When the federal Conservative government first took power eight years ago, there were high hopes Canada's military would have seen the last of its "decade of darkness," the 1990s, when the federal Liberals all but starved the Forces. We were at war, and the military was going to get what it needed.
Retired Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, speaking in Estevan earlier this year, gave the Conservatives credit for that, in the war zone of Afghanistan, they didn't get everything they wanted, but they got what they needed - new IED-resistant vehicles, tanks, medium lift Chinook helicopters and heavy-lift C-17s.
Leslie is now a senior advisor to Justin Trudeau, and if elected to government, a likely future minister of National Defence.
What he didn't touch on was that the rest of the military in recent years has also been starving. Nearly all the military procurement programs the Conservatives announced to great fanfare have foundered, and next to nothing has been actually received and put into service. Only now are we finally going to accept the Sea King maritime helicopter replacement, but it turns out the S-92 Cyclone doesn't meet the specs we had required.
Our much-ballyhooed ship procurement strategy has yet to cut steel on one hull. In the meantime, our 44 year-old HMCS Protecteur, one of only two supply ships, caught fire off Hawaii and is likely going to be scrapped. That means we have only one floating gas station for our entire navy, which covers two oceans and neglects the third.
Why the neglect? Our armed icebreakers have yet to materialize. Their specs and numbers have been continually downgraded from the initial thoughts. Will we see any?
Our blue-water navy consists of 12 frigates and three, sorry, two destroyers. There used to be four, but the HMCS Huron was decommissioned in 2003. In May, the HMCS Iroquois was found to have serious fatigue cracks, and is pretty much done for, reducing us to two destroyers, and no replacements in sight. How long will the other two last? Months? Weeks?
Finally our submarine fleet is finally seeing some life in it, 16 years after acquisition, with almost all of the fleet in drydock most of that time. Rust, shorted out electrical systems, failing engines, fire and grounding onto a seamount and bashing in the bow of the HMCS Corner Brook are just a few of the issues this fleet has faced. And since none of them are nuclear, none can operate under the arctic ice, either.
We were going to get the F-35 fighter, then we're not so sure, then who knows? In the meantime, our CF-18 fleet is growing very long in the tooth.
Some people don't think we even need fighters anymore, as demonstrated in an article written in the Globe and Mail July 8 by Charles Nixon, former deputy minister of National Defence from 1975 to 1983. For those who don't know, that is the top civilian dog within the ministry besides the elected minister, and he would have been instrumental in the acquisition of the CF-18.
He basically says we're never going to be attacked, so why do we need fighters? Gee, I'm sure glad he was responsible for our collective defence the first eight years of my life.
Perhaps the ridiculous notion way back then that only 138 fighters were enough to protect half a continent and part of Europe was our first clue. But hey, the Liberals reduced that to 80 in the early 2000s, and the Conservatives think only 65 F-35s are needed.
The list goes on and on. Search and rescue aircraft? Nada. Close combat vehicles of the army? Nope. Armoured trucks? Sorry. Michael Byers, writing in the National Post on July 8, thinks Prime Minister Harper is a possible candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize since he has been effectively on a unilateral disarmament path.
We're getting past the point of secretariats and studies and whatnot. Forget made-in-Canada solutions. Our allies have many designs that we should simply buy off the shelf or license for local production. The Danish Absalon class ships would serve well to replace our destroyers and possibly even our supply ships together. Boeing makes the follow-on Super Hornet, which we could purchase right now to replace the CF-18. German Type 212 submarines are non-nuclear yet offer air-independent propulsion.
There are answers out there. We just need to start signing the cheques and getting on with it.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
