They are needed more than ever. Today the Americans made their announcement on the security perimeter for North America and we do not have anyone flying over the north. It is absolutely shameful.
Increasingly we are failing to pull our weight in Norad. As noted, the air force is reducing the size of its CF-18 fighter force by one-third. This will necessitate increased reliance on American aircraft to protect Canadian air space.
The government today got a standing ovation from members in the House after saying “We are going to be Canadian first, we are independent”, but it has reduced our force by one-third and now we have to rely on American aircraft. I have no problem with that because the Americans have a big force, but we should be working with them. When they make an announcement like the major one they did today, I would like to see our minister standing next to their minister and our Prime Minister standing next to their president.
I found it interesting that just a few weeks ago when the Prime Minister was in Africa, the prime minister of England was in the United States dealing with the war, dealing with the serious issues. Our Prime Minister was trying to build a legacy in Africa with a different story in every country.
We are increasingly failing to pull our weight in Norad, as I said. As noted, the air force is reducing the size of its CF-18 fighter force by one-third and this will necessitate increased reliance on American aircraft. We already know that U.S. aircraft played that role in many parts of Canada on September 11.
Our navy has no presence in Canada's third ocean, the Arctic. Our sovereignty claims there, which are not recognized by the United States, are largely unenforced. The continual delays in offering political support to the United States on national missile defence mean that the Americans are moving ahead without Canada in this area. This imperils the future of Norad which is central to monitoring Canadian sovereignty and which is funded by the United States to the tune of 90%.
All these threats to Canadian sovereignty and security will only become more serious in the coming years due to the shortfalls which presently exist in the equipment and operations budgets of the Department of National Defence. Increasingly the armed forces will be unable to maintain even present levels of capability. The result will inevitably be growing dependence on the United States and almost no credibility or influence abroad on security matters. This scenario is the greatest threat to sovereignty.
It is imperative that the government act soon. There is simply too much at stake for the government to continue to sit on its hands.
The following is an excerpt from Esprit de Corps magazine of April 17, 2002, volume 9. It is entitled “What can our forces do?”. It states:
Our navy provides the main Canadian element committed to the war on terrorism. With upgraded tribal class destroyers, state of the art city class frigates and the ability to operate seamlessly with the United States navy, it has been dispatched to support the U.S. led coalition flotilla. The major weakness of our task force is the fleet of aging Sea King helicopters, which require 40 hours of maintenance per hour of flying time.
Forty hours of service for every hour. We can picture a couple of guys hanging off the back with wrenches in their hands.
The old Sea King has reduced endurance and payload capacity in hot weather.
It cannot be used in a lot of areas.
The six Canadians ships are equipped with first rate anti-aircraft, anti-ship and submarine weapons as well as anti-missile defences. Unfortunately they have no long range ship to shore weapons and no strike aircraft other than Sea Kings designed specifically to hunt and attack submarines. The poor state of these shipborne helicopters preclude them from being used even in a ship to shore helicopter assault role.
Land-locked Afghanistan has no air force left and no navy. Given that during the height of the gulf war in 1991, Iraq failed to mount a single successful sortie against the U.S. coalition fleet, Canada's naval task force's limited role would therefore be to defend against the unlikely threat of an air or seaborne attack. However, the command and control flag ship, HMCS Iroquois, support ship HMCS Preserver, and four frigates will be standing off at a distance to provide a measure of symbolic support to our U.S. allies.Since the Canadian navy is fully interoperable with the U.S. navy, U.S. warships could be theoretically assigned under the command of the Canadian flotilla as was done during the gulf war.
Search and rescue will be a possible task for shipborne helicopters in the event that a U.S. strike aircraft or helicopter crashes into the sea.
Another possible mission scenario would be protection of supertankers and other merchant ships if the current conflict expands beyond the Arabian Sea.
Keeping this many Canadian ships on station will stretch the navy to its limit. With only four destroyers and one permanently docked, to sustain one in the Arabian Sea, one should be getting ready, one returning, and one deployed. Of the navy's 12 frigates, seven are on reduced readiness. To sustain three or four frigates will require full activation of the entire fleet. Given that the navy is short some 400 technically skilled sailors, this will be very difficult. The navy has two supply ships, so the normal minimum of a two to one deployment ratio is impossible. The extra time required on station will be extremely hard on the crews. In addition, either our west or east coast fleets will be without any support ship at all.
Canada's air force has a lesser role to play as it has less capability. The first problem is deployment; Canada sold off its Boeing 707 air refuelers in 1997, but has five C130 Hercules aircraft configured as tankers. But “Hercs” carry only half the fuel that an Airbus can, and can't fly fast enough or high enough for CF-18s to refuel the required four times during ocean crossings.Canada can no longer rely on the USAF air-to-air refuelers because they've all been earmarked to support U.S. forces. Canada is the only NATO nation without a large tanker aircraft.
It is the only NATO nation. That is shameful.
CF-18 fighter pilots fly a plane that has carrier landing capability, but the pilots do not.
Just read that.
The avionics on board are not interoperable with U.S. strike aircraft.
Yet the Americans are our allies, the people we work with. What great planning.
The lack of deployment capability, interoperability, and carrier landing ability is probably why the U.S. did not specifically request them. The Aurora surveillance aircraft are almost identical to the USN P3 Orion, the type of aircraft (albeit with different avionics) that was rammed by a Chinese fighter jet several months ago. Their primary role is patrolling our coastlines. They will most likely perform the same role in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea.
The C130 Hercules tactical transport planes will likely be used as part of the psychological operations by dropping food and other humanitarian aid to the Afghani refugees who previously fled the Taliban regime, and the now swelling ranks of refugees fleeing U.S. air strikes.
The Airbus strategic transporter will likely deliver aid to hard standing airfields once these are available.
The secretive commando unit titled Joint Task Force 2, or JTF2 in the vernacular, is a well-trained and equipped counterterrorist unit. It is capable of carrying out some of the covert tasks required such as reconnaissance or directing aircraft strikes. The one limitation is the unit's size. At approximately 250 men, perhaps a maximum of 64 could be sustained beyond the six month commitment. The army however will probably be unable to make a more meaningful contribution.
At present the army has a 1,500 man battle group deployed to Bosnia based on units from 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (5 CMBG). A brigade normally has strength of approximately 5,000. Due to the lack of recruits and continued downsizing, today's brigades consist of little more than 3,000. This means that more than half of the entire brigades combat assets must be cannibalized and augmented by reservists to form one powerful combat ready battle group.
Canada has only three brigades, with one deployed, one just returned from an overseas operation and one training. A powerful battle group based on 1 CMBG could theoretically be sent to the region now, or it could be used to replace American units in Bosnia. This would only be a knee-jerk solution, as in six months' time there would be no units to replace those deployed. Canada's army today can only sustain one deployed fighting force indefinitely.
Another option would be to use one or all three of the army's “light” battalions. That is, those troops who fight on foot without the benefit of armoured vehicles such as the LAV III, Coyote or Leopard C2 tank. Tactical deployment could be by air assault using the militarized Bell 412 Helicopter dubbed the Griffon.
This would be problematic. Even in terms of the initial deployment of any assets in theater, Canada would either need to ask for US help (unlikely given their current priority is moving their own units), or rent civilian transport aircraft to deploy quickly. The other alternative would be to move by rented ships (like the GTS Katie), as our Navy has no sea lift capability.
Secondly, the Griffon has less capability than the aircraft it replaced, the venerable “Twin Huey” (which were sold, and subsequently found their way to the Colombian military), and cannot carry the “light” 105 MM artillery howitzers that are assigned to light infantry battalions. In order to save money, the battalion's integral mortar platoon (with eight 81mm medium mortars) which could be lifted easily by helicopter, has been cut from the order of battle. This severely retards the unit's fire power. The Army's seven Chinook CH 147 medium lift helicopters would have had the range and payload capacity to make up for the Griffon's shortcomings, but all were sold to the Dutch in the early nineties.
The one unit that could have been used on short notice has been gone for many years. The Canadian Airborne Regiment was disbanded on orders of the Liberal government in 1995.
People forget sometimes that we had a very good airborne regiment that was abolished by the government in 1995.
I wonder if we would like to tell the country's military families about the priorities of the government. The new Challenger jets, the luxury planes, twin flying Taj Mahals so the fat cat cabinet can fly faster, higher and farther.
We have retired military pilots who flew the Sea Kings 40 years ago. Today those very helicopters are being flown by those same pilots' children.