The Senator family is purpose built . . . just using an existing standard chassis. Ford has already invested millions into the research and manufacture of these chasis and continues to product improve them.
At some point, especially if you want to build mass, you have to look at cost, even with a fairytale 3.5% budget. At some point you have to call "good enough."
Roshel is here and through no brilliant effort by either the civilian government or our military they have created a product that fills a gap adequately - if not better - than others.
They are already slipping into manufacturing offshore. Canada could easily lose them and as God is my witness, Toronto could do with a solid defence manufacturer.
Personally I think we need a tracked armoured force at one end of the scale (GDLS) and a light specialized force at the other end (various equipment and manufacturers) and we need to fill the middle with a very large general purpose force based on armoured Senators and unarmoured F550s produced through Roshel and a heavy logistics vehicle fleet manufactured by a third, major Canadian company.