So what's the point? Take your money and STFU?
If a reservist feels entitled to a particular brand name vehicle, yes. They need to get over themselves and realize the CAF does not owe them a toy.
No. The CAF does not owe anyone toys.
It owes them the equipment they are to be trained on or that they have to go to war with.
The CAF owes to Canadians that it buys the equipment that satisfy requirements.
The current concept of hoarding all the shiny toys for the RegF has been stupid for many decades
The CAF owes nobody toys, and should not be buying toys.
The only reason for keeping shiny toys out of the ARes hands is a weak argument that they can't take care of it.
If you want buy toys, go joint the Frontiersmen or an Airsoft club.
If you want to be in a professional army, you buy equipment that performs the jobs that you need. These job should be defined by the tasks you are going to do, and not the shiny pictures of some other army riding around in a truck.
The proposals to go buy Senators for the PRes is not based in requirements. The proposals to go buy Senators for the PRes has not presented a complete requirements based argument yet. It just pump money into a politically expedient Canadian company and acquiring something shiny.
Take a look around. Senator type vehicles fill roles in many armies.
"Lots of people are doing this" is a bad/dangerous reason to do something. Lots of armies are using T72s, but we don't want to go buy those.
Let's face it not every infantryman needs to be in an IFV or even a LAV. An armoured battle taxi capable of moving folks safely around the rear areas reasonably secure from splinters and small arms is adequate. It starts as a training device for armoured infantry (either IFV or LAV) and it also serves the purpose as a third tier device.
The Senator is excessive to needs for of a pure training vehicle, but it will get infantry killed if we try to send them to war in it ... of course, the proposal was that we buy Senator for PRes cavalry and that role will kill even more Canadians. If we need the PRes to have a vehicle that they are only going to use for training, then buy something without armour (you can buy comms & RWS with the money not spent on extraneous armour). If we need the PRes to have a vehicle that they can also take to war, then buy a proper war fighting vehicle. Don't buy anybody toys ... not even if it looks shiny or is "third tier"