The politics of procurement---and of requirements?

Michael Fortier, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, puts it plainly in a letter to the Ottawa Sun today:

There has been recent media speculation regarding the outcome of negotiations taking place between the Government of Canada and Boeing for the procurement of strategic airlift.

No contract has been signed, which explains why no announcement has been made.

Some media have gone as far as to say that I had declared that I would not sign a contract to buy four Boeing C-17 cargo aircraft unless Quebec receives a greater share of the contract's proposed regional benefits.

I never made such a statement.

Buying military equipment -- such as ships, airplanes, or trucks -- is not as simple as walking into a dealership and buying a new car.

Billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake.

There are economic consequences to each purchase. And there are urgent needs in the field, where our troops risk their lives every day.

When billions of taxpayer dollars are given out to suppliers, it is the government's job to see that economic benefits are returned to Canadians and the Canadian aerospace and defence industry [emphasis added].

Our government is committed to address the military's need for new equipment, something that was neglected for 13 long years by the previous Liberal government. But no deal is concluded until it is signed -- that is, until the government is satisfied that the purchase was done properly, that Canadians are getting the right benefits and that the purchase will serve the interests of the country.

While back at requirements for the strategic lifter:

Just weeks before the Conservative government announced its controversial plan to buy $3.4 billion worth of Boeing long-range military transports without a competitive bidding process, the military changed a key requirement that eliminated the only competitor - the Airbus Military consortium.

Documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen show on June 13, 2006, Defence Department planners were under the impression two planes could satisfy its requirements for long-range airlift: the Boeing C-17 and the Airbus A400.

But planners changed a key specification: they doubled the payload requirement of their desired fleet, deciding each of their new planes now needed to carry 39 metric tonnes of cargo instead of the original specification of 19.5 tonnes.

"It's amazing. You call that a fix," said Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre, when told Thursday about the contents of the documents, that were recently released under Access to Information...

In a backgrounder issued on June 29, 2006, touting the new Conservative government's "Canada First" defence strategy, one of the key requirements that justified purchasing the C-17 plane was that it needed a payload capacity of 39,000 kilograms.

In the months leading up to that announcements, the military documents show the military appeared content to make due with a smaller plane with a maximum payload capacity of 19,500 kilograms.

Military planners understood if they upped the payload requirement, they would eliminate all competition...

...the military wanted a plane that could move the LAV III armoured vehicle, which weighs 18 tonnes...

I wonder why the reporter, Mike Blanchfield of the Ottawa Citizen, did not ask someone if the greater weight requirement might be needed to carry our Leopard tanks [see pix of them and USAF C-17s], which by the end of June, 2006, it was pretty likely the army would be keeping.

A400M update [text subscriber only]:

Final assembly of the A400M was scheduled to start in March in Seville, Spain, in preparation for a first flight in January 2008. But final assembly now may be pushed back until June, placing intense pressure on program officials to maintain the first flight date that, so far, the international consortium building the airplane has not backed away from...

A400M customers, some of whom--due to the aging of their current fleets--are clearly nervous about the delivery date being pushed back [emphasis added], have been briefed on the possible assembly delay, which Airbus says will not exceed three months. However, Williams says the Airbus Military team has devised a plan to do parallel test work this year to ensure that their first-flight target is met.

Although the group would have only six months to wind up all the preparatory work before first flight, Williams says that this "doesn't look entirely impossible."

The first A400M delivery should take place in late 2009...

Upperdate: A much fuller article in Le Devoir makes it clear that this was about strategic, not tactical, lift--but also ignores the Leopard matter.