DEAR BOB, A FEW THOUGHTS ON "APPROPRIATIONS"

The Honourable Robert Nicholson
Minister of National Defence
National Defence Headquarters
Maj.General George R. Pearkes Building
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0K2

Dear Bob,

Time once again to give you the benefit of more uncalled for advice. Honestly, Bob, it’s worth every penny you’re paying for it.

This whole fighter jet business is coming to a boil again; it seems as if it’s getting harder and harder to make it go away. The whole “lets have a panel review the retched business” idea was good for a while, but it’s beginning to wear thin. Some less then charitable types, and were talking NDP here Bob, are even beginning to say that the whole thing was a scam just to ensure that by the time the study was done there wouldn’t be any other candidates besides the F-35 available.

Its time to beg, borrow or steal a new idea, of course “steal” is such an unfortunate term. I personally prefer “appropriation”.

 

I probably don’t need to tell you this Bob, but when appropriating someone else's idea it’s best to steal from some one smarter then ones self. In this case it’s Doug Allen at Best Fighter for Canada. It really is a great site and it could be a real advantage to someone in your position, surrounded by all sorts of conflicting, and conflicted, advice ( lets not even think about substituting the word ‘weasels’ here) to have a sane outside source of information.

The basic idea here is to split the fighter buy into two parts. The truth is, those F-35’s are going to cost an arm and a leg. To make things worse, at this point you have to buy them early on in the production run when both cost and risk are highest. You need an out, one that you can sell politically, so here’s the pitch.

Every thirty years or so Canada has to buy a new fleet of fighters. Every thirty years or so some poor government gets stuck with telling the taxpayers how much more it’s going to cost them to buy fewer fighters then the last time. The solution is to split the buy and purchase half the fighters every fifteen or so years. That way the average age of your fighters is never too high, and the numbers you have to take to the public don’t hurt as much. 

OK, let’s be honest here, it still hurts, but after some of the figures people are throwing around (who really believes anyone knows how much “x” number of fighters will cost over 45+ years) anything will sound better.

In this case what you need to do is announce that after reviewing the results of your review, you have decided to buy 40 Super Hornets. At the same time retire around 37 of your highest time current Hornet fleet. You can point out to people that gives you a total of 80 fighters in service, more then the current number, proving once again that Conservatives care more about Defence then anyone else.

At the same time you announce that somewhere down the road, in ten or fifteen years, when the F-35 has proven itself, and at its cheapest production point, you will buy roughly (you can hedge here, it’s not as if  you will be answering questions as Minister of National Defence in fifteen years) 40 F-35’s to upgrade the fighter fleet.

This really is a workable idea Bob. It’s true that Doug Allen suggested buying Gripens, which is a better idea, but its more complicated then buying Super Hornets which means that Super Hornets will be an easier idea to sell to the public, if only because it seems simpler.

To put it in Doug Allen’s words;

“Splitting a fighter buy would, at the very least, give the appearance of a compromise.  It would also have the effect of reducing the "sticker shock".  A "$5 billion" fighter program sounds more reasonable than a $9 billion one...  Even if it is for half the number of jets”.

Best of all, with a staggered buy, there's a very good chance your political party will have its day to criticize a future government on their fighter purchase.

Now I know that straight ahead chaps like you and I don’t go in for that sort of cynical thinking Bob, but you know, it just might work. And besides, Flaherty is going to love this one. Talk about balancing the budget and paying the deficit! Just try to hold on to some of the money not being spent on fighters for other Defence projects, after all those WW1 commemoration events are going to cost a bundle.

Remember Bob, we’re all pulling for you.

J.G.Murray

THE GHOSTS OF PROMISES PAST

The Honourable Robert Nicholson, Minister of National Defence
National Defence Headquarters
Major-General George R. Pearkes Building
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0K2

 Dear Bob,

Thank you for your October 21^st reply to my letter of September 7th. I was recommending that you move immediately to make an interim buy of Dash-8’s to relieve the situation, both operationally and politically, that you face with the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue Aircraft Replacement (FWSAR) project. I appreciate that by DND standards this is a lighting fast response and my compliments to your staff, or whoever it was who actually answered my note.

I apologize Bob if this comes across as sarcasm; I really am impressed that someone did get back to me in less then a geological time frame. It is more then can be said for your opposite numbers in the other parties. Mind you, I don’t suppose that they have the staff resources you do and they probably worry that anything written over their names may come back to haunt them. So, considering what ‘you’ wrote, kudos for nerve too.

'You’ pointed out in your reply that ,” The FWSAR project is moving forward and, as I am sure you are aware, a draft version of the request for proposals was released on 30 August 2013. After reviewing comments from potential contenders for the FWSAR project, a final request for proposals will be released in early 2014. Thus, Canada's legacy SAR fleets will be replaced in the near future and Canada's excellent SAR service will continue for years to come.”

Good Lord Bob, talk about going out on a limb, “replaced in the near future”! This is exactly the kind of thing you can not have going out over your name. Some, less knowing, individuals might take “near future” to imply “sometime in this decade”, and you and I both know what a stretch that is. 

I did try to explain the whole rear ramp business, “When considering the purchase of Dash-8s' it is necessary to deal with the whole rear aircraft ramp issue. Although widely used for search and rescue or maritime patrol in other countries the Dash-8 has not been considered for the purpose in Canada because it lacks a rear opening cargo door.

 When the procurement program first ran into trouble the DND commissioned a report on the issue written by the National Research Council. In that report the NRC mandated a rear opening cargo door. They believed that it was a safety issue for the rescue techs who had to parachute into crash sites. As well, it was considered to be easier to maneuver stretchers into an aircraft with a large rear opening door.

 In truth, the NRC report was based on existing aircraft with no special modifications for side exits by parachutists. No attempt was ever made to examine the air operable doors provided by Field Aviation, and other aircraft modification specialist companies, to most operators of Dash-8 search and rescue aircraft.”

I honestly think someone must have missed that last paragraph because ‘you’ replied “I agree with the recommendation for a rear ramp. The airflow outside the side door of a flying aircraft is quite different for a parachutist compared to that off a rear ramp. It is for this reason that the safety of the brave SAR technicians, who risk their own lives in very hazardous conditions, should not be compromised.”

Now we have multiple problems. First, it might be interpreted by some less then charitable (cough, NDP, cough, cough) individuals that you are suggesting that foreigners are making a mistake by buying Canadian products. If you are saying that all those other countries are making a mistake buying them, along with their Canadian manufactured and installed modifications, for Search and Rescue, well you can see how it looks Bob.

Plus there is this whole business of our “brave SAR technicians”. I’m not sure where that came from, who was saying they aren’t brave, but for the sake of argument, are you saying that if they weren’t brave they wouldn’t be deserving of a safe work environment? You can see how this might play out when twisted by evil doers. And by evil doers, of course we mean Liberals.

I did appreciate ‘your’ final thought;” I trust that this information is helpful, and thank you for your interest in the search and rescue capability for the Canadian Armed Forces.” but I think you mistake my interest. As focused as I am sure we all are on “the search and rescue capability for the Canadian Armed Forces” it would be a mistake not to recognize that my main concern, like that of many Canadians, is on the success of your department as a whole.

I am sure that some days it must seem like an uphill battle, but don’t give up the good fight Bob. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, the “suits’ around you have there own agendas and they may not always be yours. And for heavens sakes, watch out for what they’re putting out in your name, this stuff can really come back to haunt you.

Have a happy, and safe, Halloween and remember, we’re all pulling for you.

J.G. Murray

The Honourable Robert Nicholson, Minister of National Defence

 

Our newly minted Minister of National Defence is undoubtedly feeling a little shell shock at this point. The briefings from his officials can look painfully negative and the potential for disaster must seem to be lurking around every corner. This is the first in an occasional series of letters to the Minister in which we will attempt to lighten his load with our incisive, and no doubt much appreciated, advice.

The Honourable Robert Nicholson, Minister of National Defence

National Defence Headquarters

Major-General George R. Pearkes Building

Ottawa, Ontario

K1A 0K2

Dear Bob,

I am sure that one of the things you are learning about your new appointment is that in the Defence portfolio it never rains but it pours. Ironically this describes both the weather and your naval situation on the West coast.

A weekend collision involving HMCS Algonquin and HMCS Protecteur will, as any number of  media outlets are so fond of pointing out, "quite seriously compromise" the country's naval readiness on the West Coast, especially in light of continuing repairs to HMCS Winnipeg, which was rammed by an American fishing trawler in a separate accident last spring.

Some of the memos you are seeing are even suggesting that the benefits of returning the 40-year-old destroyer to service may not outweigh the cost of retiring the ship. However this would leave you with no destroyer, with its area defence anti-aircraft weaponry and command and control capabilities in the Pacific. This in turn leaves you with the politically sensitive option of moving one of your remaining two destroyers from Halifax to Esquimalt. Of course by politically sensitive I mean you would be able to hear the screaming of local politicians in Halifax all the way from Ottawa.

I am afraid that this is only the beginning of your problems. Canada, as you are no doubt being tutored by your officials, traditionally builds warships in big batches every twenty to thirty years. When the last batch that was built finally wears out another new, big and expensive batch is built, and then everyone takes a deep breath and hopes the whole complicated mess doesn’t come around again while they are in office.

To be fair, the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) you inherited, although it’s technically a Public Works and Government Services Canada program, was, at least partly, designed to change all this. Somebody realized that re-inventing the wheel every couple of decades was not the most efficient use of resources. Given that the Navy needs thirty or fourty ships and that they last thirty or fourty years it isn’t hard to figure out that building around one ship a year would be just about right.

The nice thing about this is that there are more “announceables” for everybody, and the costs don’t sound as bad when you split them up by ship rather then having to talk about program costs. It all sounds good, but as you are discovering, you still have the problem of all those ships that were built twenty and fourty years ago (and even  longer in some cases) that are all wearing out at once. If you replace them one a year for the next twenty years you are going to have some lovely antiques in service, assuming of course that they are still seaworthy, by the time the last one is replaced.

There is a way around this dilemma. You can buy or lease, used ships. Now I know what your thinking, “What about those fricking submarines! The press will eat me alive if I buy more used lemons”. Well first off, the subs aren’t really lemons, just expensive and tricky, but I admit you’ll never get your critics to admit that. You’ll also hear from the “it must be built in Canada” brigade, which includes some of your cabinet colleagues.

One option in this situation is to play the “only the best for our boys (and girls) in uniform” card. Another is to point out that buying a cheap ship or two now will leave some money left over for somebody else's pet project in the future.

Most important, from your point of view, you’ll buy time to get a rational ship building program in place. Right now the government is being forced to decide between icebreakers and support ships, it’s a lose-lose. But if you can buy or lease a few used, or in the case of Karel Doorman hardly used at all, support ships you break the log-jam and you get to be the hero.

Remember Bob, we’re all pulling for you.

Canadian Defence Matters