I repeat: Liberal buffoonery and incompetence is to blame for the ridiculous used submarine purchase for our formerly strong military (or what you might now call the Canadian Armed Forces Penumbra).
I like this passage in this CNews story:
If Canada had begun looking for a new army jeep in September 1939 at the rate it moves today, [Prof. Martin] Shadwick [an expert in military procurement from York University] said it would not have taken delivery of the vehicles before the war ended in May 1945.
“Sadly, it seems in many cases we’ve concluded that the quickest way to speed up procurement in this country is not to buy anything at all,” said Shadwick.
[…] “At a time when our defence dollars are even more tightly rationed, the fact that we take a decade, a decade-a-half to purchase very simple equipment is cause for sheer disbelief, if nothing else.”
OTTAWA (CP) – The ill-fated Chicoutimi and three sister submarines might have been in better shape if Canada’s protracted and politicized procurement process had not left them rotting for years at British docks, a Commons committee heard Thursday.
“We’re all fed up with how long it takes to buy major equipment around here,” Pat O’Brien, chairman of the Commons defence committee, said after witnesses suggested politics contributed to the deterioration of the subs.
“It is ridiculously slow to get military equipment purchased in this country.”
The all-party committee is studying acquisition of the used diesel-electric submarines from Britain after a sailor died as a result of a fire aboard Chicoutimi during her first transatlantic voyage under Canadian command last fall.
Politicization of the procurement process is emerging as the major issue surrounding the $800-million lease-to-purchase plan cabinet first approved in 1995.
MPs have been told the boats were in bad shape when Canada finally bought them in 1998. Witnesses have described leaks, electrical problems and equipment malfunctions – largely, they said, attributable to years of neglect.
In December, former defence minister David Collenette said the subs corroded for three years after the purchase was approved because then-prime minister Jean Chretien considered the idea politically unpalatable. […]
This isn’t a government that takes the defence of our great nation seriously. I seriously question whether they have any interest in defending our nation from anything but conservatives.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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