Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I have long said that you could fund the CAF to 4 percent of GDP, but we would still lag behind in NATO and be much the same where we are.

It's never the money, it's politics. It's procedures. It's the pork-barreling in our defence spending that makes us a paper tiger in NATO.

My only hope in all of this for the CAF and the GoC, whatever the political stripe that may be, is that it will rouse them out of the "Peace Dividend" slumber. The world has been unstable since 1945. We have used geography, proximity, and association as a Defence Policy ever since. ICBMs don't care how close to the U.S. or how far from Russia/China we are.

Don't give us a dime more, but let us spend money on defence like it matters. The fact we follow the same rules for purchasing a fighter aircraft as we do for buying office furniture for a Service Canada office is disgraceful. Don't treat defense procurement as a stimulus package for Canadian Industry. There I said it.

We spend so much money, time, and effort trying to get that money to stay in Canada; be it by awarding contracts to companies with no capability to produce items without first "retooling" and"developing the production lines", or by hamstringing perfectly competent and competitive bidders by forcing the project to be made in St. Margaret de Poutain de Champignon, QC because the ruling government either lost the seat in the election, or won it with promises.

We spend so much money and staff hours jumping through TBS regulations that are great for other departments, but are terrible for defence procurement. Some items you have to sole source, because there are technologies and capabilities no one else makes. By doing the bid process, you get companies clamoring for a project they can't deliver on, but because they tick the bright boxes on the score sheet....

I truly and honestly belief we need to split from PSPC and legislate that its not beholden to TBS, only to the PBO/PCO. The guiding principles of this new Defence Procurement department should be "Off the shelf, from somewhere else" if there isn't an industry in Canada.

BOOTFORGEN has demonstrated how well we do when we are able to actually get what we need, instead of lining the pockets of a Canadian company that got lucky.

That, but with tanks, fighters, ships, weapons systems....

 

[McG]

Too bad that we are bad at arctic infrastructure:

Long-delayed naval facility in the High Arctic now postponed to 2023

Department of National Defence said it will now be 2023 before the Nanisivik Naval Facility is operational – 16 years after it was first announced. It was originally supposed to be up and running by 2013

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Czech_pivo]

Too bad that we are bad at arctic infrastructure:

Long-delayed naval facility in the High Arctic now postponed to 2023

Department of National Defence said it will now be 2023 before the Nanisivik Naval Facility is operational – 16 years after it was first announced. It was originally supposed to be up and running by 2013

www.theglobeandmail.com

Why am I not surprised.

It's the end of March and this facility is now completely inaccessible to us, has been for a number of months now due to the weather and it won't be accessible for a number of months into the future. So, with this being the case, why is this article just coming out now?
When they wrapped up work on the facility back in, say early-mid October of 2021 wouldn't they know right then and there that the facility was not finished? They would have have a very good understanding of what needed to be completed and the timelines to complete the work because, I'm assuming, they had a project plan, with milestones, delivery dates, dependencies, risks, etc - it would have been known.

What a load of crap. Cover up - and another push of funding not being spent in one fiscal year and pushed into another.

 

[Underway]

Its not a cover up. I took the train to work with one of the DND projects engineers regularly. We used to chat about once a week. His frustration with getting work done in the Arctic was palpable because of all the engineering challenges. That was before COVID.

However, the lack of political will makes it much harder.

Also comparing to Russia is a terribly stupid comparison. No first nations discussions needed, no environmental assessment required, no care about waste management, being able to drive to their bases is nice as their arctic isn't an archipelago etc...

 

[Czech_pivo]

Its not a cover up. I took the train to work with one of the DND projects engineers regularly. We used to chat about once a week. His frustration with getting work done in the Arctic was palpable because of all the engineering challenges. That was before COVID.

However, the lack of political will makes it much harder.

Also comparing to Russia is a terribly stupid comparison. No first nations discussions needed, no environmental assessment required, no care about waste management, being able to drive to their bases is nice as their arctic isn't an archipelago etc...

Why is the story coming out now at the end of March and not the end of say October, when the latest work would have wrapped up?

Was it the author of the article who sat on the story for the last 5 months? Or was it a gov't department who sat on it for the last 5 months before actually coming clean and informing their bosses that, whoops, we didn't complete the project plan and wrap up the project by our project end date of summer 2021 and we need net new funding that was not budgeted for this fiscal year?

Either way it should have been obvious to all who worked on it that the work was not completed by 2021 and that more funding and money would be required for yet another building season. It would not take 5 months for this to be known.

 

[KevinB]

Its not a cover up. I took the train to work with one of the DND projects engineers regularly. We used to chat about once a week. His frustration with getting work done in the Arctic was palpable because of all the engineering challenges. That was before COVID.

However, the lack of political will makes it much harder.

Commitment challenge.

It isn’t an engineering challenge, it’s been done before and there is a lot of information out there on how design requirements differ, as such it is just a different environment that most are not used to working with. I suspect most of the project staff where not exceptionally familiar with the the design requirements of buildings etc that far north, then toss in COVID and room temperature government support and you have a mess as it’s massively under resourced.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Commitment challenge.

It isn’t an engineering challenge, it’s been done before and there is a lot of information out there on how design requirements differ, as such it is just a different environment that most are not used to working with. I suspect most of the project staff where not exceptionally familiar with the the design requirements of buildings etc that far north, then toss in COVID and room temperature government support and you have a mess as it’s massively under resourced.

I'm pretty sure this was a Harper project as well. Have to wonder if that had an effect ?

You know like a certain fighter plane replacement thing-a-ma-jig.

 

[KevinB]

I'm pretty sure this was a Harper project as well. Have to wonder if that had an effect ?

You know like a certain fighter plane replacement thing-a-ma-jig.

It was a Harperism, but I suspect he had already lost interest by the time JT took over.

 

[Czech_pivo]

I'm pretty sure this was a Harper project as well. Have to wonder if that had an effect ?

You know like a certain fighter plane replacement thing-a-ma-jig.

Is that why we'll keep Pearson breaking ice until its 60yrs old before Dief touches water?

 

[FJAG]

@FJAG LET ME DREAM GOD DAMNIT

There's nothing wrong with the majority of your dream. It's this part that evoked the laughter.

pretty fast last year. Any chance we could do the same with our LAVs?

I think it would be very doable to have those systems on a Canadian LAV which is pretty much a Stryker in the first place. My guess we could use a TLAV for some of that as well. My guess is that the LAV will most likely be the GBAD vehicle chassis of choice.

It was the issue of whether there is any chance we could do it "fast" that was the kicker.

We've done things quickly through Unforecasted Operational Requirements during Afghanistan but there is currently no need for that and more importantly, a UOR does not create an in-service system, just a temporary system for a specific operational requirement. GBAD right now is targeted for inservice (as it should be) that means slow and deliberate. As far as I understand we have just been given approval for the definition stage. That means that there is a long road ahead before this gets done.

 

[OldSolduer]

OS, the priority is Net-Zero by 2050, so I’m thinking it should be resolved some time after 2050…

Yes of course - the lives of FN people are still back burner like clean drinking water for all FN.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Why am I not surprised.

It's the end of March and this facility is now completely inaccessible to us, has been for a number of months now due to the weather and it won't be accessible for a number of months into the future. So, with this being the case, why is this article just coming out now?
When they wrapped up work on the facility back in, say early-mid October of 2021 wouldn't they know right then and there that the facility was not finished? They would have have a very good understanding of what needed to be completed and the timelines to complete the work because, I'm assuming, they had a project plan, with milestones, delivery dates, dependencies, risks, etc - it would have been known.

What a load of crap. Cover up - and another push of funding not being spent in one fiscal year and pushed into another.

I'm still wondering why the base isn't planned to be built in Iqaluit, but I'm no sailor so....

 

[KevinB]

As far as I understand we have just been given approval for the definition stage.

How hard is it to look down South as say.
TTHAD
MEADS
MSHORAD
STINGER

I mean I could have written a capability requirement and SOW for GBAD in about 2hrs from scratch.

 

[TacticalTea]

I'm still wondering why the base isn't planned to be built in Iqaluit, but I'm no sailor so....

If I were to guess, I'd say because there's already a naval (civilian) infrastructure project in Iqaluit, and it's also close enough to Nuuk and Newfoundland that building the facility there wouldn't provide much added value.

Whereas Nanisivik is right in the middle of the Canadian Arctic.

 

[Underway]

There's nothing wrong with the majority of your dream. It's this part that evoked the laughter.

I think it would be very doable to have those systems on a Canadian LAV which is pretty much a Stryker in the first place. My guess we could use a TLAV for some of that as well. My guess is that the LAV will most likely be the GBAD vehicle chassis of choice.

It was the issue of whether there is any chance we could do it "fast" that was the kicker.

We've done things quickly through Unforecasted Operational Requirements during Afghanistan but there is currently no need for that and more importantly, a UOR does not create an in-service system, just a temporary system for a specific operational requirement. GBAD right now is targeted for inservice (as it should be) that means slow and deliberate. As far as I understand we have just been given approval for the definition stage. That means that there is a long road ahead before this gets done.

I don't know much about GBAD but I used to work with one of the few surviving AD Artillery Sgt's years back. Those folks deploy far out from the formation in interlocking layers of coverage. But that was in the days of ADAT's and I assume GBAD for the Stykers is a different animal. The ADATs had a 10km range. The Stinger is around 4-5km in range.

A SHORAD LAV would likely be using the Reconfigurable Integrated Weapons platform and would provide tactical AD for the army, but something else is needed I think for the longer range punch.

I'll go with what I know and that's the Sky Sabre. It's replacing the Sky Rapier in the UK inventory. It uses the Giraffe AMB radar (a large amount of commonality to the SG-AMB on the frigates and JSS) and the CAMM which is selected as the CIAD missile for the CSC. 25km range with 100km range radar.

I don't think we need LRAD as a military, the Short and Medium RAD would go a long way to being able to do local protection of our own units.

 

[McG]

Whereas Nanisivik is right in the middle of the Canadian Arctic.

So are Resolute and Arctic Bay, and an infrastructure project in either of these locations could have dual-use benefits for the local communities.
I know Nanisivik and Arctic Bay look real close on a map, but they are substantially isolated from eachother through most of the year.

 

[Underway]

So are Resolute and Arctic Bay, and an infrastructure project in either of these locations could have dual-use benefits for the local communities.
I know Nanisivik and Arctic Bay look real close on a map, but they are substantially isolated from eachother through most of the year.

Nanisivik is CCG and RCN only AFAIK. There is an airfield nearby but it's public. Artic Bay is a short drive away from Nanisivik.

 

[McG]

Nanisivik is CCG and RCN only AFAIK.

Right. Not dual-use and no local benefits.

There is an airfield nearby but it's public.

The Nanisivik airport does not exist any more.

Artic Bay is a short drive away from Nanisivik

On a good day, but that is not an all season road and the article notes it is prone to wash-out.

 

[QV]

How hard is it to look down South as say.
TTHAD
MEADS
MSHORAD
STINGER

I mean I could have written a capability requirement and SOW for GBAD in about 2hrs from scratch.

Tsk tsk... that's not how the CAF does things. See pistol project for example and timelines.

 

[FJAG]

How hard is it to look down South as say.
TTHAD
MEADS
MSHORAD
STINGER

I mean I could have written a capability requirement and SOW for GBAD in about 2hrs from scratch.

Wouldn't it be fun if all one had to do was walk down the aisles of Destruction R Us and pick things off the shelves?

You could probably lay off about 5,000 civil servants.

 

[FJAG]

I don't know much about GBAD but I used to work with one of the few surviving AD Artillery Sgt's years back. Those folks deploy far out from the formation in interlocking layers of coverage. But that was in the days of ADAT's and I assume GBAD for the Stykers is a different animal. The ADATs had a 10km range. The Stinger is around 4-5km in range.

A SHORAD LAV would likely be using the Reconfigurable Integrated Weapons platform and would provide tactical AD for the army, but something else is needed I think for the longer range punch.

I'll go with what I know and that's the Sky Sabre. It's replacing the Sky Rapier in the UK inventory. It uses the Giraffe AMB radar (a large amount of commonality to the SG-AMB on the frigates and JSS) and the CAMM which is selected as the CIAD missile for the CSC. 25km range with 100km range radar.

I don't think we need LRAD as a military, the Short and Medium RAD would go a long way to being able to do local protection of our own units.

The easiest way to picture air defence is small umbrellas under larger umbrellas under yet larger umbrellas and so on, all of which interlock under a common command and control system.

The SHOR in SHORAD stand for short range which makes it the smallest umbrella and very dependent on what the other systems are that work with it. For example our old Javelins worked within and expanded the capability of ADATS.

The big question, which I don't know the answer to, is how the GBAD project envisions their particular solution will operate vis a vis its own resources and our allies'. There needs to be a very clear doctrine of use that GBAD slots into. Because AD is always a system of systems, that requires a very high degree of integration and interoperability. We had that for 4 AD. the GBAD requirements statement is very broad and generic.

To me its a bit vague right now because of the wide mix of equipment across the "New" NATO. Latvia apparently has RBS-70, Stinger, Giraffe, Sentinel and AN/TPS-77 but I don't see any medium or long range missiles. Lithuania does have some NASAMs and some eFP countries could deploy medium and above range.

I presume, that the definition phase of this project will start setting out more concrete elements. In fact my guess is that they are already pretty far along with that process.