Politics is politics
Oh dear. I suppose this was inevitable. But at least the Conservative government is actually buying equipment:
Upperdate: A thread on this at Army.ca.
Ottawa overrides its controls on contracts: Government uses 'national security' clause to allow it to steer lucrative defence deals to West, Quebec and Atlantic CanadaUpdate: A good editorial in the Montreal Gazette: "It's about defence, not development".
Upperdate: A thread on this at Army.ca.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 8:38 a.m.
3 Comments:
at least the Conservative government is actually buying equipment
Quite an accomplishment since the historical record of conservative governments is NOT to buy equipment. Beating that partisan drum a little loudly aren't you?
The Leopard tank, Canadian Patrol Frigate, CF-18, just to name a few, were all Liberal initiatives.
The use of the national security exemption, while the stated purpose may be to direct contracts to regions, leaves the process open to corruption. It's what happens when you get a defence lobbyist for a defence minister.
That's brilliant Dave, lets see, just who said "zero helicopters"?
The Liberals let the milirary rust out, PET first, Cretien second. The few things the Liberals did buy was only after considerable deliberation (heh dithering) The almost 8 years to replace the Argus with the Aurora increased the final cost from an original $300 Million to almost $1 Billion. The Conservatives could hardly be blamed for not making major purchases since they had power from 1984 to 1993 and presided over a turbulent period when the wall fell and Canadians expected the same "peace dividend" that the Americans demanded. The Canadian media and people forgot that they had been collecting the peace dividend since the early 1960s, but don't let the truth of that stay in the way.
From 1963 until 1984 the Liberals held power and the military shrunk and atrophied. The replacements that the Liberals bought were, for the most part, fewer in number then the items they replaced.
Try this one for size. The RCAF inventory of ASW aircraft:
CP-121 Tracker 1956 - 1989 total a/c 101
CP-127 Neptune 1955 - 1968 total a/c 25
CP-107 Argus 1957 - 1980 total a/c 33
The Aurora was taken on strength in 1980 and we bought 18. We added 3 Arcturus a/c about 1990, esentially Aurora without the ASW suite. Not bad eh, 159 a/c fleet down to 18+3.
The same goes for fighters, transport, etc. Bah, history is wasted on those that don't bother to study it.
I didn't have to study it, Dwayne, I was living it.
I was also around when the Mulroney conservatives screwed the armed forces.
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