Alan, meet Aaron. Sorry about your credibility.

It's about time someone spanked former DND bureaucrat and current book-shilling talking head Alan Williams in public. So my thanks go to Aaron Plamondon for this piece of work:

Healthy and extensive competition is fine when there is no real rush for the product. This is not the case regarding military equipment in Canada. Most often, the products under consideration were needed years ago. The Canadian Forces cannot afford any more procurement debacles or delays.

Clearly, the military should not be able to purchase whatever they want. But they are the experts on what is needed on the battlefield. If our top soldier says there are no acceptable alternatives, as in the case of the Chinook helicopters, he may well be right.

In all of the above cases, his civilian counterparts have agreed. The federal cabinet, Treasury Board and the Privy Council Office have approved the funds and Public Works and Government Services Canada has confirmed the validity of the purchases.

For the first time in recent memory, the Canadian government is setting out to buy and deliver necessary equipment in an efficient manner for our Forces in their current deployment -- not what they may need in 20 years.

Will this cost more than if we opened a five-year competition so all aircraft companies could build a prototype and then submit a possible bid? It may. It may also mean that our soldiers finally have what they need to undertake their missions.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm not just saying that, either: I actually tried, and it wasn't nearly this pretty a result. One of these days, I'm going to learn how to write. In the meantime, I'm just glad that Mr. Plamondon can.