Army Guy

Everything is accounted for, these additional costs are accounted for in the O&M budget within DND's annual budget. the augument is not if we should account for it, but rather it is accounted for twice, once during the orginal contract as required by the AG and once by DND annual budget. And by appling these new rules, what happens when the orginal guess is short, how do they do to increase funds, do they need to revist the entire purchase and what happens at the end of 35 years and there is a surplus where does it go... Currently as a DND annual budget if they run short other parts of the budget are shifted over to make up the difference, you can't do this if it's already part of the purchase contract...there is no flexibility.

No Jets were deployed because first we were not asked to provide jets, but rather troops, second the Airforce said we could not afford it, or it was not cost effective. Flying missions in Canada is one thing but when you enter combat you eat up very rapidly the remaining hours left on the airframe...they decided not to, it was'nt because ground forces did not want our own boys flying support for us, after 2 incidents with US airforce pilots....

SO when you and your wife sit down to discuss the new boat , do you tell her that the boat is going to last for 25 years , it's going to cost x amount for maint, fuel, spare parts, almost doubling the price or do you stick with the sticker price not to snow her because she already knows it runs on fuel, and you've already budgeted for it... I don't think thats just your problem alone, i think all men have this same problem...my wife drives a new car while i drive an old beat up pick up.

No the total price should include what is part of the purchase agreement, ie the aircraft, if a wpns pkg, Munitions pkg, extra tech pkg, maintance contract, training pkg, those are what should be included in the cost as they can be define today....asking about costs that may or may not happen in the future is just guessing...how do we know how many inteceptions of Russian ac will happen in the next 36 years and how much fuel will they burn... The cost the AG is asking to add, are part of DND annual budget. It's already accounted for every year. Accounting in it's O&M (operating and maintance)slice of the entire DND budget which if you had looked is one of the larger slices. So with these new accounting practices does this mean now the O&M budget is mout, free cash to be added to something else....or are we in fact accounting for the same stuff twice..which is not good accounting practice...another piont is this is the first purchase that this has been asked for, you said it was changed in 2006 and yet this is the first purchase it been applied.... I can't wait for the navys 40 to 50 year break down for ships... In any case i still don't follow the logic of accounting for things twice, giving an estamate that is guess at best, this scewed info could not be used for anything but added false facts to the fire that is already a blown out of wack... Since the tories have a majority, tech parliment has decided it wants 65 jets, and in theory the debate is over, according to you. As dereck has already suggested nobody is contesting the tech abilities of the AC, the debate is the cost....but the majority has already stated the amount to buy and the cost it will pay...only way to change that is to change the majority... As explained already these cost are taken out of the DND's annual budget approved every year. Pilots wages are taken out of a separate slice of DND's budget the same slice as everyones wages and they are fixed as the number of pers is dictated by parliment, ..all the other things on your list are imposable to perdict with any accuracy such as fuel each aircraft is sceduled to fly x amount of hours however that can change with each situation such as libya, that includes wpns etc...if this is difficult to perdict for one year try doing it over 36 years, and what happens when we reach that dollar value , ie we go over the amount we predicted, do we ask for more funding again'st that orginal purchase, vice versa what hapens if we go way under does that funding now become surplus available for other projects..either way you look at it something has to change.. They are not cost assiciated with buying 65 F-35 as the same cost are already being spent on our f-18's , which brings we to another question what happens when we keep a piece of equipment past it's sceduled life, which budget does that come out of, or do they once again go back to the orginal contracxt and ask for more money against that contract....or do they say frig it and just make DND eat it...

I'm not following the logic behind the decision to include everything in the total price of the F-35. It's been explained atleast a hundard times that those cost are already accounted for in DND annual O&M budget, and with this practice will be accounted for twice. And if the AG can see that then he or rather we need a new AG. The only thing this pracice does is scew the entire purchase...and no one on the left is disagreed with it, because it fits your agenda, it still does not make it right. i'd like to ask the left when you go out and buy a new car ot truck do you sit your wife down and tell her, look the price of the truck is 50 k , i plan to own that truck for 15 years it's going to cost another 50K to put gas in it, maintain it, new tires, new oakleys becasue it have to look good,new clothes to match the glasses, new drive way don't want to get it dirty, this is exactly what your asking DND to do...and good luck with getting your wife or anyone to agree with a 100K truck purchase.... The orginal 9 bil dollars is one of the largest purchases DND will make in it's history, out of a total of what ,I ve seen quotes as high as 400 bil spent over the next 30 years, the orginal qoute back some 5 years ago was 160 bil which seems closer to the target. I mention that because 9 bil does not sound that high anymore, i also mention that because one of the main factors in this is previous cuts remember the dacade of darkness...and we still have not recovered from that, many of the projects are still on the boards, and could be canceled at any time. We spend 1.5 % of our GDP on defense, and it has become a major issue with the Canadian people not the remaining 98.5 % just the 1.5 % nobody wants to touch their piece of the pie. The other aurgument i've heard is WHO would attack Canada, or WHO could attack Canada, and this other BS comment about group b and the soviets over estamated numbers...one of the reasons we have a military is a safety net, much like we have other debt's as well CSIS , Coast gaurd, Immigration, etc etc and if you convinced so much that your will to place your life, and life style on the line then convince me, Shit why not close it down entirely , close them all the securty debts down i mean your convince nobody sees us as a threat, nobody can attack us according to you.. if your not going to FUND them properly then shut them down.. I find it sad that we as Canadians place the old all mighty dollar ahead of human lifes..I mean we will say in a crowd we support our military , most Canadians will even say we are under manned, under equiped, and we should do something about that, until they hear how much it's going to cost THEN all you hear is we need a debate, we need to look at cheaper solutions... I've been in the Military for over 30 years and have been an instrument of our foreign policy the entire time, which puts doubt on your whole question of does canada have threats..if they did not have any i would be out of a job along time ago...and during all those years i can count on one hand in which we purchased equipment we truely wanted, most of the time it was products chesen by PWSG by specs provided by DND and then the cheapest bidder, and only if there was some polictic mileage to be had, such as who's riding could it be built, could it be built in Canada...a great example of this is that LSVW, built by western star, an Italian design, which works great in Italy, our version sucks ass, in fact to get DND to give it a final passing grade it had to be taken to the desert, in the US. But because it could be built out westy in someones riding the government shose it...how many policticians have any military time, how many PWSG folks know anything about the military or Combat...none, its like sending your wife out to by power tools or having your wife send you out to buy kichen appliances...its not a good practice. You can debate this all day long however the men that are actually sit in this fighter have spoken, this is the plane the government has not explained it well enough it does not change the fact that it is our next fighter. do you want joe blow debating the tech aspects of this purchase no...if it cost to much then yes lets debate costs, but tech aspects leave it to the experts... the main issue that i see is not enough AC are being purchased.

I think Sigs Cpl his answer is laid out in black and white below. they don't want a military Oh they say all they want to do is pay for the defense of Canada, but once that is accoplished then they will want to finsih it, they'll ask when was the last time Canada was attacked, shut it down completely.... Sorry but history does have a few examples, the war of 1812 remember the US, Cuban Mis crises there are other examples , maybe not with a foreign power but a threat none the less, Louis riel rebellion, FLQ crises, just to name a few. But having a strong military force is also tied into other things as well such as our sovereignty with out there would be none, with out military strenght we would not have a seat on the NATO, council, nor would our vioce be as loud at the UN or for that matter any concil. it's all tied into having the will and means to back up anything that comes to the table.... You mean like WWI and WWII, korea, those types of fights, those are luxuries...and yet history seems to recall our nation was not in a postion to fight any of those and yet we did, why was that... Limitless spending your joking right, lets take a look at our limitless spending for a second...Defense budget has gone up what 8 to 10 bil over the last 10 to 12 years...When more is required just to recover from the decade of darkness, you remember that don't you, funney i did not here you complaining when they raped the public service pension to pay down debt, not a word when they canceled most spending, slashed the budget to the bone, and when the country was recovering no one stood up and said hey what these guys that we slashed to the bone, how about we throw them some monies.....spending over close to 50 bil in defense spending over the next 20 years...thats is barely going to cover the rusted out equipment we need for defense or offense. Funney how nobody complains about the umbrella of security they sleep under until it comes time to pay for it... Sounds like you been smoking the same stuff Eyeball been growing...war bonds, why not bonds for every dept in the government, throw in bake sales, cookie drives, while your at it...we all pay taxes to fund every program and dept has, not everyone needs them all but you still have no chioce in where it goes....that one you'll just have to suck it up....

I stand corrected, Israel has offered it's blessings and a small cash offering, with the bulk of the Funding being offered by private Isrealis citizens. Down playing the amount of money is not dishonest but reality i mean the orginal offer of 5000 pounds per person is not alot when considering what they have to leave behind, homes, businesses, friends and family. leave it all to start all over...even you would agree that 5000 is not a serious offer. The Offer has been boosted to 10,000 per person or upto 60,000 per family...with some success... but still one could only imigine the costs being alot more to the families involved than a mere 60,000, one first has to get out of the country, after all it is illigal to emigrate to Israel, punishable by death....so it's not like you could sell your home , board a plane and tell Iranian officals your leaving for the mother land....getting out of the country must consume alot of those resources...and those that could afford it have already done so... And while it has not had the results they had hoped for , they have had some successes...Note that they have blurred out the faces to protect their families back home...why is that if Iran treats them so well...Just a question this is old news back from 2007 , did you really have to go back so long to find something postive.... link

Not Israel but rather a wealthy Isrealis, has made the offer, and it's not a major incentive, well it would be if you considered 3000 LBS major, to leave a country were they control your movement, and travel destinations just how are you planning to get out of the country....then start over in a new country.... I did not say they did not, what i asked was did 3/4 of the Irainian population leave, as that is what happened to the Jewish population, thats a good sign everything is not OK in Iran....It's a red flag...

Because this is what the world needs another 5 year old running around a full kichen with a screaming chain saw...and you saying relax nothing is going to happen....Your betting a lot of lives on something we don't know 100 % i think we should do the Adult thing and prevent them from having the chance... You really think that the west is going to piss it pants and allow Iran to get away with anything just because the own a nuc or two....we squared off again'st Russia and how many did they have...How long do you think the west is going to let Iran black mail the world into wiping Israel off the map...

kactus: Yes alot of Iranians did leave, but not 3/4 of the population, That has to send up some red flags, when 3/4 of the jewish population flees...for their lives, dropping everything and just start running...It's not a SO WHAT but rather shit Huston we have a problem....Those that remained could not afford to leave, or they would have ....Which paints another picture everything in Iran is not roses for the jewish population but rather a much larger problem. It's a law of convinence for optics only, you can see that right....There is no preferential treatment, all they are looking for is the same treatment...one law does not make everyone equal....Making waves in the Iranian parliment would be to attact unwanted attention... No it was not, Iran infact had close ties with Israel, Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel...Israel viewed Iran as a natural ally as a non-Arab power on the edge of the Arab world, in accordance with David Ben Gurion's concept of an alliance of the periphery. Israel had a permanent delegation in Tehran which served as an unofficial de facto embassy. There was no travel bans, or restrictions, infact alot of Israelis construction companies were working in Iran... Your Vid eidence is BS...when he said he went to North America then on to Israel...How could have he, it is again'st the law, punishable by death...

Why is that....? perhaps it is because they are not allow to emigrate. It is again'st the law and punishable by death. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate. What you left out was on the Eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 80,000 Jews lived in Iran. In the wake of the upheaval, tens of thousands of Jews, especially the wealthy, left the country, leaving behind vast amounts of property. So the 25,000 are what remained as most had feared for their lives and left everything,belongins , land everything.... My above comment also explains why the remaining 25,000 are still there, Iran has made it again'st the law to leave , punishable by death is a huge motivator...Infact a extremily wealth Isrealis man offer a cash incentive ranging for 3000 english pounds to 6000 Pounds per family if they were to leave, no one took it...Hard to believe that not one took it... Dispite the fact that it is again'st the law to hold any opinion other than what the government hands out, so when they are spewing anti Jewish sentiment they nod and agree....it is a figure head appiontment... Yes they are with restrictions but you forgot to mention those.. fact remains that your statement: all in virulent hatred for israel and specifically Jews is nothing but misinformation. Perhaps you should watch the vid again, It's again'st the law for any Iranian to talk to , post letters to or travel to Israel...

And our nation was not strong enough to fight off the Japanese in WWII either, and yet we still went to China to help them in their struggle...You remember the Japanese don't you...

correct me if i'm wrong but Maintenance contracts would have to be set up anyways would they not, i mean we have done that in the past with the Herc's B and H models, switched contractors, why would it not be the same process. and with the C-27J have similar componets it should not be a big problem, atleast not in my Army mind.. Industrial offsets could be put back on the table, on top of the 20 odd aircraft now in service there is still 18 to be manufactured, perhaps a new contract could be had with savings , i mean right now the US Airforce is going to cancell whats left of it...they will pay out the contract cancellation fees but really the manufacturing company might be willing to bend on the price to get rid of aircraft already in the assembly line or to keep their plant open... FWSAR project when i read it slao includes C-130 that are now providing that service as well, I'm almost postive that our H models have more hours on them than the US Airforce's would it also not be benifical to rangle a few of those as well. Even with 80 F-18 flying the Army had real issues trying to get them for ground attack practice, lowering the number of available aircraft would only lessen that. The main goals of the Airforce is defending our airspace...not much time is spent on ground attack, unless you look at the recent missions they have done, but don't tell the airforce that ...but the 65 was the number they decided on to air space mangement...I think the A-10 concept is a great one, but should be above the 65 f-35, i like your number of 36 perfect for deploymwents...be even better if they made they Mud gunners in a Army Brigade, like the Tac Hel guys.... Seen plenty of A-10 strikes in Afghan they are devasting, just ask the Boys in 1 RCR how deadly they can be... 2 runs and a Combat Infantry Company of over 150 was reduced below 45 percent effective in just seconds...and that was in low light, early morning...with an older A-10...

Not sure why the cost would be high, as it is stated in the link below the A/C can be moded for the SAR role, or have a palletized system to allow it to be used for other roles as well. On board sensors already surpass what is on our current fleet of SAR. link Not sure why the Airforce would not jump on this, as it has serveral advantages to it, the A/C are only a couple years old, they would be available in short order, at a much cheaper price, with perhaps the ability to get more A/C for our monie, And perhaps adding to our capabilities such as a small tactical transport aircraft, be it on operations such as Afghan, or a cheaper solution to an Airbourne troop platform as in JTF 2 or CSOR...The US airforce must have a large parts inventory aswell...but shortfalls could be fixed with company. I would hate to see this option to go down in flames because we have or want new A/C that may or may not be in service when they are required... On top of the C-27J they have a large seltion of other Aircraft as well, C-130H are also available, yes they are older aircraft But they are still H models and nobody flys their hercs longer than we do....we are the kings of making hercs last forever...perhaps a rebuild or SLEP project and these to could be added to our inventory.... I added the Herc as they are as well mentioned in the FWSAR project... Global hawks are mentioned , going in storage but perhaps if the right offer was made , i thought we where looking for a UAV to do northern surv....maybe i'm wrong...

With the US airforce doing some downsizing, this may be a good time to purchase some Used Aircraft. And save a shit load of cash in doing so...Some of the Aircraft i was looking at was the C-27J which we were looking at for SAR, but also there are some C-130H which could also be incorporated into SAR as well. Or perhaps converted some of them into other specialized Aircraft, which we don't currently have. These Aircraft have been on the Canadian project books for some time,and by purchasing them it may enable us to save alot of funding or perhaps allow us to purchase more than the Minimum. The list is extensive on the amount of different types avaialable, including A-10, C27J, C130H, C-5A, global hawks, Etc . What do you think. link link

Actually i was responding to your comment below, And in most cases you are right,english is the prime language, but it does not take away from the fact that the province is following the official language act. Signifcant Demand as laid out in the offical Language act lays out the guide lines for each province to follow. For example, Section 20 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right of the Canadian public to communicate in English and French with any central government office or with regional offices where there is "a significant demand for communication with and services from that office." Significant demand is not defined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One of the purposes of the Official Languages Act of 1988 was to remedy this omission. One of the first areas addressed by the Ontario government was lawmaking . In 1970, the House Rules were amended to allow the use of French in the provincial parliament. Under section 13 of the House Rules, francophone members are free to express themselves in French if they so desire. Simultaneous interpretation is also available upon request (without notice ), a rare service in Canada available only in Ontario and New Brunswick. Moreover, since January 1, 1991, all Ontario laws have been translated from English into French. Previously, the French language version was only a translation and not a legal document, but now both English and French versions are equally authoritative in the Ontario Legislature . With the advent of the 1986 French Language Services Act, French is no longer considered a privilege but a right granted under the Rules of Parliament. link

Agreed,

There is no such thing as a moral and ethical war, those are words invented by some politician to cover up the blood and guts of the reality of war...

Because the population and insugency are not tied together...IE 30 mil Afghanis wanted nothing to do with the taliban....and at the peak a 100,000 Taliban wanted to control over the majority....and they were good at controling them because the terrorist were inter mingled with the population, how does one pummel the bad guys with out hurting the good guys....That is a major problem...and perhaps explains why it was so effective in Germany and Japan, because we punished them all equally.... I think that is why we decided to take on this 3 block war tactic, engage enemy on one block provide humanitary assitance on another, and rebuild on the third block, all happening at the same time...good theory hard to implement....But the plan was to simpley over whelm them with numbers and re build faster than they could destroy...until Iraq became another Priority...this is the beginings of NATO's down fall trying to fill in the void the americans left ....But your right it did not work ,and i blame NATO and it's lack of will for that...but the theory does look good on paper...

CANADIEN I did cover this in my post. The Federal government has set in place regulations establishing linguistic categories (anglophone, francophone, bilingual) for some job functions within the public service. Departments and agencies of the federal government are required to fill these positions with individuals who are capable of serving the public in English, in French, or in both languages. Unilingual public servants are given incentives to learn the other official language, and the government provides language training and offers a "bilingualism bonus". This provides a legal definition for the otherwise vague requirement that services be provided in the minority official languages wherever there is "significant demand." The definition used in the regulations is complex, but basically an area of the country is served in both languages if at least 5,000 persons in that area, or 5% of the local population (whichever is smaller), belongs to that province's English or French linguistic minority population From time to time, the Official Languages Commissioner draws attention to the fact that federal agencies subject to the law are failing to live up to their legal obligations regarding official languages. In a report published in 2004 on the 35th anniversary of the Official Languages Act, Commissioner Dyane Adam noted that only 86% of posts designated "bilingual" in the federal public service were occupied by person who had effectively mastered the two official languages. Although this is far from perfect, it represents an improvement over the situation 26 years earlier in 1978, when only 70% of the incumbents in posts that had been designated "bilingual" were capable of speaking both languages at accepted levels.[11] Those services provided are covered in the following laws The Act[3] provides, among other things, that Canadians have the right to receive services from federal departments and from Crown corporations in both official languages; that Canadians will be able to be heard before federal courts in the official language of their choice; that Parliament will adopt laws and to publish regulations in both official languages, and that both versions will be of equal legal weight; that English and French will have equal status of languages of work within the federal public service within geographically defined parts of the country that are designated bilingual (most notably in National Capital Region, Montreal and New Brunswick), as well as in certain overseas government offices and in parts of the country where there is sufficient demand for services in both official languages. In remaining geographical areas, the language of work for federal public servants is French (in Quebec) and English (elsewhere); But in 1985 it was forced to make changes...as laid out in the Offical language act link

The type of warfare you discribe goes beyond unrestrictive or total war,IE WWI and WWII, History is full of examples of early warfare like the one you discribe when slaughtering an entire race or nation was possiable, by any means and when i mean possiable i mean aceptable to the agressors population. Don't get me wrong, this type of warfare also needs to be acceptable to the soldiers carrying it out. Example of that was what the Nazi's went through, when they used Regular army troops to help in opening stages of exterminating the Jews... Nobody really cared about what happened to the North American Indians as one example someone mentioned...Nor did the care about what happened to the Germans or Japanense soldiers or people "they deserved ever thing they got was a popular saying at the time..... because we had conditioned the public to see them as less than equal or as less human.. Today citizens are concerned with the holding of the moral ground,we should conduct ourself within our nations values...because they don't have a clue what is War or how it is waged... as war is not a part of our everyday lives the citizens do not understand it's full reaches and just how devasting it can be. Sure we see footage on TV, and think thats what war is but in reality it is not even close....Shit the world got together and even made rules about how to conduct warfare thinking that it would make it easier more bearable to the populations...again not in reality...In reality, war is a beast, a few rules does not make it any more bearable, it does however ease the minds of those that have not experienced it. History is full of examples were unrestictive warfare that yopu described has worked, and has worked for generations afterward. a mild example is Russia in Afghanistan, they wiped out entire villages, towns even cities in multi divisional size campaigns ...killing all that opposed them...in these cases it did create more terrorist....more resitance...The Russian kept to plans that were weeks old, with no deviation to them , which allowed alot of Afghanis citizens to escape...had they had flexable plans and stepped up the brutlity who knows...but other examples in history clearly prove your piont being absolutly brutal does break the will to fight... The problem with terrorist in Afghan is they are already brutal, and one would have to step it up serveral notches to be effective....something on the scale of the monguls would do...another would be who would carry it out, killing combatants is easy, it's the women and children Canadian soldiers would have massive problems with......the PTSD cases would be enormous...how would you convince Canadians it was OK, how would you accept soldiers coming back from this war...It can be done but it would take a massive proganda machine...and years to accomplish.

Here is the piont, Canada's offical language policy is that there is 2 offical languages one being english and the other french. All the other provinces follow this policy with exception of Quebec....New Brunswick is the only province that has taken it steps further by declaring itself Bilingual..one would have hoped that this leadership would have come from Quebec as they are suppose to be keepers of the french language, instead they have gone the opposite direction and declared itself with only one offical language that being french...

Also a piont to note the only province with only one offical language is Quebec.

And while Canada has 2 official languages Quebec only has one. Provided they meet the guidelines set out in the Canada act, if they do not then they are forced into the french system. However english Canadians that have 2 or 3 gens of living in Quebec,may be forced into the french school systems. There is however private schools one could pay for. And while English is a topic taught in the french school system one would have to ask just how effective it is, and that works in reverse as well how effective is teaching french in english schools ..not very... perhaps the piont he is trying to make is that there is a double standard for Quebec as a whole...when compared to other provinces, Our Language laws are not the same across the board, or atleast don't look that way...

I think Jerry has a valid piont, with bils going into rebuilding our ship building capabilities why not spend some cash boasting a Canadian company R&D budget to produce a Canadian aircraft. maybe not something as sexy as the Aero, but we have proven designs in the past such as the Bufflo, or twin otter, why can we not develope something in the transport catogory...I thought there was a Company that had up dated the Buf design...although there is not much call for large numbers of small transport aircraft there are a few competing designs, C-27J, one example...it is a market that perhaps we could compete in....