Friday, March 17, 2006

Somehow aircraft just don't get purchased

This from the federal Budget, March 23, 2004, The Importance of Canada's Relationship to the World:

Another major priority for Canada’s military is the purchase of modern Fixed Wing Search and Rescue aircraft (SAR) to replace older Hercules aircraft and Canada’s fleet of Buffalo aircraft. Under Defence’s current plan, deliveries of the new aircraft will begin much later in the decade. This budget sets aside non-budgetary resources to allow the Department of National Defence to move this acquisition forward in time without displacing other planned capital investments. By doing so, the Government will accelerate the process so that deliveries of the replacement SAR planes to Canada’s military can begin within 12 to 18 months.

Eighteen months would have meant deliveries beginning September 2005. Did not happen.

And then from the Department of National Defence 2005-2006 Report on Plans and Priorities (March 24, 2005):
...
Fixed Wing Search and Rescue Project

This project will replace six Buffalo and ten Hercules aircraft that currently provide search and rescue services. We anticipate initial delivery in fiscal year 2006–2007...


About a year's slippage here from the 2004 budget. And fixed-wing SAR aircraft were not part of the rapid procurement package then National Defence Minister Graham did manage to get through Cabinet last November.

The Air Force needs planes, not words. One hopes the Conservative government can contract for these planes soon, though I do not expect any to arrive in the forthcoming fiscal year as was promised by the Liberal government just one year ago--and reneged on.

And one hopes that lobbyists, especially for Bombardier, are not allowed to mess this purchase up any longer, as they may have done when Graham failed to get a $12.2 billion aircraft procurement package--including SAR aircraft--through Cabinet last year.

1 Comments:

Blogger TonyGuitar said...

Used carlot...er planelot in Arizona has many late model aircraft at recievership prices.. because of the recent airline shakeout.. excellent aircraft are selling for peanuts. Almost new,High efficiency aircraft made by our own Bombadiere included.

I'm serious. Don't laugh. Somebody tell Harper.

Is this news??

Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Friday, March 17, 2006 6:40 a.m. EST
Curt Weldon: Bin Laden Is Dead

Rep. Curt Weldon, who broke the Able Danger story last year revealing that military intelligence had identified lead hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist threat before the 9/11 attacks, now says that Osama bin Laden has died.

Weldon made the stunning claim during an interview Wednesday with the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported: *Weldon is making explosive new allegations. He says a high-level source has told him that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden has died in Iran, where he has been in hiding.*
Weldon cited as his source an Iranian exile code-named Ali, telling the paper: *Ali's told me that Osama bin Laden is dead. He died in Iran.*

Weldon said he last spoke to Ali three weeks ago. The Iranian exile was a prominent source for his 2005 book, *Countdown to Terror.* The book also contained the first mention of the Able Danger data mining operation.

The Pennsylvania Republican has long alleged that bin Laden has been using Iran for sanctuary. June of last year, Weldon said in a TV interview: *I*m confident that I know for sure that [bin Laden] has been in and out of Iran ... Two years ago, he was in the southern town of Ladis, 10 kilometers inside the Pakistan border. I also know that earlier this year, he had a meeting with al-Zarqawi in Tehran *

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/17/64243.shtml?s=et

*If you look at the recent comments coming out of both the CIA and some of our military generals in theater, they're now acknowledging the same thing that I've been saying - that in fact, he's been in and out of Iran.*
=========================
10words.ca TG

12:41 p.m., March 18, 2006  

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