[bootlegga]

Freakinoldguy wrote:

So the fact that we use one of your AOR's when ours are in refit seems only fitting, but you've still gotta love the left wing on here screaming about how it's Harpers fault, when successive Liberal Governments failed to do anything about this problem and were actually the Government of the day when they decommissioned the Provider which was supposed to be the swing tanker for situations like this.

Will the Conservatives ever be repsonislbe for anything, or will they simply continue saying, "Yeah bu the Liberals"...

Sorry, but it is now as much Harper's fault as it was Martin's/Chretien's. He's been on office for over three years, and tendered a contract more than 2 years ago (Nov.2006 to be exact). He balked when he saw the price tag for replacement ships, which was $100-300 million more than the $2.9 billion he expected. All he had to do was pony up a little of the $24 billion surplus he spent on other stuff since he was elected.

He opted for tax cuts and C-17s, not ships. The fault is his now. If you want ot blame the Liberals, bitch about maritime helos or the subs...

No, this is a clear case of him stalling on defence and how it affects the CF for years to come.

[commanderkai]

bootlegga wrote:

Will the Conservatives ever be repsonislbe for anything, or will they simply continue saying, "Yeah bu the Liberals"...

Sorry, but it is now as much Harper's fault as it was Martin's/Chretien's.

I don't think anybody has said that it's not just the Liberal's fault, however, I believe people, specifically Conservatives, but people in general, are tired of always seeing Harper being solely blamed for this, when the blame is shared by numerous administrations.

Quote:

He opted for tax cuts and C-17s, not ships. The fault is his now. If you want ot blame the Liberals, bitch about maritime helos or the subs...

No, this is a clear case of him stalling on defence and how it affects the CF for years to come.

And so we didn't need new transport aircraft, new helicopters, and other army/airforce equipment? There's a difference between stalling on defense, and then prioritizing on more current needs, specifically with Afghanistan. Yes the navy has been relatively ignored, but I hope in the near future it'll be expanded, however we need manpower for those ships, just as much as the ships themselves, and I believe the Canadian Naval forces are lacking.

[Freakinoldguy]

bootlegga wrote:

Freakinoldguy wrote:

So the fact that we use one of your AOR's when ours are in refit seems only fitting, but you've still gotta love the left wing on here screaming about how it's Harpers fault, when successive Liberal Governments failed to do anything about this problem and were actually the Government of the day when they decommissioned the Provider which was supposed to be the swing tanker for situations like this.

Will the Conservatives ever be repsonislbe for anything, or will they simply continue saying, "Yeah bu the Liberals"...

Sorry, but it is now as much Harper's fault as it was Martin's/Chretien's. He's been on office for over three years, and tendered a contract more than 2 years ago (Nov.2006 to be exact). He balked when he saw the price tag for replacement ships, which was $100-300 million more than the $2.9 billion he expected. All he had to do was pony up a little of the $24 billion surplus he spent on other stuff since he was elected.

He opted for tax cuts and C-17s, not ships. The fault is his now. If you want ot blame the Liberals, bitch about maritime helos or the subs...

No, this is a clear case of him stalling on defence and how it affects the CF for years to come.

Both of them are as guilty as sin and should remain culpable for the detioration of the operational readiness of the Navy. Chretien for scrapping the swing tanker without a replacement and Harper for not finding a viable replacement or replacements for the AOR's, when he cancelled the dream ship program.

The whole concept of Roll on Roll off ships for the Canadian Navy was a pipe dream. There was no way they could ever get that ship to do everything they wanted it to do at the price they wanted to pay, with the small amount of crew they wanted to man it with. So the axing came as no suprise.

Maybe Chretien, with Martin as his Minister of Finance should have used the 30 billion they scammed from the pension funds to buy new AOR's rather than using it to claim a balanced budget. At least that way the contributors would have gotten something out of their investment.


Now that the program's been cancelled it's time to look at off the shelf AOR's to replace the ones we have now, because before you know it, we'll have to replace the DDE's and the Frigates within the next decade or so and the cost of replacing an entire fleet at once, vice one class at a time is unfathomable.

[bootlegga]

commanderkai wrote:

bootlegga wrote:

Will the Conservatives ever be repsonislbe for anything, or will they simply continue saying, "Yeah bu the Liberals"...

Sorry, but it is now as much Harper's fault as it was Martin's/Chretien's.

I don't think anybody has said that it's not just the Liberal's fault, however, I believe people, specifically Conservatives, but people in general, are tired of always seeing Harper being solely blamed for this, when the blame is shared by numerous administrations.

Sure they did...

Freakinoldguy wrote:

...you've still gotta love the left wing on here screaming about how it's Harpers fault, when successive Liberal Governments failed to do anything about this problem and were actually the Government of the day when they decommissioned the Provider which was supposed to be the swing tanker for situations like this.

Here's what I said on page 1;

bootlegga wrote:

No doubt, I'm pissed that the Liberals never lit a fire under this project just as much as I'm upset that Harper hasn't.

commanderkai wrote:

And so we didn't need new transport aircraft, new helicopters, and other army/airforce equipment? There's a difference between stalling on defense, and then prioritizing on more current needs, specifically with Afghanistan. Yes the navy has been relatively ignored, but I hope in the near future it'll be expanded, however we need manpower for those ships, just as much as the ships themselves, and I believe the Canadian Naval forces are lacking.

Sure we needed them, we just didn't need to take the most expensive route for all of that. We could have leased heavy transport for $50 million a year for 20 years (from Skylink in Toronto no less). Instead we immediately shelled out $3.4 billion for four planes. Same goes for helos, we could have bought the Ch-47Ds in 2006 (that we just bought for $250 million - give or take), but instead we set aside $3 billion for new CH-47Fs, which won't be delivered for another 3-4 years.

Even if you can justify spending on that money on those planes, then why not spend $3.5 million on three JSS last summer (instead of the $2.9 billion Harper budgeted)? If we've got billions to hand to Boeing for helos and transport planes, we should have the extra few hundred million to build the ships that maintain our blue water navy.

Without them, our navy goes from a world class fleet to a coastal patrol force, dependent on allies for supplies and fuel. I don't foresee a day when the US or UK would hold them back, but we should be able to provide sometinhg that basic ourselves.

Are we short personnel for the navy? Sure, but we're short across all three services, so that's no excuse to cancel/postpone the JSS indefinitely, or even worse, think about buying ships from some other country. If we're going to use that excuse, what's next? No new fighters? No new destroyers? No new SAR planes? No, that argument is a cop out plain and simple.

[bootlegga]

Freakinoldguy wrote:

Both of them are as guilty as sin and should remain culpable for the detioration of the operational readiness of the Navy. Chretien for scrapping the swing tanker without a replacement and Harper for not finding a viable replacement or replacements for the AOR's, when he cancelled the dream ship program.

The whole concept of Roll on Roll off ships for the Canadian Navy was a pipe dream. There was no way they could ever get that ship to do everything they wanted it to do at the price they wanted to pay, with the small amount of crew they wanted to man it with. So the axing came as no suprise.

Maybe Chretien, with Martin as his Minister of Finance should have used the 30 billion they scammed from the pension funds to buy new AOR's rather than using it to claim a balanced budget. At least that way the contributors would have gotten something out of their investment.

Now that the program's been cancelled it's time to look at off the shelf AOR's to replace the ones we have now, because before you know it, we'll have to replace the DDE's and the Frigates within the next decade or so and the cost of replacing an entire fleet at once, vice one class at a time is unfathomable.

Here's what I said on page 1;

bootlegga wrote:

No doubt, I'm pissed that the Liberals never lit a fire under this project just as much as I'm upset that Harper hasn't.

The thing people here don't like to admit (from either side of the political spectrum) is that the CF has been ignored and screwed over by all of our governments for the past 30 years, Harper included. Sure he's bought some equipment, but he's never really gone overboard. Hell, even Trudeau bought tanks, fighters, frigates and other big ticket items while in power.

And I think Canada did get something out of the Liberal's balanced budget, namely billions of dollars paid off the national debt. I don't know about you, but I find it increibly irksome that about 15-20 cents of every dollar the government spends goes to INTEREST on our debt. It used to be over 30 cents. That's just sickening IMHO.

[uwish]

Well said Boot;

I tend to agree everyone talks the talk but runs scare when push comes to shove.

Either shit or get off the pot, if your not going to do anything then don't promise to.

I am tired of governments playing games at the expense of the CF!

[saturn_656]

SigPig wrote:

llama66 wrote:

We won't even be able to patrol all our coast! Harper has given some nice toys to the Army, how about some toys for the Navy and Air force?

The Air Force has a bunch of new toys. Modernized CF-18s, Chinooks, UAVs, Hercs, and C-17s. The AF has got more equipment if you go by dollar value then the Army has.

The Navy is the one that has gotten the shaft in this whole thing. Cancelled supply ships, no plans for destroyers, delayed helicopters, shabby subs and not enough people to man the ships we have.

Most of the Air Force's new equipment has been toys to support the Army (UAV's Chinooks, Hercs, C-17), they were sold to the public as purchases to support our mission in Afghanistan.

The Fighter force (the backbone of any air force IMO) is wasting away and has been for decades. Where are our AWACS? CP-140 replacement?

The Navy has been getting the shaft, I will not disagree there. We are set to lose our blue water capability in the near future. DDH's and AOR's are both very obsolete.

[Freakinoldguy]

saturn_656 wrote:

SigPig wrote:

llama66 wrote:

We won't even be able to patrol all our coast! Harper has given some nice toys to the Army, how about some toys for the Navy and Air force?

The Air Force has a bunch of new toys. Modernized CF-18s, Chinooks, UAVs, Hercs, and C-17s. The AF has got more equipment if you go by dollar value then the Army has.

The Navy is the one that has gotten the shaft in this whole thing. Cancelled supply ships, no plans for destroyers, delayed helicopters, shabby subs and not enough people to man the ships we have.

Most of the Air Force's new equipment has been toys to support the Army (UAV's Chinooks, Hercs, C-17), they were sold to the public as purchases to support our mission in Afghanistan.

The Fighter force (the backbone of any air force IMO) is wasting away and has been for decades. Where are our AWACS? CP-140 replacement?

The Navy has been getting the shaft, I will not disagree there. We are set to lose our blue water capability in the near future. DDH's and AOR's are both very obsolete.

I sometimes wonder if successive Governments have been carrying a grudge against the Navy for decades. Since the inception of integration, the Navy Admirals have been outspoken about just about everything, integration included, which hasn't endeared them to the Governments in power. Maybe these Governments are still pissed about the Cuban Missle Crisis fiasco or the fact may be that Ottawa isn't a blue water seaport, so who cares about a Navy.

In the last decade and a half we have only seen Airforce and Army CDS'(one Admiral who was acting and not even offically given the job). I also wonder how much of a bearing this has on procurement, since from appearances the top dog seems to get the biggest bone from the Government for his own service.

If by some chance this is the case, the Navy had better be prepared to live with what they've got because any procurement money will be going elsewhere.

[commanderkai]

bootlegga wrote:

Here's what I said on page 1;

bootlegga wrote:

No doubt, I'm pissed that the Liberals never lit a fire under this project just as much as I'm upset that Harper hasn't.

I believe you're under the mistaken impression that I was referring to you. Yes, I understand that military procurement is a bureaucratic mess, and don't pretend I've just blamed the Liberals or just Harper. This mess has been in the making since Trudeau.

[2Cdo]

commanderkai wrote:

bootlegga wrote:

Here's what I said on page 1;

bootlegga wrote:

No doubt, I'm pissed that the Liberals never lit a fire under this project just as much as I'm upset that Harper hasn't.

I believe you're under the mistaken impression that I was referring to you. Yes, I understand that military procurement is a bureaucratic mess, and don't pretend I've just blamed the Liberals or just Harper. This mess has been in the making since Trudeau.

To be honest Canadian governments paying little to no attention to the military has been happening since we became a nation!

[bootlegga]

I think we need another batch of leaders like St. Laurent, Pearson and even Diefenbaker. They all went through WW2 and knew you couldn't skimp on the CF. The leaders we've had since them simply don't get that...

[Choban]

Good point Oldguy, the whole lax in defense spending started LOOOONG before Harper ever took office, The army spending is due to a war effort on foreign soil (with no navy supporting the enemy). So far I'm almost impressed with Harper's defense spending, but the Navy could definatly use a boost in equipment, our navy turns 100 years old next year and it looks it's age.

[saturn_656]

2Cdo wrote:

To be honest Canadian governments paying little to no attention to the military has been happening since we became a nation!

One of these days, it will bite us in the ass.

When it does let's just hope we are still around and have learnt something.