Is Canada a Security Threat to the US? No - Canadians Actually Help Keep US Safe.

By: Tristen Hopper, The National Post

It's been two days since President Trump called Prime Minister Trudeau 'weak' and a 'backstabber', and it’s been a week since the Trump Administration slapped Canada with steel and aluminum tariffs on the ground that reliance on our imports was threatening the “national security” of the United States.

If Canadians are particularly galled at this, it might be because no foreign country in modern times has done more to arm and equip the United States than Canada. “I would not be surprised if every single major aircraft or warship in U.S. military service today has Canadian components in it,” said Richard Shimooka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Below, a cursory summary of some of the Canadian stuff used by history’s most powerful military.

Landing gear

We’ll start with an entry that directly concerns steel and aluminum. Quebec-based Héroux-Devtek is the world’s third largest aircraft landing gear company, and some of that is thanks to a longstanding relationship with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy. Specifically, Héroux-Devtek is in charge of landing gear repair and overhaul for several large U.S. aircraft, including the heavy-lift C-130 Hercules. Of course, landing gear is made almost entirely of steel or aluminum. So, thanks to these new tariffs, American military procurers are either going to start getting hosed on their Héroux-Devtek contracts — or they’re going to have start getting their landing gear overhauls from a U.S. company that isn’t their first choice.

Armoured personnel carriers

“Canada and the US have been building military equipment for each other since the summer of 1940,” David Bercuson, a military historian at the University of Calgary, told the National Post. “Literally billions of dollars of such equipment has passed the border since then.” The most obvious example is the Stryker. There are nearly 5,000 Stryker armoured personnel carriers in the U.S. military, and all of them were built in London, Ontario. Not only that, but the Stryker is even based on a Canadian design, the LAV III. Coming in at a rock bottom $4 million apiece, the Americans use Strykers for everything: Ambulances, firefighting, missile platforms, chemical weapons defence and mine detection. They even started rigging them up with giant lasers to shoot down enemy drones. Armoured vehicles happen to be a Canadian specialty. While the United States was busy throwing money at big ticket items such as tanks and attack helicopters, the shoestring Canadians have gotten very good at the much cheaper task of simply strapping guns and armour to oversized trucks. And if a U.S. diplomat found themselves touring Iraq in an armoured Toyota Land Cruiser, chances are good they were shielded from bullets and IEDs by Canadian workmanship.

Stryker in action. Trevor Robb/Edmonton Sun/QMI Agency

Specialized aircraft

The United States Army Parachute Team leap out of a modified Twin Otter. United States Military

Here again, the United States has it covered when it comes to big ticket aircraft such as fighters or bombers. But the U.S. military will occasionally call up Canadian plane-makers when it needs something quirky. Bombardier has retooled some of its airliners and business jets to act as airborne radar platforms. When the United States Army Parachute Team appears at air shows, they’re jumping out of a Canadian-made de Havilland Twin Otter. De Havilland has also hooked up the Americans with some of its famously rugged prop planes for use in electronic warfare, remote cargo drops or simply moving National Guard troops around Alaska. All told, the U.S. military is flying more planes built in Canada than in any other foreign country.

The U.S. military’s only cargo drone (and it has the most Canadian name imaginable)
A U.S. special forces unit is pinned down on a remote Central Asian mountaintop. Surrounded by militants on all sides, it needs an emergency airlift of water and ammunition to even see daybreak. Enter the SnowGoose, an unmanned autogyro specializing in precision deliveries to special forces. The SnowGoose is the U.S. military’s only cargo drone, and it’s an all-Canadian creation. An emerging theme on this list is that Canada is great at building niche military hardware for cheap, and the SnowGoose is no exception. As the drone’s Stittsville, Ont. builders note, it can move cargo across a battlefield at a fraction of the price of other drones.

Nuclear Fuel

Uranium is a big part of the modern U.S. military. It has more than 100 nuclear-powered vessels in the navy, and there’s also those 7,000 atomic weapons it still has lying around. Canada has sold a whole lot of uranium to the U.S. military, going all the way back to the initial atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. However, the taps were somewhat shut off in the 1960s, when Canada started limiting uranium exports to “peaceful” purposes. Still, with Canada ranking as the United States’ top uranium dealer, we help keep their uranium topped up enough to have plenty left over for the military. With the Trump administration in the midst of a Trillion Dollor Nuclear Modernization plan, keeping Canada friendly is probably a good idea. 

Speaking of nuclear weapons, it might behoove the White House to remember that if a Russian or North Korean missile should happen to be fired in their direction, a Canada-based NORAD station will likely be among the first to let them know.

Making fighter jets last forever

This entry should fill thrifty Canadians with particular pride: We’ve gotten so good at squeezing every penny out of our CF-18s that we’re now globally renowned experts at fighter jet life extension. Among other things, Canada invented “robotic shot-peening,” a method of using robots to restore aging aircraft with a precision never before known. The technology has been exported to Europe, Australia and, in 2013, the U.S. Navy brought in the Quebec aerospace company L-3 MAS to give its jets a makeover.

A very old, but very well taken-care-of, CF-18. File

Battlefield communications
Tactical radios are another niche technology in which Canadian companies have a built a slow but steady reputation with the Americans. In a 2017 reporton Canada/U.S. military industrial cooperation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that the U.S. military has been using Canadian radios since the 1960s. Ultra TCS, headquartered in Montreal, remains a supplier of tactical radios to both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. And these aren’t just walkie-talkies; they’re hyper-advanced networks that can provide email, voice and even video hook-ups to American troops in battle.

Jeeps

That’s right. The Second World War-era Willys Jeep — one of the most American vehicles in history — was manufactured in part by Canada. Ford Motor Company of Canada churned out thousands of Jeeps after the Second World War. In 1952 alone, Canadian factories were making an average of seven of them per day. According to Ford Canada’s website, “these postwar Canadian-made Jeep were shipped to the United States, for the American military forces.”

A 1952 Willys Jeep similar to what Canada would have been manufacturing for the United States. file. 

Space robots

The space shuttle was initially envisioned as a vehicle to steal Russian military satellites, in which the Canadarm would have been critical. Max Harrold/Postmedia News

DARPA is the U.S. agency tasked with pursuing military so cutting edge that they occasionally veer into outright science fiction. Last year, DARPA signed a deal with Canada’s MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates to design robots that could be dispatched into space in order to repair U.S. military satellites. And like most times Canada is brought in for U.S. military stuff, the robot space mechanic program is indeed intended as a cost saving measure. Canada has been a leader in space defence for some time. Our beloved Canadarm, in fact, technically qualifies as an early military space robot. Over the course of the space shuttle program 11 missions were sent up to perform classified work for the Pentagon. We still don’t know the specifics of what the Canadarm did for Uncle Sam on those missions, but the arm is a certifiable Cold Warrior.

CAF Searched for 1950s USAF Crash Site - Not Lost Nuclear Bomb

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

Last week I ran some photos of a Petawawa-based Chinook helicopter dropping off and picking up members of 12 Régiment blindé du Canada. The soldiers were conducting new searches in the vicinity of Haines Junction, Yukon for a U.S. aircraft that crashed in 1950. The search was part of activities for Operation Nanook 2016.

I received some emails and twitter traffic from Defence Watch readers who speculated that the search was actually for a lost U.S. nuclear weapon.On February 13, 1950, a U.S. Air Force B-36 experienced engine problems on a training mission, flying from Alaska and along Canada’s west coast. The aircraft was carrying a Mark IV nuclear bomb (without the radioactive material). The engines caught fire and the crew had to bail. The plane’s crash site was found several years later on a mountain in British Columbia and the U.S. military sent a recovery team to collect sensitive material and destroy what remained of the B-36.What happened to the bomb continues to be debated (was it jettisoned or did it go down with the plane?). By the way, author Dirk Septer has a new updated version of his book, Lost Nuke: The Last Flight of Bomber 075, which is one of several that outlines this incident.

So were the Canadian troops looking for the lost nuke?

No, says Major Josée Bilodeau, senior public affairs officer for Joint Task Force North Headquarters. “OP NANOOK 16 activities in the vicinity of Haines Junction included a ground and air search and rescue component this year,” she explained to Defence Watch. “The search (was) for a U.S. military Douglas C-54D Skymaster with 44 U.S. military and civilian individuals on board that went missing on January 26, 1950 somewhere in that area.”

As the search and rescue component of OP NANOOK 16 was already planned, the focus area of the SAR training was co-ordinated with various civilian and other government agencies with the hopes that perhaps the wreckage of this aircraft might be located, she added.

Unfortunately, the crash site was not found.

Liberals Reconsidering Participation in Missile Defense System

By: Lee Berthiaume, National Post

OTTAWA — The Liberal government has signaled its willingness to reopen one of the most contentious debates in recent Canadian military history: whether the country should participate in ballistic missile defense. And the results could be very different this time around.

An RCAF BOMARC-B being launched as a target drone at Vandenberg Air Force Base Launch Complex BOM1, California (USA), on 1 May 1977.  The BOMARC was Canada's last large guided missile defence system. The BOMARC program ended in 1972. Unknown to many today, a number of Canadian BOMARC's had Nuclear-warheads. 

The question of whether Canada should reconsider its decision not to join the United States in building a shield to protect North America from foreign-launched missiles has been raised as part of the government’s comprehensive defence review.

Earlier this month, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan released a document asking for public feedback on what the military should — and should not — be doing. One section focuses specifically on ballistic missile defense, noting that the issue “has not been considered by Canada for over a decade.

“Given the increase in the number of countries with access to ballistic missile technology and their potential to reach North America, this threat is expected to endure and grow more sophisticated in the coming decades,” reads the document.

It goes on to note that many of Canada’s partners and allies are working together on ballistic missile defense while Canada remains outside such efforts. This is a reference to not just the U.S., but also European NATO members, as well as Australia and South Korea.

“Should this decision be revisited given changing technologies and threats?” it asks. “Would a shift in policy in this area enhance Canadian national security and offer an avenue for greater continental co-operation? Or are there more effective areas in which to invest to better protect the North American continent?”

Missile defence has been largely off the public and political radar since then-prime minister Paul Martin famously opted not to join the U.S. program following a heated and extremely divisive national debate in 2005.

Martin’s decision was seen by many as an attempt to bolster his minority Liberal government. The NDP, and many Canadians, opposed missile defence, in part because of its links to the Bush administration. But there were also questions about whether such a system was even technically feasible — or needed.

The U.S. has since pressed ahead with missile defense, spending about $100 billion over the last decade to develop land- and sea-based systems that would stop a limited ballistic missile attack from a rogue state like North Korea or Iran. (They would not protect against an all-out attack by Russia or China.)

The programs, which have had mixed success in testing, have been developed in co-operation with NATO allies as well as Australia and South Korea.

Canada has provided the U.S. with aerospace warning information for North American missile defence under an agreement signed between the two countries in 2004. It has also publicly supported missile defence in Europe. But it has not had any direct participation in the programs — so far.

Prime minister Stephen Harper did quietly agree that ballistic missiles posed a threat to Canada and the U.S. by removing the word “European” from a NATO leaders’ statement on ballistic missiles in 2014. But otherwise his government did little to change Canada’s policy of non-engagement.

Supporters, including military officials, experts and the head of the Senate defence committee, are confident that the circumstances are now ripe for Canada to participate. And they’re hoping the inclusion of ballistic missile defence in the Liberal defence review is only the first step to Canada’s full enlistment.

Two years ago, Conservative and Liberal members of the Senate defence committee, including retired general Romeo Dallaire, unanimously called for Canada to join the U.S. in building a ballistic missile defence.

The committee largely accepted the warnings from defence officials about the risks to Canada from Iranian and North Korean ballistic missiles, the importance of being at the table when the Americans are discussing missile defence, and even the potential industrial benefits to Canadian companies.

“I think it’s overdue, and I think that debate should ensue,” the committee’s chairman, Conservative Sen. Daniel Lang, said in an interview. “Times have changed, and there’s not a lot of reason not to join.”

Briefing notes obtained by the Citizen show defence officials have also quietly set the stage by warning successive defence ministers, including Rob Nicholson, Jason Kenney and, most recently, Sajjan about the threat posed by ballistic missiles from rogue states and other actors.

Officials have also noted that many of Canada’s allies and partners — “including all of NATO — are now engaged in missile defence activities.” And they called the program “much more effective,” even though the system is still in heavy development and testing.

Thomas Karako, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, believes the U.S. would welcome Canada’s involvement. He also says there are several ways that Canada could contribute, such as hosting interceptors or even providing command-and-control capabilities.

But any move to reopen the issue is sure to prompt many of the same questions and arguments against Canadian participation as a decade ago.

Eugene Lang, who served as chief of staff to Liberal defence ministers Bill Graham and David Pratt when the Martin government was dealing with missile defence 10 years ago, and is now an adjunct professor at Queen’s University, said the question of whether Canadian participation is necessary remains front and centre.

“The Americans are going to build this,” he said. “And they may be right about North Korea. But why do we need to be part of it? That was never a question we got a good substantive answer to. And I still don’t think they have a good substantive answer.”

Arms control groups have also long warned that missile defence actually hurts international security by undermining nuclear deterrence. This is among the reasons that Russians have strongly opposed the positioning of U.S. anti-missile defence systems in Eastern Europe.

There is also the question of cost and whether Canada would be required pay into the multi-billion-dollar project. The defence budget is already thin, and Canada’s participation in another development project, the F-35 stealth fighter, caused major political headaches for the Conservatives.

lberthiaume@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/leeberthiaume

Trudeau downplays threat of Nuclear Terror Attack

Josh Dehaas, CTVNews.ca
Published Saturday, April 2, 2016 10:58AM EDT
Last Updated Saturday, April 2, 2016 10:02PM EDT

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the threat of a nuclear terror attack on Canada is lower than it was five or six years ago, and that he sees it as a “modest success” that groups like ISIS haven’t gotten their hands on more dangerous weapons.

In an interview with CTV Atlantic’s Steve Murphy, the prime minister said the “concern level” of a nuclear attack remains high “because the consequences would be so devastating,” but that the threat level is “certainly lower than it has been in past years, because we’ve taken significant measures to secure dangerous materials.”

Trudeau just returned to Canada from a nuclear-safety summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama, who warned that al Qaeda has been actively pursuing nuclear material.

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PM announces $42M to safeguard nuclear materials

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks with children as he visits the Seaport Farmers' Market in Halifax on Saturday, April 2, 2016. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan)

Canada committed on Friday to spend $42 million to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, in part by protecting materials in Peru, Jordan, Colombia, Ukraine, Thailand and Egypt.

“Because of meetings like the one we had in Washington,” Trudeau said Saturday, “it’s less of a threat than it was five or six years ago.”

Asked whether Canada is safer from terrorism in general than it was five years ago -- a time before ISIS’ devastating attacks – Trudeau noted that recent attacks have been “very conventional” using “pipe bombs” and “Kalashnikovs,” the Russian rifle used in the Paris attacks.

Trudeau added that such weapons had killed “dozens and even hundreds of people … but with how much they want to be able to do more, and how hard they’ve been trying to get their hands on more dangerous materials, the fact that they haven’t is a modest success.”

Peggy Mason, Canada’s former ambassador for nuclear disbarment, said she was stunned by Trudeau’s comments about the nuclear threat.

“I find it hard that we could say it has gone down,” she said, pointing to Pakistan and North Korea as sources of concern

“We have huge numbers of weapons still on hair-trigger alert,” she added.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel called the prime minister’s comments startling. “I think he’s being very uniformed and naïve about the situation,” she said.

Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told CTV News Channel that he believes agreements made in Washington to better safeguard nuclear materials are a “good sign.”

However, he said Canada still has “quite a substantial amount of weapons-grade uranium here in Canada, mostly connected with isotope production, and it is a security risk.”

Part of the risk is transportation, he said. For example, Edwards said Canada is expected to send “hundreds of truckloads of liquid radioactive waste containing weapons-grade radioactive uranium down to the (U.S. government’s) Savannah River Site in South Carolina,” rather than dealing with it on-site in Chalk River, Ont.

Edwards added that, “if we really want to be serious, we have to stop producing these materials in the first place.”

The Prime Minister spoke to Steve Murphy at a farmer's market in Halifax, ahead of a meeting with Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil and an appearance at the Nova Scotia Liberal Party's annual general meeting.

With a report from CTV’s Richard Madan

Trudeau To Discuss Possibility Of Terrorists Using Nuclear Weapons

CP | By Alexander Panetta, The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON — Justin Trudeau will be among the world leaders gathering to contemplate the spine-tingling scenario of terrorists getting hold of nuclear weapons.

The prime minister will be in Washington this week at the last of the nuclear-safety summits organized by President Barack Obama.

The leaders will close out the two-day event with a session that discusses a hypothetical nuclear-terrorism scenario.

But that imaginary case study will be happening amid unnerving real-life events.

Belgium has just deployed soldiers to defend its nuclear facilities — after terrorist attacks in that country, and several incidents involving site personnel.

Analysts believe al-Qaida and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo have actively pursued nuclear weapons and they've begun expressing concern the so-called Islamic State might have similar designs.

"A terrorist attack with an improvised nuclear device would create political, economic, social, psychological and environmental havoc," said Laura Holgate, a White House aide who oversees efforts to limit the threat from weapons of mass destruction.

"The impact of a nuclear terrorist attack would be global, and the solutions must therefore also be global."

It's the fourth such summit and flows from a speech President Barack Obama gave in Prague soon after he took office.

He expressed hope for a world without nuclear weapons — which he conceded might not be achievable in his lifetime.

But the 2009 speech set shorter-term targets. One was securing the existing nuclear material around the world; he convened international leaders' meetings to make it a high-level priority.

The mixed results will be underscored by some glaring absences this week.

The Pakistani and Belgian leaders will be home dealing with the after-effects of terrorist attacks.

Putin to skip the summit

Russia's Vladimir Putin is skipping the summit — he'll be represented by observers. Russia says the U.S.-led process has run its course, and the issue should be left to the five international organizations working on it, including the UN, Interpol and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As Obama leaves office, U.S. officials said the final summit communique will announce next steps leaders intend to take within those five organizations.

The Obama administration points to several successes these last few years:
Enough fissile material to make 130 nuclear weapons has been removed or downgraded from 50 facilities in 30 countries.

Fourteen countries and Taiwan have eliminated all nuclear material from their territory.

Twenty countries have increased co-operation to counter nuclear smuggling.

But 2,000 metric tons of weapons-usable material remain in civilian and military programs, says the White House.

It would require 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to produce a nuclear bomb, former State Department official Sharon Squassoni told a briefing at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Numerous incidents involving nuclear-plant-staff have been reported just in Belgium.

A guard at one facility was shot dead in his home last week — although authorities say it wasn't terrorism-related.

Security badges were just stripped from workers at a Belgian plant.

Video footage of an official at a Belgian facility was discovered in the home of a suspected militant linked to killers from the Nov. 13 Paris attacks.

Belgium's nuclear agency had its computer system hacked and briefly shut down this year.

Two employees at a plant near Brussels reportedly joined jihadists in Syria. One was killed, another arrested.

A new study cites three potential ways terrorists could launch a nuclear attack.

They could attack facilities — perhaps by hacking their computers, says the study for the Harvard Kennedy School.

They could explode a so-called dirty bomb involving radioactive waste, which might not kill anyone but, the study says, could cause billions in damage.

"The consequences of detonation of even a crude terrorist nuclear bomb would be severe, turning the heart of a modern city into a smoldering radioactive ruin..."

The hardest to pull off would be the most devastating: an actual nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists.

"The consequences of detonation of even a crude terrorist nuclear bomb would be severe, turning the heart of a modern city into a smoldering radioactive ruin and sending reverberating economic and political aftershocks around the world," said the study.

Canada is deemed to have a better-than-average track record on nuclear safety.

Canada is third among 24 countries for the safety of its materials, according to an international non-profit organization that tracks nuclear-security trends.

It scored above-average in 18 different categories, like on-site protection and cyber security, according to the 2016 Nuclear Threat Initiative's security index.

But it was middle-of-the-pack in two categories: dispersal of quantities and sites, and in potential terrorist presence.

"We are committed to working with the international community to prevent nuclear terrorism — a very real social, political, economic, and environmental threat," Trudeau said in a statement.