Putting Canadian Defence Procurement on a War Footing
Ottawa Conference Calls for Increasing Production of War Materiel
A Conference was held at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa on Tuesday, October 25, entitled "Annual Defence Procurement Conference: Putting Canadian Defence Procurement on a War Footing." The conference was hosted by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, a think-tank closely aligned with the Canadian Forces and the defence industry.
Sponsors included the Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) program of the Department of National Defence (DND), Lockheed Martin Canada, General Dynamics Canada, Irving Shipbuilding Inc., Chantier Davie, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ottawa and Innovation Norway, ATCO Frontec, BAE Systems, The Boeing Company, Bombardier, Babcock Canada, and General Atomics - Aeronautics Systems Inc. and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. The Department of National Defence provided $50,000 to finance the conference.
Top defence officials, including Chief of the Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre and DND Assistant Deputy Minister (Materiel) Troy Crosby, were listed as the key speakers at the event. In the week leading to the conference, Eyre reportedly pushed for companies to switch to what he is calling a "war footing" so weapons production can be ramped up both for Ukraine and to replenish Canadian military stocks.
According to an Ottawa Citizen article, Eyre, unscrupulously acting as a spokesperson for arms merchants and for the warmongering policy of the U.S. and NATO, argues that the war between Ukraine and Russia should be the catalyst for a major shift in defence industrial capacity. "Given the deteriorating world situation, we need the defence industry to go into a wartime footing and increase their production lines to be able to support the requirements that are out there, whether it's ammunition, artillery, rockets you name it. There's a huge demand out there." Eyre is also quoted as saying that China is "at war with western nations, including Canada."
The aim of the conference was to highlight the need for the Liberal government to buy more weapons for both Ukraine and the Canadian military. The Ottawa Citizen article also points out that the Liberal government has made no "announcement" that firms need to go onto a war footing or for Canada's military procurement process to change to an urgent acquisition process such as that used during the Afghan War.
The political and economic elite which dominates Parliament likes to pretend that somehow the government is still in charge, at least to some extent, and is not totally under the command of and serving the warmongering policies of the U.S. and NATO. Conferences such as this, exhibitions of weapons such as CANSEC, and the fact that Canada firmly follows NATO policy on Russia and is stepping up its role as a frontman for U.S. and foreign interference and aggression in Haiti and Venezuela amply shows how this pro-war government is acting against the interests of the Canadian as well as the world's people, and that the need to oppose it and to actively fight for an anti-war government must be taken up without delay.
Note
1.
For your information, below is the program of the "Annual Defence
Procurement Conference:
Putting Canadian Defence Procurement
on a War Footing"
09:05 - 09:35 -- Defence Policy: An Overview
- Stefanie Beck, Associate Deputy Minister of Defence
09:40 - 10:40 -- Assessing the Socio-Economic
Considerations in Defence Procurement
-
Stephanie Batstone, NyRad
- Jody Langelier, Nassituq
-
Sean Willy, Des Nedhe Group
- Marcel Poulin, Chantier Davie
Moderator:
Sarah Goldfeder, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
11:00 -12:00 -- Industrial Capacity, Coordination, and Resiliency
- Dr. Cynthia Cook, Center for International and
Strategic Studies
- Giles Ahern, UK Ministry of Defence
-
MGen Odd-Harald Hagen, Royal Norwegian Army
- Matthew
Zolnowski, US Department of Defence
Moderator: Dr. James
Fergusson, University of Manitoba and Canadian Global Affairs Institute
12:30 - 13:15 -- Canadian Defence Procurement: A
View from the Inside
- Troy Crosby,
Department of National Defence
- Simon Page, Public Services
and Procurement Canada
- Demetrios Xenos, Innovation, Science,
and Economic Development Canada
Moderator: Dr. David Perry,
Canadian Global Affairs Institute
13:30 - 15:00 -- Implementing NORAD
Modernization: Collaboration and Prioritization
-
BGen Chris McKenna, Canadian Armed Forces
- BGen Patrice
Sabourin, Canadian Armed Forces
- Cheri Crosby, Department of
National Defence
- Dr. Martin Tomkin, Department of National
Defence
Moderator: Dr. Andrea Charron, University of Manitoba
and Canadian Global Affairs Institute
15:30 - 16:00 -- Procuring for the Alliance: The Defense Security Cooperation Agency
- James Hursch, Defense Security Cooperation Agency
16:05 - 17:05 – Overcoming Workforce Issues
- Jeff Tasseron, CAE
- Bill Ferreira,
BuildForce
- Christine Clarkson, Thales
Moderator:
Kathleen Monk, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
17:10 - 17:40 -- The Future of the CAF's Force Development
- General Wayne Eyre, Canadian Armed Forces
Moderator:
LGen (ret'd) D. Michael Day, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 10 - October 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2022/Articles/M520109.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca