The F-35 jet cost controversy: now we're getting somewhere
By John Geddes - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - 116 Comments
Dan Ross Deputy Minister of Defence holds news conference on the acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, in Ottawa (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand)
The increasingly heated debate over what it will cost Canada to buy the new F-35 fighter jet has, from the outset, bogged down on one point—the unwavering contention of the federal government that Canada will pay way less per jet than the U.S.
This just seems, on the face of it, difficult to believe. The F-35 story features many other variables, vagaries, arcane disputes—all accompanied by acronyms and jargon of the sort that military procurement always generates in such unwelcome plentitude.
-
What's a life worth?
By Michael Friscolanti - Monday, January 10, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 7 Comments
Canadian military payments for death and destruction in Afghanistan have tripled
Compensation for an innocent’s death ‘is very appropriate’ in Afghanistan; A Canadian Forces vehicle | Rahmat Gul/AP, Master Corporal James Ross/Canadian Forces
From a strictly legal standpoint, the Canadian military is not responsible for Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire of war. Like every nation with boots on the ground, Canada signed an agreement with Afghanistan’s government that waives any liability for so-called “collateral damage,” including property destruction, injury, and even death. Simply put, the deal ensures that if soldiers in the heat of combat accidentally destroy a farmer’s field—or mistake that same farmer for a Taliban insurgent, and open fire—Ottawa is safe from lawsuits.
But that doesn’t mean the army ignores the innocent (and inevitable) victims of Canadian missions. Instead of “compensation,” a term that implies a certain acceptance of blame, the Forces provides ex-gratia awards—a one-time, no-strings-attached payment made “out of kindness,” not obligation. JAG lawyers in Kandahar can approve such claims up to $2,000 (anything higher requires a signature from the deputy minister of defence), and according to the latest figures, the handouts are growing larger and more common.
-
How many? (II)
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 7:48 PM - 13 Comments
For the fourth consecutive day, Lawrence Cannon was pressed during QP to say how many children have been detained and transferred by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. For the fourth consecutive day, this did not result in an answer.
Afterward I emailed Mr. Cannon’s office with the following.
According to the Canadian Forces records released in September, 439 individuals were detained by the CF in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2008. Two-hundred and eighty-three of those individuals were transferred. Two questions: How many of those detained were juveniles? How many of those transferred were juveniles?
That was eventually forwarded to the Department of National Defence, which responds as follows. I’ve bolded the portion that seems most particularly applicable to the questions at hand. Continue…
-
Newsmakers
By macleans.ca - Friday, November 5, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
Margaret Thatcher beats out Oprah, Ozzy Osbourne’s Neanderthal roots, and a very special seeing-eye dog
It just isn’t Brett Favre’s year
Despite being hobbled by two fractures in his foot, the Minnesota Vikings quarterback started in his 292nd consecutive NFL game. It was a bittersweet affair for fans, who saw Favre throw a costly interception, draw two penalties and leave the game with an eight-stitch cut to his chin in a loss to the New England Patriots. Then there are his alleged follies off the field: the married QB reportedly sent texts and lewd photos to TV personality Jenn Sterger.
The Parti is hungry
There are a few constants in life in Quebec: good food, cold winters, and infighting within the Parti Québécois. But knowing this can’t allay the worries of Pauline Marois, who after three years at the helm of the sovereignist party is facing restive ranks. A group of 50 young sovereignists recently signed an open letter criticizing her. That came on the heels of a Radio-Canada interview in which Jacques Parizeau chided Marois and complimented Bloc leader (and one-time PQ leadership hopeful) Gilles Duceppe for his “remarkable clarity” on the sovereignty issue. It seems the party that eats its leaders—Marois is the sixth in 10 years—is licking its chops once again. -
Talking F-35s with a former head of the air force
By John Geddes - Friday, October 29, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments
Lieutenant-General Angus Watt retired about a year ago as chief of air staff in the Canadian
Forces. That gives him a particular vantage point on the government’s plan to spend about $16 billion to buy and maintain 65 F-35 fighter jets—close enough to know the details, but a bit detached from the ferocious debate that’s erupted over the sole-sourced procurement.Not surprisingly, Watt is a big fan of the Lockheed Martin jet, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter. He’s a sharp critic, though, of the job the federal government is doing selling the deal to the Canadian public. This is an edited version of his conversation with me earlier this week about the controversial F-35 project.
-
The Auditor General's report and Canada's curious F-35 deal
By John Geddes - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 6:44 PM - 0 Comments
Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s coruscating report on the slippery way the Department of National Defence handled its recent multi-billion-dollar helicopter purchases is setting off alarm bells about how DND might be managing its even more costly jet fighter buy.
Fraser’s findings from her audit of the $11-billion helicopter deals couldn’t be more disturbing. She said DND officials held back crucial information about the likely escalation in the cost of 28 Cyclone and 15 Chinook choppers, which led to Treasury Board approving the purchases based on off-the-shelf cost estimates that were ridiculously optimistic.
And Fraser drew a rough parallel between the helicopter fiasco and the planned procurement, announced last
JuneJuly, of 65 F-35 fighter jets for an estimated $9 billion, plus another perhaps $7 billion in maintenance costs. “I hope no one is assessing [the F-35 procurement] as low risk,” she said today. -
Joint Strike Fighter costs are soaring
By John Geddes - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
The F-35 project is plagued by cost overruns. But Ottawa says it’s insulated from sticker shock.
Tom Reynolds/Lockheed Martin
The suspension of test flights of Lockheed Martin’s new F-35 fighter jet early this month sounded like bad news for Canada. The federal government announced its plan last spring to buy 65 of the so-called Joint Strike Fighters, giving Ottawa a multi-billion-dollar vested interest in seeing the radar-evading airplane cruise smoothly to market. Yet the discovery of a fuel pump software problem—just the latest setback in the troubled F-35 program—apparently can’t translate into a price bump for Canada. “The Americans basically have been covering the cost overruns in the system design and development phase themselves,” Michael Slack, the Department of National Defence’s manager for the F-35 project, told Maclean’s.
The notion that Ottawa is in a position to shrug as Washington sweats over F-35 costs is arguably the most unexpected aspect of this controversial military procurement deal. The U.S. government has seen the projected cost of each F-35 it plans to buy soar from $50 million a few years ago to at least $92 million this fall, and well above $100 million by some recent estimates. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been aggressively managing the file lately in a bid to counter negative publicity. By contrast, his Canadian counterpart, Defence Minister Peter MacKay, has been sanguine throughout it all, saying Canada will pay a comparative bargain price of about $70 million per jet.
-
If you went down to the woods
By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
That day, in Huntsville, during the G8 summit, you were in for a big surprise
LUKE SHARRETT/AFP/Getty Images
Of all the excitement that accompanied the arrival of the G8 leaders to the lake-strewn cottage country around Huntsville, Ont., nothing, for romance or intrigue, could match the military men hidden in the wilderness around Deerhurst Resort, the golf destination that hosted the affair. Not even the lingerie, complete with riot shield and rifle, on display at Petticoats, a Main Street store that sells women’s intimates. And no doubt some of the yarns spun around the camouflaged soldiers are true.
-
The secret life of Colonel Russell Williams
By Martin Patriquin, Anne Kingston, Cathy Gulli, Michael Friscolanti with Kate Lunau, Tom Henheffer, Philippe Gohier, John Geddes, Patricia Treble and Michael Barclay - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 1:08 PM - 124 Comments
If police are correct, he was a cold-blooded planner who in hours could transform from commander to monster
In the early 1990s, years before Col. Russell Williams was an accused double murderer, he was a young, eager lieutenant stationed at the Canadian Forces flying school in Portage la Prairie, Man. A rookie instructor in the old CT-134 Musketeers, Williams was an obvious standout, quiet but intense. “He was super,” says Greg McQuaid, a retired major who was chief flight instructor at the time. “I wrote the personnel evaluation reports that got him promoted to captain. He was smart, hard-working and skilled. He could be so focused that sometimes it was like he could look right through you.” -
Champagne wishes
By Steve Maich - Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 119 Comments
He stole $100 million, and lived like a king. Then it all fell apart.
The experts will tell you that most frauds start small—maybe a few hundred bucks pocketed here, a little accounting fudge there—and get gradually bigger over time as the thief warms to the task, and gains confidence. That’s the way it almost always goes.But Paul Champagne was not your typical fraudster. For one thing, Champagne had no particular expertise in finance. He was a computer engineer, brought in to manage maintenance contracts at Canada’s Department of National Defence in 1992. He was a technical authority, who could tell the bureaucrats how to buy, operate and maintain their computer systems more efficiently, and to save the taxpayer money in the process. For most of his time at DND, he wasn’t even an employee, but an outside contractor. And, up until the day he was fired in 2003, most of his colleagues thought he was doing a great job. Even when he was fired, it was for exceeding his authority in approving contracts that were beyond his position. Continue…
-
This land is my land
By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 3:20 PM - 8 Comments
Trying to build a new home for Canada’s elite commandos sparks a war of its own
Frank Meyers lives on Meyers Creek Road. That’s what happens when your family farms the same plot of land for 2½ centuries. They name the street after you. “This is heritage property,” says the 81-year-old, pointing at his freshly plowed fields in Quinte West, Ont. “This is the property that was given to my forefathers when they fought for the British army against the Americans. This land was designated for us.”Today, the Meyers land is designated for something else: a new headquarters for Joint Task Force 2, the Canadian military’s top-secret special operations squad.
-
DND again denies first, discloses later
By John Geddes - Monday, April 27, 2009 at 8:51 AM - 4 Comments
This morning’s interesting Globe and Mail story on a secret military project called Polar Breeze catches my attention for reasons that have nothing to do with shadowy plans for high-tech surveillance in the high Arctic.
The Globe reports that its earlier request for information on the subject was met with a blanket denial from the Department of National Defence. It wasn’t just a matter of the department refusing to disclose details about Polar Breeze: DND told the paper the project didn’t exit.
Continue…
