tr>
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<br /><br />Davie has already converted one supply vessel, the Asterix, which is currently at the centre of the legal battle Vice Admiral Mark Norman faces. It is also converting a fleet of used icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard.<br /><br />Quebec’s politicians want the Liberal government to proceed immediately with a second supply ship from Davie.<br /><br />Not surprisingly, Davie officials and industry affiliates welcomed the political support and issued a news release Friday highlighting the National Assembly’s position.<br /><br />“In order to ensure the success of the government’s defence policy – Strong, Secure and Engaged – as well as the navy’s Leadmark 2050 plan, we need to begin the construction of a second ship without delay,” James Davies, President of Davie Shipbuilding, said in a statement.<br /><br />Irving and Seaspan, the shipyards selected to perform the major chunk of work under the shipbuilding strategy, are opposed to additional contracts going to Davie. Irving, in particular, has voiced its concern.<br /><br />Seaspan shipyards in Vancouver will build the first of two Joint Support Ships, scheduled to be ready in the 2021-2022 timeframe.<br /><br />This is not the first time that Quebec has pushed for more work under the shipbuilding strategy. In December 2017, politicians and unions in Quebec tried to turn up the heat on the Liberal government, questioning why Davie shipyards wasn’t getting work from the federal government. They highlighted the capability of the shipyard to deliver a second Asterix-type ship quickly.<br /><br />But Transport Minister, and former navy officer, Marc Garneau said the federal government didn’t need another supply ship.
”We cannot artificially create a need for something that doesn’t exist,” he told reporters at the time.<br /><br />He did not explain how one supply ship would support naval fleets operating on two coasts.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-51006418250581365012018-12-12T11:39:00.000-05:002018-12-12T11:39:15.396-05:00Sajjan Pledges Support for Anti-ISIS Mission - But Does not Extend Canadian Mission<i>The Canadian Press</i><br /><br />Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan pledged Canada’s enduring support for Iraq and the war against Islamic State group on Thursday – but stopped short of extending Canada’s military mission in the region, most of which is set to expire next spring.<br /><br />Rather, after hosting a meeting with representatives from more than a dozen countries to discuss the future of Iraq and Syria and plot next steps in the effort to destroy ISIL (also known as ISIS), Sajjan said the government continues to weigh Canada’s long-term role in the region.<br /><br />“Today, we reaffirmed our focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS’s own network of foreign terrorist fighters, financing and propaganda,” the minister said in a statement after the meeting at a government-owned estate on Meech Lake, near Ottawa.<br /><br />“Moving forward, the coalition’s continued collaboration and partnership remains crucial, and the strategic advice and direction provided during this morning’s meeting will be essential in shaping our next steps toward winning this fight.”<br /><br />The comments came shortly after Canada’s top general told a parliamentary committee that while progress has been made in the fight against ISIL, it’s still too early to say when Canadian soldiers might no longer be needed in Iraq.<br /><br />Defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance said many of the political, economic and social problems that contributed to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s rise more than four years ago remain.<br /><br />And while ISIL has lost all the territory it once held in Iraq, Vance says ISIL remains a threat and that Canada and its allies must remain on guard against any attempts to re-assert itself.<br /><br />“At some point in the future, I would look forward to being able to provide the advice that Iraq has come far enough and (ISIL) has gone backwards enough that we don’t need the military forces there anymore,” Vance said. “We’re not at that point right now.”<br /><br />A recent U.S. Defense Department report that said that ISIL has started to dig roots as an “effective” insurgent group – and that it could take “years, if not decades” before the Iraqi military can deal with it on its own.<br /><br />Canada earlier this year assumed command of a NATO training mission that includes 250 Canadian troops and whose aim is to train the Iraqi military so that it can ensure security.<br /><br />However, hundreds of other Canadian soldiers not assigned to the training mission have continued to fly transport and refuelling aircraft, collect and analyze intelligence and provide medical assistance to coalition efforts against ISIL, also known as ISIS.<br /><br />Vance also revealed that Canada still has an undisclosed number of special-forces soldiers in Iraq who have been working with Iraqi security forces as the latter hunt down ISIL forces left over from earlier battles.<br /><br />Without an extension, the non-NATO mission is set to expire in March.<br /><br />The question heading into Thursday’s meeting at Meech Lake was whether the federal government would opt to keep them in Iraq longer, change the overall mission or begin to withdraw from the country.<br /><br />Sajjan and his co-host, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, said coming out that they had “reaffirmed our focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS and defined our vision moving forward.<br /><br />© 2018 The Canadian PressDMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-60264047365449513992018-12-12T11:23:00.000-05:002018-12-12T11:23:35.323-05:00AETE to move from Cold Lake to Ottawa<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: small;">By: David Pugliese and Tyler Dawson, </span><i style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">The National Post </i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Aerospace, Engineering, Testing Estavlishment Cover Phoro - Griffon Helicopter, CF-18 Hornet, and CT-114 Tutor</td></tr>
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The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) flight test unit Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment (AETE) will move from CFB Cold Lake (Alta.) to the airport of Canada’s capital, Ottawa. The AETE will thus partner with the National Research Council (NRC) Flight Research Laboratory, the Canadian government’s civil flight test unit, based here, to streamline flight testing and evaluation capability.<br /><br />Meanwhile, space will be freed up at CFB Cold Lake for the arrival of additional fighter aircraft. The costs of moving the AETE is part of the budget which had been set aside to acquire the former Australian F/A-18A/B Hornet fighter aircraft, the first of which are due to arrive in 2019. However, the move of AETE to Ottawa will not take place before the Summer of 2021.<br /><br />The National Research Council (NRC) fleet consists of Bell 205, Bell 206 and Bell 212 helicopters, a Convair 580, an Extra 300L, a Falcon 20 jet, a Harvard trainer, a DHC-6 Twin Otter and a T-33 jet. The AETE fleet currently has six CT-114 Tutors, two CH-146 Griffons and two CF-188 Hornets on strength.<br /><br />The federal government will create a new centre of excellence in Ottawa to support aircraft testing, but it will come at the cost of relocating staff and shutting down existing military facilities in Alberta.<br /><br />The move 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. The move would affect almost one-third of the unit, which employs 166 military personnel and 22 public servants. The remaining two-thirds would be reassigned to other air force functions, said Department of National Defence spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier.<br /><br />Moving AETE will save $14 million a year and free up space for the arrival of more fighter jets at Cold Lake. Canada is in the process of purchasing used fighter aircraft from Australia and the federal government has committed to buying 88 new jets to replace the existing fleet of CF-18s.<br /><br />“This partnership will streamline our flight testing and evaluation capability, while ensuring sufficient space is available for the arrival of additional fighter aircraft in Cold Lake,” Le Bouthillier said.<br /><br /><br />This partnership will streamline our flight testing and evaluation capability, while ensuring sufficient space is available for the arrival of additional fighter aircraft in Cold Lake<br /><br />The move, however, is not sitting well with local politicians.<br /><br />David Yurdiga, the Conservative MP for the area, said he’d heard about the move on Monday when it was raised at the House Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. DND officials briefing the committee said there had been consultation about the move with local politicians. “It’s totally not true,” said Yurdiga.<br /><br />Craig Copeland, the mayor of Cold Lake, said the city hasn’t yet received a briefing from officials in Ottawa. “It’s been sort of verbally mentioned over the years that there would be a re-org,” he explained. “We’re hoping to get somebody to brief us.”<br /><br />Details about the exact number of jobs that will be moved from Alberta are still not clear. It is not known how many of the air force personnel who will be reassigned to new jobs would continue to operate from Cold Lake.<br /><br />Yurdiga said the loss of jobs would hit the community hard but he added that defence minister Harjit Sajjan had assured him there would be a “net benefit” to the community. “Cold Lake can’t afford to lose even one position,” Yurdiga said.<br /><br /><div>
“There are so many unanswered questions and uncertainty is what the community is facing,” he added.<br /><br />Copeland said he had heard an estimate of 50 jobs being lost. That would be a real blow to the area, already suffering from depressed oil prices, and with a home foreclosure rate, he said, of around 10 per cent. “That is concerning to me,” Copeland said. “On the one hand it’s tough to see people leave our community but on the other hands, we are hopeful — and expecting — that the Canadian military’s going to be investing (locally) for the new fighter jet program.”<br /><br />AETE currently occupies the second-largest and newest hangar at Cold Lake, which will be repurposed for other air force needs, including the new fighter program.<br /><br />The final details of the move are still being worked on, including costs, Le Bouthillier said. DND is in ongoing discussions with the Ottawa International Airport Authority regarding the location of the new centre, he added.<br /><br />The costs for relocating AETE are included in the $470 million the Liberal government has set aside for buying the used Australian F-18 fighter jets, and would not take place before summer 2021.<br /><br />The Cold Lake location was primarily selected for AETE because of the large evaluation range nearby and its favourable climate for flight testing. AETE employs test pilots, flight test engineers, qualified systems evaluators, specialist engineers, and technologists.<br /><br />Postmedia first revealed the proposal to move AETE in April 2016. The plan first started under the Conservative government but the Liberals continued with the relocation initiative. At the time the Canadian Forces said it would still use the bombing ranges associated with the Cold Lake installation but other test work could be moved.<br /><br />At the time, the military told defence industry representatives the remote Cold Lake location made it challenging to attract or retain people and that relocating could save money.<div>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-18250823988211748582018-11-29T11:32:00.000-05:002018-11-29T11:32:09.747-05:00The Sea King - A Fond Farewell By Peter Mallett, <i>Lookout Newspaper </i>at CFB Esquimalt<br /><br />When the Royal Canadian Air Force’s remaining Sea King helicopters are phased out, retired Major Paul O’Reilly admits it will be akin to losing a close friend.<br /><br />That’s because he spent much of his 34-year career flying the Cold War-era, Sikorsky-built twin-engine amphibious helicopter—first acquired by Canada on May 24, 1963—on and off the decks of Royal Canadian Navy warships.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Onboard a ship at sea, a Royal Canadian Air Force CH-124 Sea King helicopter is silhouetted by the sun setting at deck level. PHOTO: Sergeant René Dubreuil</td></tr>
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Major O’Reilly, 71, believes saying goodbye to them will be a teary affair. “You can’t help but get a little bit misty-eyed. For any pilot who flies an aircraft,” he says, “you grow attached to it as the years roll by, and you would forever recognize it instantly.”<br /><br />Today, he spends two days a week volunteering at the Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum. He is a military history buff and a founding member of the Vimy Flight group, which, in 2017, took First World War replica planes to the 100th anniversary ceremony in Vimy, France.<br /><br />His love of history, and living some of it, gives him an interesting perspective on the Sea King.<br /><br />In 1987, Major O’Reilly was a pilot on board Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Huron as she sailed through the Panama Canal from 12 Wing Shearwater, Nova Scotia, heading to Esquimalt, British Columbia’s harbour with two Sea Kings onboard. They were the first two helicopters to arrive for naval operations on Canada’s West Coast.<br /><br />“I’m surprised they are still here,” he says. “When I came out to the West Coast with the first Sea Kings, the whole idea was these aircraft would last three or four years and a new, more modern helicopter would show up and we would move to that.”<br /><br />A hasty replacement for them in Canada did not happen, and so the decades went by.<br /><br />“One of the reasons why they lasted so long was because with constant technological upgrades over the years they could still do the job. Why would you change and get a new aircraft when the one you are using does everything the Navy wanted it to do?” he asks.<br /><br />The Sea King’s compact design, combined with fold-up rotor and tail, enabled it to fit neatly in the hangar of a warship after landing on the deck, and its amphibious hull enabled it to conduct water landings in an emergency.<br /><br />“They got the job done because they handled well,” says Major O’Reilly. “The flight deck on most ships was about 48 by 78 feet [14.6 x 23.8 metres], so the biggest challenge with the Sea King, as with other helicopters of their size, was landing it as the ship bobbed up and down in the water, especially in stormy seas. Your timing had to be perfect so the ship’s company could hook the helicopter in with its Beartrap system.”<br /><br />The Beartrap haul-down mechanism was developed in Canada. It uses a line and probe lowered from the helicopter to the deck and then attached to the ship; the Beartrap then winches the helicopter down to a solid and safe set-down.<br /><br />“The Royal Canadian Navy was at the forefront of learning how to put a big helicopter on a small ship,” he continues, “and these helicopters were much more capable than smaller ones because they could travel longer, carry more supplies, and had a more sophisticated suite of detection equipment.”<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="CH-124 Sea King technicians work on HMCS Iroquoisâ embarked Sea Kings in the deck hangar on February 1, 1981. PHOTO: DND Archives, HSC81-74-29" height="336" src="http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/assets/AIRFORCE_Internet/images/news-nouvelles/2018/11/hsc81-74-29-sk-green.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CH-124 Sea King technicians work on HMCS Iroquois’ embarked Sea Kings in the deck hangar on February 1, 1981. PHOTO: DND Archives, HSC81-74-29</td></tr>
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But their usefulness has gradually been eclipsed by new helicopters with modern technology. Today, very few countries still use Sea Kings. That includes the British military, which said farewell to its remaining Sea Kings in 2016, and the U.S. military, which replaced them 12 years ago.<br /><br />“The main reason the helicopter is being phased out,” says Mr. O’Reilly, “is because nobody makes the engines or replacement parts anymore, making it next to impossible to make repairs.”<br /><br />2018 marks the replacement of the Sea Kings with CH-148 Cyclones, which are being phased into service. As the future generation of aviators prepares to take to the cockpits of the new Cyclone, Major O’Reilly’s advice to them is “expect the unexpected”, as with any new technology. “But I have a feeling this one may also stand the test of time.”<div>
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The final Sea King flight in the RCAF will take place by December 31, 2018. The official retirement ceremony is Saturday, December 1, 2018 at 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron in British Columbia; where a fly past will take place. The Sea King has operated for 55 years in Canadian military service. As part of the celebrations, there will be a fly-past, according to the Canadian Forces.</div>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-9782545060849429152018-11-29T11:19:00.001-05:002018-11-29T11:19:09.708-05:00Saskatchewan Airshow Returning After 14 Year Hiatus By: David Baxter, <i>Global News </i><br /><br />Military pilots from across Canada, and NATO allies have been earning their wings just south of Moose Jaw for over 75 years. To celebrate the aviation and military tradition, 15 Wing Moose Jaw will bring back the Saskatchewan Airshow.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Canadian Forces <i>Snowbirds</i> will be a main attraction at the returning Saskatchewan Airshow in 2019. The Airshow will take place at their home base of 15 Wing Moose Jaw. </td></tr>
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Originally discontinued in 2005, the airshow will once again take place on July 6 and 7, 2019.<br /><br />Wing commander for the base Col. Denis O’Reilly was central in bringing back the airshow. The Moose Jaw native said he wanted to inspire a new generation of pilots.<br /><br />“My parents had a farm just off the end of the runway and I used to bike out the airport in the summertime, grab a coke and help the pilots wash their aircraft and maybe hope to get a flight,” O’Reilly said.<br /><br />Growing up in Moose Jaw’s South Hill neighbourhood, O’Reilly routinely heard Snowbirds and other aircraft flying overhead.<br /><br />“I just grew up hearing that noise all the time and just looking up in the sky and thinking that’s something really cool men and women get to do and that’s something I’ll probably never get to do, not really realizing it’s something available to all Canadians,” O’Reilly said.<br /><br />Today, one of those “really cool men” is Lt-Col. Mike French, commanding officer for the Snowbirds. Like O’Reilly, his aviation dreams began when he was a three-year-old at an airshow in Abbostford, B.C.<br /><br />“I saw the Snowbirds flyover. I came out from under my blanket because the RAF Vulcan Bomber flew over and scarred me,” French said. “I came out from under my blanket and looked and saw the Snowbirds flying and decided right then and there that’s what I wanted to do.”<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Avro Vulcan bomber which flew at the 1977 Canadian International Saskatchewan Airshow. Today, the only remaining flight worthy Vulcan only tours the UK. </td></tr>
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French used to fly in the Saskatchewan Airshow prior to its cancellation. Now, he said the Snowbirds will be midway through their season when the July return comes around, making for a well-rehearsed show.<br /><br />Formation flying can look seamless from the ground. Up in the air, French compared it to driving in bumper to bumper traffic at 300 miles per hour with vehicles beside, above and below you. That means pilots only have a about a two foot box to maneuver their planes in, leaving no room for error.<br /><br />“What that means is a lot more room for trust, and we absolutely have to trust each other. We hold ourselves accountable to each other and we can’t break that trust; plain and simple,” French said.<br /><br />There is still a lot of prep work that will have to go into the airshow’s big return. Organizers anticipate more than 30,000 people will attend the weekend shows.<br /><br />Military and civilian performers will be announced next year.<br /><br />In addition to flight demonstrations there will be opportunities to get up close and personal with planes, a cabaret and a Saskatchewan micro-brewery will be chosen to brew a signature beer for the event.</div>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-13514363920260456212018-11-28T11:30:00.000-05:002018-11-28T11:30:10.535-05:00CSC Fleet In Limbo as Trade Tribunal Investigates Alion Claims By: Murray Brewster, <i>CBC News </i><br /><br />The federal government's plan to award a group of companies led by Lockheed Martin Canada the contract to design and support the construction of the Navy's new frigates was dealt another setback late Tuesday by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, CBC News has learned.<br /><br />The agency said it intends to investigate a complaint by one of the other bidders, Alion Science and Technology Corp., and its subsidiary Alion Canada.<br /><br />The tribunal ordered the Liberal government to suspend negotiations with Lockheed Martin, which was selected last month by Public Services and Procurement Canada as the preferred bidder on the $60 billion program.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">An artist's rendering of the British Type 26 frigate, which Lockheed Martin submitted for consideration as the replacement for Canada's patrol frigates. (BAE Systems Inc./Lockheed Martin Canada)</td></tr>
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"You are hereby ordered to postpone the award of any contract in connection with the above-mentioned procurement until the Canadian International Trade Tribunal determines the validity of the complaint," said a copy of the letter that was obtained late Tuesday by CBC News.<br /><br />Alion asked the CITT last week to investigate the procurement deal, saying the preferred warship design will need substantial changes and that it doesn't meet the Navy's requirements as spelt out in the government tender.<br /><br />Last week, the company asked the Federal Court in a separate filing for a judicial review of the long-awaited decision.<br /><br />Three companies were in the running to design the next generation of warships to replace the navy's aging Halifax-class frigates. Navantia, a Spanish-based company, was the other bidder in the competition.<br /><br />Alion proposed its De Zeven Provinciën Air Defence and Command (LCF) frigate, a Dutch-designed warship, for the Canadian competition. The ship is already in service in other countries.<br /><br />No one from the trade tribunal, nor the federal government was immediately available for comment late Tuesday.<div>
<br />A program already behind schedule:<br /><br />Experts had warned the trade challenge and the court case might delay the program, which is already behind schedule.<br /><br />The design competition stretched for almost two years as public services officials and executives at the federal government's go-to shipyard for combat vessel construction, Irving Shipbuilding of Halifax, worked with bidders to ensure a fair competition and to avoid post-decision court fights.<br /><br />Public Services and Procurement Canada declined to comment when the court challenge was launched last week. But a senior federal official, speaking on the background at the time, said the federal government has up to 20 days to respond in Federal Court.<br /><br />The official — who was not authorized to speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the file — said there is flexibility built into the timeline and the government is optimistic it can meet its goal of an early 2019 contract signing.<br /><br />The substance of the Alion complaint is that the Lockheed Martin Canada-led bid should have been disqualified from the outset because it allegedly doesn't meet the Navy's criteria in terms of speed and crew space.<br /><br />The Liberal government said it wanted to go with a proven warship design, rather than starting from scratch because it would be faster and cheaper.</div>
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DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-32451391216409834652018-11-28T11:26:00.000-05:002018-11-28T11:26:12.912-05:00Liberals Press Ahead with Second-Hand F-18s Amid Questions Over Who Will Fly Them<i>The Canadian Press - The Kingston Whig-Standard </i><br /><br />The Trudeau government pressed ahead with its plan to buy second-hand fighter jets from Australia on Tuesday despite withering fire from the federal auditor general, who warned that the military might not have anybody to fly them.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">A pilot prepares for take off in a CF-188 Hornet aircraft at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania during Operation REASSURANCE on Sept. 27. Last week, the auditor general released a report highlighting the pilot shortage faced by the Canadian Air Force and continued problems with procuring new fighter jets. CPL. DOMINIC DUCHESNE-BEAULIEU/POSTMEDIA</td></tr>
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Six years after blowing up the Harper government’s plan to buy new F-35s without a competition, auditor general Michael Ferguson targeted the Liberals’ own attempts to buy jets. He first picked apart the government’s aborted plan to purchase “interim” Super Hornets to bolster Canada’s aging CF-18 fleet, and then its current plan to buy used Australian fighters.<br /><br />The government says those extra fighters are needed to address a shortage of CF-18s until a state-of-the-art replacement can be purchased and delivered — a lengthy process that will run through 2032, at which point the CF-18s will be 50 years old.<br /><br />But the auditor general’s office arrived at a very different conclusion: The military doesn’t need more planes because it doesn’t even have the pilots and mechanics to operate what it already has. What it really needs, the office found, is more people.<br /><br />“The shortage of personnel in relation to technicians means that they don’t have enough technicians to prepare and maintain the planes,” Casey Thomas, the principal auditor on the fighter jets study, told reporters on Tuesday.<br /><br />“And they have 64 per cent of the pilots that they need, so they don’t have enough pilots to fly the planes . . . What National Defence actually needed was to increase its personnel.”<br /><br />The auditor general’s report also flagged concerns that the government’s plan to sink $3 billion into the current CF-18s and additional Australian fighters to keep them flying to 2032 won’t be enough, as the money won’t actually improve the aircrafts’ combat systems.<br /><br />Without more money, which some analysts have suggested could mean hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars more, Canada’s fighter-jet fleet will become even more obsolete, to the point where the plans might not be any use at home or overseas.<br /><br />Yet only a few hours after the auditor general’s report was released, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced that the Liberals had signed a contract to buy the 18 second-hand jets from Australia. Officials have pegged the cost at around $500 million.<br /><br />Sajjan also said he had directed officials to look at options for upgrading the combat systems on the CF-18s and Australian fighters, which he acknowledged would mean investing more money into aging fighter jets.<br /><br />Missing from the announcement: Any new funding or other initiative to increase recruiting and retention of pilots and technicians.<br /><br />Instead, Sajjan said the government and military have already introduced several initiatives through the Liberals’ defence policy last year, such as giving tax breaks to military personnel deployed on overseas missions, to give them reasons to stay.<br /><br />At the same time, the minister sidestepped questions about recruitment, saying the military can’t reduce its standards for new pilots. He noted that commercial airlines are also facing a significant pilot crunch.<br /><br />Air-force commanders have previously said the current training system, which can only produce 115 new pilots each year, a fraction of whom are fighter pilots, is not fast enough to replace all those who move on to commercial opportunities.<br /><br />The subtext to much of the auditor general’s report on Tuesday was the question of how Canada ended up in a position where the military will be flying fighter jets until they are 50 years old.<br /><br />The Liberals were urged early in their tenure to launch an immediate competition to replace the CF-18s. Instead they spent two years working to buy those stopgap Super Hornets before a trade dispute with the company that makes them, Boeing, saw the government move on to the used Australian jets.<br /><br />The Trudeau government insists that it was doing its due diligence, but critics — including numerous retired air force and defence officials — have accused it of trying to bend procurement rules to avoid buying the F-35.<br /><br />Yet even before the Liberals took the reins, the Harper government was having a hard time making any progress on buying new fighter jets. The Tories championed the F-35 before resetting the entire process in 2012.<br /><br />That move was prompted by Ferguson’s first report, which accused defence officials of misleading parliamentarians about the stealth fighter’s costs and various technical issues. National Defence later pegged the full lifetime cost of the fighters at $46 billion.<br /><br />“Lot of people had a hand in this,” said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, adding that the worst part is there is no easy or obvious solution to what has become a very troubling situation for Canada and its military.<br /><br />“I think our fighter force is in trouble.”</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-60326397131350745312018-11-27T21:33:00.000-05:002018-11-27T21:33:53.095-05:00CF-18 Replacement Delay Fueling Exodus of Pilots from RCAFBy: Bruce Campion-Smith, <i>The Toronto Star</i><br /><br />OTTAWA—The oft-delayed purchase of new fighter jets is contributing to a flight of pilots out of the Air Force to the civilian sector, causing a critical shortage of skilled aviators to fly Canada’s ageing fleet of CF-18s, insiders say.<br /><br />Flying a 30-year-old jet holds less appeal for pilots who are no longer prepared to sacrifice quality of life and are instead quitting for airline careers, where demand for experienced personnel is <a href="https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2018/07/03/small-airlines-and-bush-pilots-forced-to-cut-back-northern-flights-in-wake-of-canadian-pilot-shortage.html">sky-high</a>.<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="467" src="https://images.thestar.com/tsGm8akIeAOhVLAKk7BSLATJWq4=/1086x794/smart/filters:cb(1543108186304)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/politics/federal/2018/11/24/fighter-jet-delays-fuelling-exodus-of-pilots-from-air-force-insiders-say/cf_18.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Frustration over the oft-delayed purchase of new fighter jets is contributing to a flight of pilots out of the Air Force to the civilian sector, causing a critical shortage of skilled aviators to fly Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18s, insiders say. (Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO)</td></tr>
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<br />The rush out the door has left the Royal Canadian Air Force coping with less experienced pilots flying increasingly outdated jets, former fighter pilots tell the Star.<br /><br />“It’s not a winning proposition,” one veteran former pilot told the Star.<br /><br />In a recent <a href="http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_201811_03_e_43201.html">report</a>, the auditor general turned a spotlight on the crisis, noting that the Air Force only had 64 per cent of the CF-18 pilots it needs. Between April 2016 and March 2018, 40 fighter pilots left and the Air Force was only able to train 30 new ones. Since then, 17 more pilots have indicated they are out the door.<br /><br />If that pace continues, there won’t be enough experienced pilots to train new ones and the Air Force won’t be able to meet its obligations to NATO and NORAD, the report said.<br /><br />The Star spoke to several former fighter pilots about the situation. They spoke on background because of sensitivities around their current jobs.<br /><br />They say several factors are at play in the exodus of pilots. These include exasperation over the delayed purchase of replacement jets that are now not expected for a decade or more, as well as a desire for better quality of life away from the two main fighter bases in Cold Lake, Alta., and Bagotville, Que.<br /><br />But the biggest factor is the huge demand for pilots across Canada and the world, offering military pilots an easy path to the cockpits of commercial airliners.<br /><br />“There’s not enough pilots globally ... so companies are very aggressive in recruiting wherever they can find them. Military pilots are prime candidates, so they get offered good deals and off they go,” one former pilot said.<br /><br /><br />The broader pilot shortage problem could soon be the topic of parliamentary study. Liberal MP Steve Fuhr, a former Air Force pilot who flew the CF-18, has proposed a motion to have the Commons transport committee examine the challenges facing flight schools in training new pilots.<br /><br />Speaking to the motion earlier this month, Fuhr (Kelowna-Lake Country) said the industry-wide shortage is already having an effect on the civilian sector and the military, and noted that Canada could be short 3,000 pilots by 2025.<br /><br />“As the pilot shortage percolates up, both scheduled and nonscheduled commercial air service will be negatively affected,” Fuhr told a meeting of the committee on Nov. 21.<br /><br />The CF-18s were last deployed in a combat role in Iraq against Daesh, and remain potent fighters. Able to fly at almost twice the speed of sound, they continue to hold appeal for young military pilots.<br /><br />But delays in purchasing new fighters, first by the Conservative government and now the Liberals, means replacement aircraft are 10 years or more away. With no prospect of flying the next generation of fighter, some pilots see little incentive to stick around and are opting to quit the Armed Forces when their flying tours are complete.<br /><br />“They make the calculation that I’m never going to fly anything other than an old 40-year-old F-18 in my entire career,” the former pilot said.<br /><br />However, another veteran pilot downplayed the delayed procurement as a reason for the departures. “Realistically, I don’t think that’s driving people out the door,” he said.<br /><br />After two tours of flying — typically about six years — pilots usually move to a desk job. That’s the point where military pilots who are keen to keep flying decide to jump to the private sector, which offers the promise of a good career and the chance to live closer to big cities.<br /><br />“That’s why guys get out. What’s ultimately driving them out is opportunity,” he said.<br /><br />Whatever the reason, the departures are hitting the RCAF hard. The Air Force has 76 CF-18s and just over 100 pilots qualified to fly them, insiders say. As a result, having almost 60 quit the forces in just over two years marks a huge loss in experience, they say.<br /><br />The former Air Force veterans stressed that training is good and that the young pilots arriving at the front-line squadrons are well-qualified. Yet they are considered “minimum combat-ready,” able to initially fly only as wingmen and require another one or two years of experience to be considered qualified to fly all missions and serve as flight leaders.<br /><br />“That’s the danger of this cycle. They’re not regenerating the same numbers as they’re losing,” the pilot said. “The experience level is dropping ... With that goes an increase in risk.”<br /><br />By the time they are replaced, the CF-18s will have been in the Air Force fleet for almost half a century, 30 years longer than planned. The auditor general noted that it’s been 10 years since there was any significant upgrade to their combat capabilities. The Air Force had been relying on the experience of its pilots to overcome shortfalls caused by the age of the aircraft.<br /><br />“You can still fight OK with an old jet if you have very, very skilled individuals flying it. We invest a lot in our training and therefore our people are very capable, adaptive, innovative,” the pilot said.<br /><br />“The problem is that those guys are leaving,” he said.<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/article-template-standard.page?doc=rcaf-commander-s-statement-on-the-november-20-auditor-general-s-report/jopuexs9">response</a> to the auditor general findings, Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger, commander of the RCAF, said the Air Force is taking steps to help retain aircrews, including measures to improve the quality of life along with changes to how the Air Force trains its pilots to give it “greater flexibility to better meet future personnel demands.”</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-53973604810711195102018-11-27T21:21:00.001-05:002018-11-27T21:21:15.898-05:00CAF Says Submarines can operate until mid-2020sBy: David Pugliese, <i>Defence Watch </i><br /><br />The Victoria-class submarines were expected to reach the end of their operational lives starting in 2022, according to documents obtained under the Access to Information law.<br /><br />That could have been a major problem for the federal government as it is looking at planning a modernization program for the on-board systems on the class, starting in 2023 or 2024.<br /><br />If the subs were to reach the end of their operational lives starting a year earlier, how would that have worked?<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="480" src="https://postmediaottawacitizen2.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/the-royal-canadian-navy-submarine-hmcs-victoria-is-operating.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=840&h=630&crop=1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HMCS Victoria operating on the west coast. Photo by David Pugliese.</td></tr>
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Defence Watch asked that question and has been informed that things have now changed. Department of National Defence spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier said that the Victoria-class start to reach the end of their operational life in the mid-2020s. That later date was determined after DND officials did a more extensive examination of the submarine fleet life.<br /><br />But there are still no details on what needs to be done to extend the life of the subs, how much that will cost, or when that will be done. “The Victoria-class Modernization (VCM) Program is currently in the Options Analysis stage, where the preferred modernization option is being selected,” Le Bouthillier noted. “Details of specific capabilities and milestones will be determined as the program evolves.”<br /><br />Last year Defence Minister <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/tag/harjit-sajjan">Harjit Sajjan</a> praised the capability submarines provide Canada. “No other platform in the Canadian Armed Forces can do what a submarine can do,” Sajjan said. “No other platform has the stealth, the intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance capability and the deterrence to potential adversaries that a sub does.”<br /><br />But the Liberals have rejected a Commons defence committee recommendation that the Victoria-class subs, bought used in 1998 from the United Kingdom, be replaced with submarines capable of under-ice capabilities.<br /><br />“The government has also committed to modernizing the four Victoria-class submarines to include weapons and sensor upgrades that will enhance the ability of the submarines to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and deliver necessary improvements of platform and combat systems to extend operational capability to the mid-2030’s,” the government response to the committee noted.DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-1281429389788986312018-11-22T10:37:00.001-05:002018-11-22T10:37:14.001-05:00Alion Canada Sues Over Failed Canadian Surface Combatant Bid By: Andrea Gunn, <i>The Chronicle Herald </i><br />Alion Canada, one of the firms involved in the $60-billion dollar procurement of Canada’s new fleet of warships, has launched a Federal Court appeal to overturn a recent decision to select Lockheed Martin as the preferred bidder.<br /><br />According to an application for judicial review filed in Ottawa on Friday, Alion Canada, a Nova Scotia-based wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. parent company, is asking the court to prohibit the federal government and Irving Shipbuilding from entering into a contract with Lockheed Martin Canada on the grounds that Lockheed’s bid was non-compliant.<br /><br />Last month, Public Services and Procurement Canada announced that after a lengthy, and sensitive competition, Lockheed Martin Canada was selected as the preferred bidder to design replacements for the navy’s frigate and destroyer fleets, beating out two other bids: Alion Canada, which offered up Dutch De Zeven Provinciën Class air defence and command frigate, and Navantia/SAAB’s design based on the F-105 anti-submarine frigate design for the Spanish navy.<br /><br />But now Alion is alleging that the BAE Systems Type 26 Global Combat Ship design offered by Lockheed, which is currently also being constructed for the U.K. and Australian navies, is incapable of meeting three critical and mandatory requirements of the request for proposals that the firms crafted their bids around: two requirements concern the vessels’ speed, and one deals with the number of crew berths.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">An artist's rendering of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship, Lockheed Martin's proposed design for Canada's $60-billion fleet of new warships. - BAE Systems Inc. / Lockheed Martin Canada</td></tr>
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<br />But now Alion is alleging that the BAE Systems Type 26 Global Combat Ship design offered by Lockheed, which is currently also being constructed for the U.K. and Australian navies, is incapable of meeting three critical and mandatory requirements of the request for proposals that the firms crafted their bids around: two requirements concern the vessels’ speed, and one deals with the number of crew berths.<br /><br />“The RFP required (Public Services and Procurement Canada) and Irving to reject Lockheed’s bid because of its non-compliance,” the application reads.<br /><br />Instead, the document says, the federal government and Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding announced Lockheed as the preferred bidder and has entered into the conditions precedent period. This is the step immediately prior to awarding the definition subcontract between Irving, the prime contractor and shipbuilder, and Lockheed, the warship designer.<br /><br />“(Alion) submitted a fully-compliant and conforming bid, at enormous expense, (and) expected that their bid, and the entire procurement process, would be administered in accordance with the terms and conditions in the RFP,” Alion says in the document.<br /><br />“This was not the case and the applicants have been denied the fair treatment they were owed.”<br /><br />As such, Alion is asking a federal court to set aside the decision to select Lockheed as the preferred bidder, and to prohibit the government from issuing the necessary approvals to award the Canadian Surface Combatant definition subcontract to Lockheed.<br /><br />The respondents named in Alion’s application include Irving Shipbuilding, Lockheed Martin Canada, Navantia, SAAB Australia, and the Attorney General of Canada.<br /><br />Alion’s legal actions come after months of rumblings and speculation from industry about bid-rigging: that the Type 26 was always the preferred ship of the Royal Canadian Navy, and that a number of amendments were made to the RFP to tailor it to Lockheed’s bid. These concerns centred around changes to the RFP that allowed Lockheed to offer a “paper” design that had not yet been in the water, even though Ottawa announced it was streamlining the National Shipbuilding Strategy back in 2016, axing plans for a fully Canadian designed ship and opting instead for a proven, off-the-shelf design to cut costs and mitigate risks.<br /><br />The amendments, 88 in total, are referenced in Alion’s federal court application.<br /><br />“While the RFP originally set out a requirement for a relatively mature and proven vessel platform, the amendments to the RFP effectively diluted the requirements and resulted in (PSPC) and Irving being able to accept an increasingly unproven vessel platform, like the one offered by Lockheed,” it reads.<br /><br />David Perry, senior analyst with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, told The Chronicle Herald he’s not surprised in the slightest that one of the other bidders is challenging the process in court.<br /><br />“I mean there’s just far too much money and potential opportunity at stake for it not to be worth anyone’s while to at least try,” he said.<br /><br />But, Perry said, he does find the premise of Alion’s appeal somewhat strange.<br /><br />“(Alion) is basically saying that they know what (Lockheed) was able to substantiate better than either than the government/Irving did,” Perry said.<br /><br />Large military procurements are a very technical and comprehensive process, and Perry said all requirements would have been laid out very clearly in the RFP. Bidders would have had to prove quite clearly to the teams evaluating the bids that they’re able to adequately meet all the requirements.<br /><br />“Just to get to the point where Lockheed is right now they had to prove that they could do what Alion is saying they couldn’t,” he said.<br /><br />Furthermore, Perry said it’s highly unlikely that anyone from Alion has managed to get their hands on a full copy of Lockheed’s bid. Because of the money on the line and the amount of incredibly sensitive corporate intelligence contained within a bid like this, Lockheed — one of the world’s biggest defence companies — would have guarded that information pretty closely.<br /><br />“People in industry talk to each other a lot (and) have a good general idea of what others are doing, but as for if they have seen the bid, I would be astounded if that was the case.”<br /><br />The Chronicle Herald reached out to Alion, Irving Shipbuilding Lockheed Martin Canada and and Public Services and Procurement Canada and all declined comment while the matter is before the courts.<br /><br />Lockheed has responded to rumblings that it doesn’t meet all the RFP requirements in the past. In September, before they were announced as the preferred bidder, the Twitter account for the Lockheed/BAE team posted: “BAE System’s Type 26 meets all requirements in the CSC proposal, including speed.”<br /><br />Both Irving and Public Services and Procurement Canada have expressed numerous times in response to concerns about the Canadian Surface Combatant competition that they are committed to a fair, open and transparent procurement process.DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-31848375051805535762018-11-22T10:33:00.000-05:002018-11-22T10:33:18.061-05:00Norway's Experience with F-35 Procurement is a Lesson for CanadaBy: <a href="http://www.rcinet.ca/en/author/lsevunts/">Levon Sevunts, <i>Radio Canada International</i></a><i> </i><br /><br />s the federal government embarks on a much delayed and criticized quest to find a replacement for its ageing fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighter jets, Norway’s saga with the acquisition of F-35 stealth fighters offers Canada a valuable lesson.<br /><br />The search for a replacement for CF-18 got a new urgency Tuesday after a blistering report by Canada’s auditor general, who lambasted the Liberal government’s handling of the file that could have serious implications for Ottawa’s ability to fulfill its NATO and NORAD obligations.<br /><br />Just like Ottawa, Oslo was one of the first NATO countries to show interest in the new stealth multirole fighters developed by U.S. defence giant Lockheed Martin.<br /><br />In June 2009, the Norwegian Parliament decided that the F-35A Lightning II would replace its current fleet of F-16 fighter jets. Unlike Ottawa, despite strong internal opposition, Oslo saw things through.<br /><br />By 2025, Norway hopes to have a fleet of 52 F-35s. <div>
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No-show at Trident Juncture demonstration<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Norwegian F-16s escort a Jet Falcon DA-20 electronic warfare aircraft during an Air Power Capability Demonstration of the NATO exercise Trident Juncture 2018 in Byneset near Trondheim, Norway, October 30, 2018. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)</td></tr>
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Norwegian authorities were hoping to showcase their newest and most expensive defence acquisition in the country’s history at a massive display of NATO’s military might during the official launch of Trident Juncture 2018 exercise on Oct. 30.<br /><br />But much to the chagrin of dozens of journalists, NATO officials and dignitaries that had assembled on the shores of the Trondheim Fjord in central Norway to watch the display of land, sea and air power, the Norwegian F-35s never showed up.<br /><br />Lt.-Col. Stale Nymoen, commander of the 332 Squadron of the Royal Norwegian Air Force and one of the first Norwegian pilots to learn to fly the F-35s, said strong crosswinds at the Ørland Air Base forced officials to cancel the planned overflight.<br /><br />The cancellation of the overflight on an otherwise perfect autumn day had nothing to do with the jet’s capabilities, Nymoen said.<br /><br />“Seen from my perspective, it’s one of the best fighter aircraft out there,” Nymoen told a roomful of journalists during a briefing at the Ørland Air Base in central Norway earlier this month.<br /><br />But it has taken even experienced pilots like him years to learn to fly the new fighter jets and, just as importantly, unlearn old habits, Nymoen said.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption">The first three F-35 fighter jets ordered by Norway’s Air Force arrive in Orland Air Base in central Norway Friday Nov. 3, 2017. (Ned Alley/NTB scanpix via AP)</td></tr>
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Norway received its first four F-35s in January of 2017. But all of them were stationed at the Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, Arizona, where Norwegian, U.S. and Italian pilots trained on the new aircraft.<br /><br />It wasn’t until November of 2017 that the stealth fighter jets actually arrived for service in Norway, at the Ørland Air Base, which is going through a massive infrastructure upgrade to house the new planes.<br /><br />Operating and flying them in Norway with its harsh North Atlantic and Arctic climate is a whole new experience, Nymoen said.<br /><br />“What is different from Luke when we train to operate the aircraft here is temperatures, winter, icy and slippery runways, winds,” Nymoen said. “Those are conditions that we don’t necessarily get to train for when we’re training in the United States.”<br /><br />And the Norwegian air force is taking a very cautious approach to avoid any accidents, he said.<br /><br />“We have to learn to crawl before we can walk, and we have to learn to walk before we can run,” Nymoen said.<br /><br />The first squadron of F-35s is expected to reach initial operational capability in 2019 and full operational capability only in 2025, eight years after the aircraft were delivered to Norway.<br /><br />This timeline would also apply to Canada, if Lockheed Martin were to emerge as the winner of the competition to buy 98 advanced aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force announced by the Liberal government last December.<br /><br />The list of eligible suppliers identified by the federal government also includes France’s Dassault Aviation, Sweden’s SAAB, the U.K.’s Airbus Defense and Space, and the U.S. defence and aerospace giant Boeing.<br /><br />If the federal government manages to stick to its timetable, a contract award is anticipated in 2022 and the first replacement aircraft delivered in 2025.<br /><br />This means that the current fleet of Canadian CF-18s and the 18 additional second-hand Australian F-18s the federal government is buying as a stopgap measure will have to operate until at least 2030, experts say.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-79521346463692095072018-11-21T13:51:00.000-05:002018-11-21T13:51:07.861-05:00Auditor General Slams Government Plan to Maintain CF-18 Fleet Until 2032By: Murray Brewster, <i>CBC News </i><br /><br />Canada's auditor general has shot down the Liberal government's handling of the air force's aging CF-18s in a blistering report that raises questions about national security, and even long-term safety, regarding the viability of the country's frontline fighter jets.<br /><br />Auditor General Michael Ferguson's fall report, tabled Tuesday, methodically picks apart the recent policy change at the Department of National Defence, which requires the military to have enough warplanes to meet Canada's commitments to both NORAD and NATO at the same time.<br /><br />Watch Power & Politics take a look at the ups and downs of Canada's fighter jet program<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The RCAF is currently facing a shortage of both qualified pilots and technicians. Those pilots the RCAF does have on active roster are struggling to maintain the minimum 140 flight hours per year. </td></tr>
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<br />From the get-go the policy was a non-starter, and the federal government knew it, said Ferguson.<br /><br />"The fighter force could not meet the requirement because National Defence was already experiencing a shortage in personnel, and the CF-18 was old and increasingly hard to maintain," said the audit.<br /><br />As of April 2018, the air force's CF-18 squadrons faced a 22 per cent shortage in technical positions — and a startling number of technicians were not fully qualified to do maintenance.<br /><br />Fighter pilots are also in short supply. The air force is losing more of them than it is training each year; among those who do remain, almost one third do not get the required 140 hours of flying time per year.<br /><br />At a news conference following the release of the report, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan conceded that personnel shortages were identified "early on" after the Liberals took over in 2015.<br /><br />"This is a problem we knew we had," he said, pointing the finger at budget cuts made by the previous Conservative government. "This is what happens when you don't put enough resources into the military."<br /><br />Watch Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan react to the AG report on fighter jets on Power & Politics<br /><br /><br />The extent of Liberals' own efforts to boost recruiting and retention of pilots and technicians in the three years since the election was the subject of some confusion Tuesday.<br /><br />A written statement from Sajjan said the government "will launch new efforts to recruit and retain pilots and technicians."<br /><br />During the news conference, the minister said the military's top commander had been directed to deal with the problem and that recruiting pilots is "a priority."<br /><br />Pressed for specifics on recruitment, Sajjan said he's "going to leave it to the experts to figure out."<br /><br />Proposed solution 'will not help solve' issues<br /><br />The auditor's report took issue with the Liberal government's strategy to fill the so-called capability gap by buying additional interim aircraft.<br /><br />The current proposal is to buy used Australian F-18s — of approximately the same vintage as Canada's CF-18s — and convert them for further use until the federal government completes the purchase of brand-new aircraft.<br /><br />This plan, the auditor's report said, "will not help solve either the personnel shortage or the aging fleet."<br /><br />Ferguson said an earlier, $6.3 billion plan to buy 18 brand new Super Hornet fighter jets on an interim basis would have been even worse — and the government was told so in no uncertain terms by the air force.<br /><br />"National Defence's analysis showed that buying the Super Hornet alone would not allow the department to meet the new operational requirement," said the audit. <br /><br />"The department stated that the Super Hornet would initially decrease, not increase, the daily number of aircraft available because technicians and pilots would have to be pulled away from the CF-18s to train on the new aircraft."<br /><br />The proposal to buy Super Hornets was scrapped last spring after the manufacturer, Chicago-based Boeing, angered the Trudeau government in a separate trade dispute involving the sale of Bombardier passenger jets.<br /><br />The Opposition Conservatives have long claimed the 'capability gap' was concocted by the Liberals as a way to push off a decision on a permanent replacement for the CF-18s. In the last election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged not to buy the F-35 stealth fighter, the preferred option of the Harper government.<br />Sparring in the House<br /><br />The report led to sparring in the House of Commons, with the Conservatives seeing the auditor general's assessment as vindication.<br /><br />"Today's report confirms what we have been saying all along," said James Bezan, the defence critic. <br /><br />"Justin Trudeau deliberately misled Canadians by manufacturing a 'capability gap' to fulfil a misguided campaign promise, and in the process has put the safety and security of Canadians at risk."<br /><br />Sajjan, however, believed the report supported the government's position.<br /><br />"The report confirms what we have always known: The Harper Conservatives mismanaged the fighter jet files and misled Canadians for over a decade," he said. <br /><br />"The report confirms a capability gap exists, and started under the Conservatives."<br /><br />In fact, what the report said was that "Canada's fighter force could not meet the government's new operational requirement." It contained objective analysis of how many aircraft would be required to meet various contingencies.<br />Fleet 'will become more vulnerable'<br /><br />Meanwhile, the auditor is warning that the Liberal government has no plan to upgrade the combat capabilities of the CF-18s to keep them current over the next decade while the air force waits for replacements.<br /><br />The last major refurbishment of the war-fighting equipment on the jets happened in 2008, and Department of National Defence planners have done little since because they had been expecting new planes by 2020.<br /><br />"National Defence did not have a plan to upgrade the combat capability of the CF-18 even though it will now have to fly until 2032," said the audit.<br /><br />"Without these upgrades, according to the department, the CF-18 will become more vulnerable as advanced combat aircraft and air defence systems continue to be developed and used by other nations."<br /><br />The fact that the CF-18s are not up to date means they will not be able to operate in certain environments where the risk of surface-to-air missiles or advanced enemy planes is great.<br /><br />That, in turn, "would limit Canada's contribution to NORAD and NATO operations," Ferguson said.<br /><br />Sajjan said the department is looking at an upgrade to the combat systems.<br /><br />"We would love to be able to solve this problem immediately," he said.DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644287417377932124.post-20035479942662920892018-11-20T11:23:00.000-05:002018-11-20T11:23:28.016-05:00CAF & Allies Tested at Canadian Patrol Concentration<i>Canadian Army Press Release </i><div>
<i><br /></i>The Canadian Patrol Concentration is taking place at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright, Alberta. During the annual training event, which runs until November 25, 2018, Canadian soldiers along with soldiers from six NATO partner nations are conducting a series of long-range patrols while responding to realistic, scenario-based events.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://www.canada.ca/content/canadasite/en/department-national-defence/news/2018/11/soldiers-put-their-skills-to-the-test-at-canadian-patrol-concentration/_jcr_content/par/news-release/articleBodyAndImage/image.img.jpg/1542642670104.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Members of 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry patrol team board a CH-146 Griffon helicopter during the Canadian Patrol Concentration in Wainwright, Alberta on November 24, 2016.</td></tr>
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The Canadian Patrol Concentration is planned annually by the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre to improve operational readiness and develop our soldiers’ ability to operate with counterparts from Allied nations, in support of Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada’s Defence Policy.<br /><br />The event will also improve these soldiers’ ability to adapt as they contend with unpredictable weather and 40 kilometres of unfamiliar terrain which will challenge their soldiering skills, their leadership abilities, their stamina, and their mental resilience.<br /><br />In addition to 150 Regular Force and Primary Reserve soldiers, participants and observers from Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States are attending this year’s iteration of the Canadian Patrol Concentration.</div>
DMaillethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03940313160748010327noreply@blogger.com0