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Originally Posted by FlamesAllTheWay
Saw that today. Read the article and it seems to really amount to nothing. Lots of ideas and guidelines but no real substance or firm commitments. Even seemingly leaves open pushing the jet purchase back a bit further.
Actually delivering on one big piece of military procurement - jets, ships, helicopters, icebreakers, etc - is worth about a million of reports like this.
I'm beginning to notice a bit of an all show, no substance pattern when it comes to the Conservatives and the military. Big procurement announcements followed by nothing. Big money for publicly honoring vets while behind the scenes the vets themselves are short-changed on benefits. Not to discount the importance of publicly showing our support and marking important events from our military history, mind you, but not at the expense of the people that actually fought in these wars.
Terrible priorities and basically just a big mess summarizes the Conservatives and military spending if you ask me. Too bad it's pretty much in keeping with the government status quo for Canada and it's military.
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The Canadian Government hasn't gotten this right since the end of WW2, and governments under Trudeau, Chretien and Mulrooney, that lead to the general rust out of the forces didn't help.
while the Conservatives have done some things very well in terms of logistics and transportation aircraft, the replacement of the Iltis the upgrade of personal kit. The procurement of new tanks The state of the forces where everything hit its rust point is concerning and nearly impossible to fix without massive capital.
The Liberal governments really screwed us over in terms of the helicopters and the Upholder/Victoria Submarines.
People forget that the Liberals were all hot in the pants about the F35 and Chretien signed Canada into the F-35 program and into the tier 3 program.
The Afghan conflict while the right conflict for Canada showed how woefully unprepared we were for any kind of action and the conservatives had to do a crash refit of the forces there, from personal kit to armored fighting vehicles to transportation and logistics, we spent a lot of money on that conflict that could have gone towards a desperately needed refresh of the forces.
As it stands the doomsday scenario of rust out has merely been delayed but not stopped, and that's the quandary that any government is in now. Thanks to decades of abuse and destruction, the Conservatives has slowed the death spiral but its now impossible to stop because there are too many balls in the air.
If we look at the major holes.
The naval situation - The excellent Halifax Frigates are far past their half life refit, there is a crash program on to replace out navy basically but its plagued by design and budget issues, and it might have been a very over ambitious project. From my understanding we are now down to one logistic support ship, The Iroquis command and control destroyers are down to two with the Huron being sunk in 2005 and the Alguoquin being involved with an at sea collision. However these destroyers are nearly 50 years old and need to come out of the line, but they allow Canada to form task forces.
The Submarines, bought by the Liberal's because they were cheap and they were never properly inspected before we bought them here. Now out of the four, one can actively fire torpedos and dive deep. Two are in dry dock, one can't fire weapons or dive below 30 meters. We might have saved money on these boats at the start, but now the dollars are adding up.
The F-18's these are beyond the end of life, the F35 is going to be the winning choice and the right choice, this is the second time that a competition evaluation has happened, the first under the Liberals, the second under the conservatives, but even with the F-35 purchased, its likely that it will be another decade before we're transitioned to them.
Army - More then a third of Canada's LAV III vehicles were damaged or destroyed in Afghanistan. Canada decided to cancel their replacement program sh%t canning the close combat vehicle replacement program and spending a billion dollars to upgrade and repair the existing fleet. These are essential vehicles for Canada, but I have my doubts about making these vehicles last until 2035.
Helicopters - grrrrr.
The Conservatives have done a good job in identifying what needs to be done, the problem being that there is more that needs to be done then the money involved in doing it, that's the issue.
the ships do need to be built, the F18's need to be replaced with a next generation jet that will last 40 years in the modern battlefield, and the infantry needs the deployment tools that are needed, vehicles, logistical support.
I will give credit to the Conservatives on one thing in a major way. They've shown exceptional vision in the special forces community and because of that they've heavily expanded Canada's capability in the secret warfare community.