Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[lenaitch]

You don't just buy cell phones and call it a comms plan. 25,000 cell phones bought in Canada could be useless in parts of the world.

A somebody has to remember 25,000 phones numbers.

 

[Kirkhill]

The whole point of picking GM Defense is to have a standard product that has parts compatibility with the civilian vehicles driven all over the country.

I agree with the concept but the Senator is built on top of a civilian vehicle as well, either the Ford F550 or the Dodge Ram 5500. Given that the Ford is made here in Canada and he Ram is made in Mexico I thought it might be a better fit.

And further, if the Senator can be built on top of either the Dodge or Ford product then why not a GM product as well, a Silverado 5500 for example.

We don't need every town making trucks, and we don't need the entire automotive production capacity of the nation dedicated to making army trucks. We just need enough production of each type to keep a small line running.

I agree. I was pointing out that we would be spoiled for choice to have vehicles of this class assembled in Canada without having to have GM set up a line. Given their lines are scaled to produce hundreds of thousands to millions and our requirements are in the thousands I thought we might be looking at a scaling problem there. There are lots of potential competitors to Roshel. We don't need them all. Just a couple, or maybe a handful.

Or just one.

The ISV is 80% standard Colorado ZR2, and Im sure the larger version shares lots of components with the Silverado. Thats the whole point of those GM Defense offerings. I specified GM Defense because we already use their product, and they offer more that we can make future use of. They were also the first NA manufacturer to get serious about getting back into the Defense game.

Seen.

But it won't put Oshawa back to work.

As for small drones, sure spread the love around, have different manufactures for the parts all over the country. There is a lot less complexity in having small shops make small drones than there is in having 30 different shops making your trucks.

As I noted, wrt to the 30 shops, I was misunderstood.

Wrt the drones. We are still in the 1910 to 1940s era of flight when pianomakers were offering novel means of solving problems. Encouraging people to keep offering solutions and allowing service people to play with the offerings seems to work for the Ukrainians as it did for the world in the first half of the 20th Century. When we don't have all the answers then we should be encouraging every answer.

 

[Kirkhill]

A somebody has to remember 25,000 phones numbers.

I regularly get Charlie Charlies over my phone. Weather alerts. Amber alerts. And individuals don't seem to have trouble reaching me nor I them. I have even been involved in group chats that never seem to end.

 

[Kirkhill]

You don't just buy cell phones and call it a comms plan. 25,000 cell phones bought in Canada could be useless in parts of the world.

I can appreciate that but for a domestic security force, one that is designed to take the load off the Army proper, what level of comms would be appropriate?

25,000 personal comms devices, insecure or not, would solve a lot of comms problems in times of emergency. Having said that. I doubt if there are many Canadians that cannot be reached by cell phone these days.

 

[lenaitch]

I regularly get Charlie Charlies over my phone. Weather alerts. Amber alerts. And individuals don't seem to have trouble reaching me nor I them. I have even been involved in group chats that never seem to end.

Great if the goal is have one-way communications from one or a few points. Not so great if you expect any of those 25K to call a significant number of the same 25K. Group calling is limited to a handful of numbers.

One problem with cel phone use during emergencies is the towers can get overwhelmed and can't discriminate between an 'official' call and somebody checking to see if their cat is ok. This was a big problem during the '98 ice storm (that and towers going down for lack of power). Way back in the day of landlines, Bell used to be able to identify certain numbers that would always have service regardless of the 'workload' of the switching gear (emergency services had to provide them updated lists every year). I'm not aware that something similar exists for cel phones.

 

[FJAG]

I agree with the concept but the Senator is built on top of a civilian vehicle as well, either the Ford F550 or the Dodge Ram 5500. Given that the Ford is made here in Canada and he Ram is made in Mexico I thought it might be a better fit.

Quite frankly if Roshel can build the Senator line on a Ford F550 chassis, how hard would it be to dispense with the armour and build an ISV-type light infantry model vehicle based on the stock items they have for the Senator pickup and some additional tubular roll-bars? That way everything in he LUVW-line stays in Canada for decades to come.

 

[childs56]

Great if the goal is have one-way communications from one or a few points. Not so great if you expect any of those 25K to call a significant number of the same 25K. Group calling is limited to a handful of numbers.

One problem with cel phone use during emergencies is the towers can get overwhelmed and can't discriminate between an 'official' call and somebody checking to see if their cat is ok. This was a big problem during the '98 ice storm (that and towers going down for lack of power). Way back in the day of landlines, Bell used to be able to identify certain numbers that would always have service regardless of the 'workload' of the switching gear (emergency services had to provide them updated lists every year). I'm not aware that something similar exists for cel phones.

This is why we have the Communications and Electronics Branch. They can set up tower networks for local areas to communicate. Then they can set up larger towers for distance comms. They can use frequency/ cell blockers to keep regular traffic from using the network.