Firms Skipped CSC Bib for Fear of Loss of Proprietary Information

By: David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen 

In December Fincantieri of Italy and Naval Group of France decided not to bid on the Canadian Surface Combatant project. Instead, they offered the Canadian government a direct proposal that would see the the companies build 15 of the consortium’s FREMM frigates at a fixed price of roughly $30 billion.

The Liberal government rejected the offer.

A FREMM frigate sails off the coast of France in 2016. BORIS HORVAT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Fincantieri and Naval Group knew they were taking a chance when they passed on the formal bidding process for the CSC. Sources close to the European companies said at the time they felt they didn’t have anything to lose. They alleged the Canadian competition was skewed to favour a bid by Lockheed Martin Canada and the British firm BAE which would see Canada buying the Type 26 frigate BAE is building for Britain’s navy.

The Canadian government had originally asked for only bids featuring proven ship designs. But it later changed those parameters to allow a bid from BAE, though the Type 26 was at the time still on the drawing board.

Giuseppe Bono, the CEO of Fincantieri, recently told my colleagues at the U.S. publication Defense News of another concern that led to the decision not to bid on the CSC. Bono said that the firms were willing to turn over their sensitive technical data to the Canadian government but that they drew the line at providing the proprietary information to Irving and its team.

“We said we were prepared to give the information to the Canadian government but not to a rival company if we didn’t know if we were going to win the bid or not,” Bono said.

Fincantieri and Naval Group, along with other companies, have voiced concerns about Irving’s alliance with the U.S. firm, Gibbs and Cox, a top U.S. naval architecture firm that designs surface warships. Gibbs and Cox is also the main competitor for many companies – including Fincantieri and Naval Group – pursuing ship contracts around the world.

Irving, however, has rejected such concerns and has stated it is committed to protecting any sensitive data provided by companies bidding on CSC.

But Fincantieri and Naval Group weren’t buying that reassurance.

The firms still have their proposal ready in case the Canadian procurement falls apart and the federal government decides on a different course of action.

In February, the U.S. Navy named the FREMM design as one of five it could consider for its future frigate program and has provided Fincantieri $15 million to look at a design concept.

RCAF Mali Mission to use Afghanistan Playbook

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News

The Canadian helicopters going to Mali will be outfitted as they were in Afghanistan and will fly their missions the way they did there, senior military commanders said Thursday.

A French soldier stands inside a military helicopter during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the troops of Operation Barkhane, France's largest overseas military operation, in Gao, northern Mali, Friday, May 19, 2017. Canada is sending six military helicopters to take part in the UN peacekeeping mission there.(Christophe Petit Tesson/THE CANADIAN PRESS-AP POOL)

The country's military operations command, Lt.-Gen. Steve Bowes, and the director of the strategic joint staff at National Defence headquarters, Maj.-Gen Al Meinzinger, testified before the House of Commons defence committee about the upcoming peacekeeping mission in the troubled West African country.

They and senior officials from Global Affairs were questioned repeatedly by Conservatives MPs about whether the planned year-long deployment, slated to begin operations in August, can be deemed a combat — or war zone — operation.

The officials sidestepped that description. Bowes said the Canadian military is accustomed to operating in "high-risk environments" and called Mali a "complex conflict zone."

Armed groups linked to al-Qaeda, ethnic Tuareg and Arab guerillas and government-supported militia have attacked each other, Malian soldiers, peacekeepers, aid workers and other civilians in a conflict that has raged on since late 2012.

The six Canadian helicopters — two CH-147 Chinook battlefield transports and four CH-146 Griffon armed helicopters — will carry out medical evacuations, shuttle around United Nations peacekeepers from other countries and occasionally support the so-called G-5 Sahel countries which are carrying out counter-terrorism operations against Islamic extremists.
A 'disciplined approach'

That means Canadian pilots and aircrew will have to be very deliberate in the way they conduct themselves, said Meinzinger, a former CH-146 Griffon pilot who was commander of the Canadian air wing in Kandahar near the end of Canada's Afghan war.

"Our approach to this mission from an aviation perspective will be very akin to the way we operated in Afghanistan," he said.

"A very disciplined approach as to how we accept missions at the front end and pre-execution ... we have a very disciplined way where we consider all of the potential threats from the weather to the fatigue levels of the crews."

Those air operations in Kandahar were carried out under the umbrella of Canada's five-year combat mission, which ended in 2011.

The Griffons — which can be outfitted with a multitude of weapons, including the C-6 machine gun, the M-134 Dillon six-barrel gatling gun and the GAU-21 .50 Cal machine gun — will be used in the role of "armed escort" for the Chinooks, the generals testified.

The threat to aircraft posed by extremists in Mali comes from light arms, such as rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades — not very different from the weapons the air force faced in Afghanistan.

Bowes told the committee there's been "no evidence" of guerillas being armed with portable surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADS.

Even still, he noted, the Canadian helicopters are equipped with defensive systems, including .50 calibre machine guns.
'Sophisticated and underhanded'

One of the biggest dangers to aircraft and crews in Mali is expected to be the harsh desert climate. Last summer, the Germans lost a Tiger helicopter in a mechanical failure crash that killed two.

A UN base in the troubled country was recently subjected to a four-hour rocket, mortar and car bomb attack, which killed two peacekeepers. It was described by the French military as "sophisticated and underhanded" — something that caught the attention of opposition MPs.

"They've been extremely bold in the last month," said Conservative MP and defence critic James Bezan, who has led the party's charge to have the deployment debated and approved by Parliament. "We're not talking [attacks] in open theater. They're coming right on the bases and taking the fight to us."

The air contingent will deploy with its own security and Meinzinger said the Germans will still station as many as 500 troops at the air base where operations are conducted.

CSOR Helping Train in Niger

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

A CSOR Member training an African soldier during Exercise FLINTLOCK 2016. 

Canadian special forces from Petawawa are in Africa training troops as part of a U.S. exercise.

A team of around 20 individuals are involved with Exercise Flintlock 2018, which runs until April 20, said Capt. Sally-Ann Cyr, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Special Operations Regiment, or CSOR.

The exercise started April 1 and involves 1,500 military personnel from 20 African and western nations. Training is being conducted in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Senegal.

CSOR is working with soldiers from les Forces Armées Nigérienne in Niger, said Cyr.

No other units from the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command are participating this year. In the past, helicopters from 427 Canadian Special Operations Aviation Squadron, also based at Petawawa, have been used during Flintlock.

Flintlock is U.S. Africa Command’s largest annual special forces exercise.

Participating nations this year include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA.

Cyr said CSOR is focused on providing training in the law of armed conflict, ethics, marksmanship, mounted and dismounted operations, medical and casualty evacuations, and navigation. The training concentrates on core skills, interagency cooperation and coordination, she added.
Niger and other countries in the region are dealing with a growing extremist threat.

“Not one week goes by without our population, our defence and security forces, in all of our countries being touched by some sort of terrorist or armed attack,” Niger’s Minister of Defense Kalla Moutari said at the Flintlock 2018 opening ceremony. “No one country can face all these complex challenges alone.”

In Niger, the number of U.S. military personnel has grown from 100 to 800 in the past five years, and the U.S. is building a drone base in the country’s north. In October, four U.S. special forces soldiers and five Nigerien soldiers were killed in an ambush. Islamic State fighters have taken credit for that attack.

Regional threats include al-Qaida-linked fighters in Mali and Burkina Faso, Islamic State-affiliated fighters in Niger and Nigeria and the Nigeria-based Boko Haram.

(With files from the Associated Press)

New Book: The Role of Canadian Jews During World War Two

By: Bill Gladstone, The Canadian Jewish News 

Double Threat: Canadian Jews, The Military, and World War II, by Ellin Bessner (New Jewish Press)

One of the first books to be released by the Toronto-based New Jewish Press may turn out to be one of its most impressive. Double Threat, by Ellin Bessner, leaves no stones unturned in its telling of the full-blooded saga of the heroic participation of Jewish men and women in the Canadian military during the Second World War.

It’s a worthy topic, and one that, surprisingly, has never been covered in such depth before. For that reason, the book has the feel of a popular Canadian Jewish classic, comparable, say, to None Is Too Many (Irving Abella-Harold Troper) or Canada’s Jews: A People’s Journey (Gerald J. J. Tulchinsky).

Nearly 17,000 Canadian Jews donned military uniforms in the Second World War, out of a total of more than one million Canadians who served in the war. Bessner probably interviewed close to 200 veterans or their family members, and searched archives and libraries for written accounts of the experiences of others, including the 450 Canadian Jews who died while serving.

It was the tombstone of one such casualty – 25-year-old George Meltz, a bombardier in the Royal Canadian Artillery who died on July 8, 1944 – that inspired Bessner to write this book. It was likely Meltz’s young widow who arranged for the epitaph that Bessner found so moving: “Deeply mourned by his wife and family, he died so Jewry shall suffer no more.”

A theme of the book is the observation that Jews weren’t fighting merely to preserve democracy and freedom for ourselves and our children: for many, it was much more personal than that. Some described it as “fighting Amalek,” the ancient, perennial enemy of the Jewish people.

Flight Sgt. Herbert Wolf of Ottawa wrote home: “To me this is more our fight than anyone else’s and I pray to God before I die I will have the satisfaction of seeing some work of Nazism destroyed by my own hands.”

The well-known Ben Dunkelman of Toronto enlisted against his parents’ wishes because, “As a Jew I had a special score to settle with the Nazis,” he wrote. “As a loyal Canadian, it was my duty to volunteer to fight.”

The title, Double Threat, comes from a letter that Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King wrote to the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1947, expressing gratitude for the contribution of Jewish troops to the Allied victory. He correctly saw the war and Hitler as a “double threat” to Jewish servicemen, noting they fought not only against “Nazi and Fascist aggression,” but “also for the survival of the Jewish nation.”

Double Threat marches us into all the major battles and actions of the war, including the Battle of Hong Kong, Dieppe, and of course D-Day. It relates tales of Jewish POWs captured behind enemy lines and soldiers who helped to liberate the Nazi concentration and death camps. It examines the various branches of the armed forces – army, navy, air force, merchant navy – from the viewpoints of both men and women.

Wartime experiences run the gamut from signing up to coming home, including life in the barracks, adventures AWOL and off-duty activities such as dates with lady friends and liaisons with prostitutes. On the other end of the spectrum, the book explores the difficulties observant Jews had saying daily prayers, keeping kosher, and commemorating Jewish holidays.

Max Clement, who was serving with the 48th Highlanders in Italy, was initially mystified when he and many other Jewish servicemen were called back from the front for some unknown reason; he was amazed to learn it was so they could take part in a Passover seder. “We had a very, very fine meal and we had wine and everything else,” Clement recalled. “That was something I suppose we’ll never forget.”

Sadly, anti-Semitism raised its ugly head as well, and long before our Jewish servicemen and -women went overseas. Some experienced unfriendliness, and worse, right in their local recruitment offices. When it emerged that a certain colonel was rejecting all Jews in Windsor, the town’s then-mayor David Croll invited a photographer from the Windsor Star to go with him when he went to enlist so, as he later explained, “They couldn’t refuse.”

Toronto physician Jacob Markowitz was rejected, he was told, because he had been born in Romania. Later British Intelligence hired him because of his fluency in Romanian, and he was used as a spy. Markowitz always resented the Canadian military for denying him the privilege of wearing the maple leaf on his uniform.

Buoyed and swept along by a stream of anecdotes, Double Threat offers a grunt’s-eye view of the war from participants who were variously heroic, unextraordinary, even unheroic. Overall, Bessner celebrates the bravery of that generation of Canadian Jews who met the challenge of history at that very dark hour.

Joey Jacobson’s War: A Jewish Canadian Airman in the Second World War,
by Peter J. Usher
(Wilfrid Laurier University Press)

Joseph Jacobson of Montreal, who moved to Toronto before the Second World War, was a prolific letter-writer to his father long before he entered the Air Force and was shipped to Britain. The letters continued as Jacobson joined a British squadron tasked with bombing raids on Germany. In his own words, Jacobson explains why he enlisted, his understanding of strategy, tactics, and the effectiveness of the air war.

Although Jacobson died at age 24 during an aerial raid near Muenster, Germany in 1942, his diaries and letters live on in this impressive book, written by his cousin, Peter J. Usher. “Even before he left Canada, Joey was convinced that he would be engaging in a mortal struggle for civilization: a total war in which there could be no partial or limited victory,” Usher writes.

Usher also used Joey’s father’s diary in compiling this lively and intimate account of one man’s war. Interestingly, Usher writes at greater length about one Canadian Jewish serviceman’s wartime experiences than Ellin Bessner did in describing the wartime experiences of all Canadian Jewish servicemen in Double Threat.

As poets have observed, there is sometimes more to observe in a single grain of sand than in an entire beachhead.

Clement: It's Time to Change Course on Shipbuilding

By Tony Clement, Special to Postmedia Network

Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy was announced with the goal of delivering vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy that were affordable, modern and effective. It was expected that the strategy would create world class, competitive yards that could produce vessels which could be exported.

The Royal Canadian Navy's first Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS), the future HMCS Harry DeWolf, assembled at Irving Shipbuilding's Halifax Shipyard.

Two shipyards were selected under the plan in 2010 – Irving Shipbuilding of Halifax and Seaspan of Vancouver – and they were to be capable to start building ships immediately, and close gaps over time at “no cost to Canada” under a non-binding umbrella agreement.

Irving Shipbuilding in Nova Scotia was chosen to build the five Arctic Off-Shore Patrol Vessels (AOPS) and the future fleet of up to 15 Canadian Surface Combatants (CSC). Seaspan in Vancouver was selected to build five coast guard vessels and two Joint Support Ships (JSS) for the Navy.

Under the strategy, the two yards were guaranteed this work provided they could close their capability gaps within a specific period of time and at no cost to taxpayers. So where do we stand after almost eight years?

To date, millions in government subsidies have poured into the two selected shipyards; costs to taxpayers are‎ soaring and vessel delivery dates are pushed further back. Seven years later, not one ship has been delivered. When it comes to costs:

— The budget for the three Off-Shore Fisheries Science Vessels has grown from $244 million to $687 million.

— The Off-Shore Oceanographic Science Vessel, which is still in the design phase, has seen its budget grow from $108 million to $144 million, and speculation abounds that the budget will grow to over $275 million in the coming year.

— The two JSS originally budgeted at $2.6 billion are now expected to cost $4.13 billion according to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).

Add to the list of shipbuilding woes, the John G. Diefenbaker, Canada’s planned polar class icebreaker for $1.3 billion. The vessel was designed in 2012; however it may not be contracted until 2030, meaning its design will already be obsolete before the keel is laid.

The Liberal government has no plans for the second polar class icebreaker, and no actions are being taken to build the three high endurance multi-tasked icebreakers or the five ocean patrol vessels for which funding has been allocated.

When it comes to the five AOPS, progress is being made, yet taxpayers will not know the cost of the vessels until at least six months after the first ship is delivered.

The budget for the future fleet of 15 surface combatants has grown from $26 billion to $60 billion and the procurement is in question, as many bidders have backed away from a process is that has been amended over 50 times.

Under the Liberals, the National Shipbuilding Program is failing. It is time for a course correction. Here are a few suggestions:

— All vessels under the NSS must come under a fixed-price contract.

— The government must return to selecting a proven design for the future fleet of surface combatants, rather than spending billions more and taking significant risks, and delays with an unproven ship design.

— Expand the shipbuilding strategy to add capacity and commercial pressure by including Davie Shipbuilding of Quebec in ongoing planning, including building additional coast guard vessels which are urgently needed, and for which funding was allocated years ago.

— The government should also follow up on the success of the Astérix, and accept Davie’s offer to build the second interim supply ship at $650M, (significantly cheaper than JSS) so the Navy can get on with having the capability to refuel the Atlantic and Pacific fleet simultaneously at sea.

Without some drastic changes in this program, all signs point to taxpayers getting soaked; our navy and coast guard being hobbled, and our security and sovereignty being put at risk.
---
— Tony Clement is a Conservative MP and Official Opposition Public Services and Procurement Critic

Bids for Future RCN Warships Don't Meet Many of the Requirements

By: David Pugliese, The National Post 

Canada’s quest for a new fleet of warships is off to a rocky start with all bidders failing to meet some of the federal government’s requirements.

Procurement officials are now trying to regroup on the $60-billion project and figure out ways that bidders might be able to change their proposals to make them acceptable, a number of defence industry executives pointed out.

The problems centre around technical issues. Some are minor but in other cases there is a view among defence industry officials that Canada is asking for too much in some areas such as radar, which may be causing problems with meeting requirements.

Public Services and Procurement Canada spokeswoman Michèle LaRose said the bids received for the Canadian Surface Combatant project have not been disqualified. Three bids have been received. The federal government and Irving Shipbuilding are still evaluating the proposals, she added. LaRose pointed out that the evaluation is at the second stage in the process.

Government officials say that involves what is known as “the cure process” in which bidders will be given details of how their proposals have failed to meet the stated criteria. They will then be given only one opportunity to fix issues with their bids.

HMCS St. John’s, one of Canada’s Halifax-class frigates, undergoes a mid-life refit at the Irving Shipbuilding facility in Halifax on Thursday, July 3, 2014. Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press

If they are still considered “non-compliant” after the cure period they “will be eliminated from the competition,” according to the federal government.

Technical specifications are now being evaluated by the government. Later this year, the companies will provide the financial information related to their bids.

Warship builders submitted their bids on Nov. 30. A winning bid is expected to be selected sometime this year.

Irving Shipbuilding will begin construction of the first ship in the early 2020s and delivery of the first vessel is expected in the mid-2020s, according to the federal government.

But the project has been plagued with delays and controversy.

Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving’s) Halifax yard and materials

The final cost of the ships is still unknown. In 2008 the government estimated the total cost of the project to be about $26 billion.

But in 2015 navy commander Vice Admiral Mark Norman voiced concern that taxpayers may not have been given all relevant information, and publicly predicted the cost for the ships alone would be around $30 billion.

Cost estimates for the project are now between $55 billion and $60 billion.

About half of the cost is for systems and equipment that will go on the 15 ships, according to federal documents obtained by Postmedia through the Access to Information law. “Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving’s) Halifax yard and materials,” the documents added.

HMCS Iroquois arrives in Halifax on Oct. 23, 2008 after a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press

Last year, Jean-Denis Fréchette, the parliamentary budget officer, estimated the CSC program would cost $61.82 billion. He also warned that every year the awarding of the contract is delayed beyond 2018, taxpayers will spend an extra $3 billion because of inflation.

The surface combatant will be the backbone of the future Royal Canadian Navy.

In November in a surprise twist a French-Italian consortium declined to formally submit a bid and instead offered Canada a fleet of vessels at half the price.

Officials with Fincantieri of Italy and Naval Group of France said they don’t believe the procurement process as it is currently designed will be successful.

Instead they provided the Canadian government with a direct proposal that Irving Shipbuilding on the east coast construct 15 ships based on the consortium’s FREMM frigate design, which is proven and is currently in operation with the French and Italian navies. They are guaranteeing the cost of the ships at a fixed price of $30 billion.

The deal would have also focused on using Canadian technology on board the ships and included technology transfer to Canadian firms, so they could be involved in future sales of the FREMM vessels on the international market.

FREMM ships are operated by the Italian, French, Moroccan and Egyptian navies.

Under that plan, Irving could start building the warships almost immediately.

The Liberal government, however, rejected the deal.