DND leaves Canadian firms in cold by opting to rebuild tanks in Europe

The last group that should be weighing in with an opinion in this, is the liberals, regardless of the fact that they are the opposition party. The first thing that should be looked at is if there are there even companies here in Canada setup and ready to upgrade and outfit these tanks to get them deployed before the 2011 deadline.

I wonder how much work it would take to retool those Chrysler plants the government has a lien on?

As I heard it, a fair bit of the work these tanks need can only be done by the original manufacturer or supplier.

Do we have a company qualified to do all the work on the Leopard 2 and its equipment?

Time to rebuild our own domestic industries. Invest in ourselves rather than rely on foreign suppliers.

t.

I agree that we should be doing this work in Canada, However;

1. Do we have the technicians in this country with sufficient experience to be able to do the best job?

2. Do we have a company in Canada that has the capability and track record that would enable them to do the job properly?

I think you will find the answer to these questions as a NO and the reason being is that when we killed the Avro Aero we destroyed the defense industry in this country. We cant even find a shipyard that is capable enough to build th eNavy new ships.

As sad as it seems, we have done this to ourselves and we have to find a way out of it!!

We don't have the industrial capacity for it, thats why 40 of the tanks are in a warehouse in Montreal.

Oh come on, we have plenty of industrial capacity, we just have zero to military production because of a few douchebag Prime Ministers thought importing military equipment during the Cold War was a brilliant idea.

I think Canada is dragged down by it's population always. You look at our country and we have so much resources to be a rich country but we sell them off to just get by. You got larger populated countries that doesn't even got a quarter of the resources Canada does and makes more money than we do.

We only got so many jobs and so little of a population to fill it. The more citizens we have, the more tax the governments get and the more citizens we have the more jobs the country needs to create and the more jobs the country creates the better the economy goes.

That is my personal opinion on why we are always dragged down. It's not really fair that a country with a huge landmass, such high natural resources and a large supply of spring water with good education and good workers can't even afford to equipe there limited soldiers with the equipment they need. Airforce and Navy are rusting up and the Army just got a lot of upgrades over the years and is still no where near as modern enough to compete with other countries.

You got countries with shit economies that has been like that for awhile that has a more modern military than Canada.

Are you freaking kidding me!!! Hey governement stop cheaping out and give jobs to our citizen here!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know a guy here in Calgary that does radio installs on Tanks. I don't the details but he works for general dynamics.

General Dynamics produces the M1 MBT.

I doubt any major portion of the M1 production process occurs in Canada.

If there's a company that can do this, they should be allowed to bid. I wonder if it's a case of closing a factory down like the Navistar truck deal, or there being no company actually capable of doing the work.