Medium Support Vehicle Systems arrive in Petawawa

Nice looking truck. Kind of hope they get they get the up-armoured version for the SMP contract too. Too bad the company took the contract then laid off all its Canadian workers though, shitty business practise IMHO.

Well, their claim was that their plant up here wasn't tooled to produce it...

Yeah they actually said it was too big to fit on the production line but the local politicians and union claim otherwise. I mean if they said it wasn't cost effective or something I would have to accept it but either it fits in the shop or it doesn't and a simple tape-measure would sort that out. If it doesn't fit, there's no paid work that can be done so why lie about it?

Also since non-Canadian bidders are required to invest the equivalent $ in Canada over a period of years, why couldn't the gov leverage that into keeping the plant open?

We had this over before.. There was no logic to converting an assembly line just to produce a limited run item.

Fair enough then. How about the second suggestion, keeping the existing production line open until the Canadian investment requirements of the contract are fulfilled? Especially since they had no problem taking millions in federal and provincial taxpayer hand-outs over the years to stay open and then fucked off anyways.

While I didn't like the decision to make them in Texas, for the size of the contract, I understand it. I just would have preferred Canadian workers (even CAsW members) getting work during the recession instead of Texans, especailly with their stupid 'Buy American' policy.

I think this comes down to Canada not having the vision to be a big player again. Many countries that are far smaller make their own kit and the only reason why we don't is because we don't value self sufficiency enough.
I think all governments are more worried about getting elected and any hint of mistake will be exploded into a crippling scandal. Once again, "small town cheap" rings true.

I don't know if it the lack of vision or more of the Wal-Mart mentality setting in.

It looks like the Canadian government is becoming like most people, opting for the cheapest option, instead of the best one. We could have built them here, but it would have cost more (and taken longer). Instead, we chose the easier path. It looks like that's what will happen with the JSS too. Harper promised them, but doesn't want to pay the $3 billion and change they'll cost, so they are considering building them elsewhere. Look at Viking Air. They have plans to build brand new Buffaloes and yet we're looking at planes made in Europe.

We've bought 'built in Canada' before and had mixed results.

Good: Canadair airframes (CF-86s and CF-104s) were among the best built anywhere
Bad: Iltis jeeps

I won't pretend to know the answer, but sometimes I think the CF and the government is its own worst enemy in this matter. The CF always wants lots of the best plane/ship/tank in the world and the government always tries to find the cheapest option. Somehow they need to find a middle ground.

Do we really need to make our own unique kit though? Its more expensive and makes our forces less integrated. I'd be happy buying off-the-shelf vehicles IF they fit our requirements (ie winter conditions, etc) and if they can be made from facilities already here in Canada, bonus, Otherwise, pony up the dough for Canadian offsets. Most of those countries of similar size/wealth that make their own kit are export-dependent and its a crowded market to get into. LAV III is a success story we should look to copy.

BC government too with it's ferries.

Look at all the examples where we tried to make something for ourselves and it's always been used by the other parties as a political bludgeon. I think that shows Canadian politicos and voters are narrow minded and have a 3 year attention span.

There was nothing wrong with the iltis. It was a small, light, overly complex jeep that fit into our NATO compatable framework. It's not armored but neither are the powerwaggons or g-wagons. I think it was just the wrong horse for the course.

JSF aint so great though, it doesn't supercruise, doesn't have Thrust Vectoring, is slower than a CF-18, I don't see the point for that price.

With this gov't the "problem" if one even considers it a problem, its that whle we're getting really good kit, its a lot of rush-order, Immediate Operational Requirement, no-bid, foreign made kit that shuts Canadian industry out. And so far not one penny in promised (and required) Candian industial offsets has been spent or even planned by the winning contractors.

Ya but instead of paying $29k per vehicle to import them from VW in Germany we paid $82k to have Bombardier make them here under license. The Iltis is one of those things the troops either love or hate. Fun runabout, but of limited tactical use, at least in modern conflicts. Especially with those skinny little bicycle tires.

It has to be rush orders because all our gear was NATO green and meant for the Fulda Gap. We never envisioned protracted fight anywhere else.

(If this can possibly be constructive, let's leave blame out as much as we can.. Beating up each other for buying the wrong kit is part of the problem)

yeah, I just meant to contrast that with the previous government, where military procurement was really on the cheap and mostly done for regional economic benefit than for operational requirements.