Poor government procurement threatens defence

The Harper government’s Liberal predecessors were rightly accused of being indifferent to Canada’s military, which was gutted in the 1990s to fight the deficit. Here is a little surprise: this government is going the same route, wearing camouflage. Either that, or it is simply incapable of managing military procurement.

On Aug. 30, the destroyer HMCS Algonquin and the supply ship HMCS Protecteur collided during a routine towing exercise in the Pacific.

To some, the incident may have seemed like a Monty Python skit. But to anybody who cares about Canada’s defences, it presented a clear picture of how one little accident was capable of transforming Canada’s already frail defence on the Pacific into no defence worthy of the name. More important, it cast a light on just how tiny recent governments have allowed our navy to become, and how vulnerable our military’s lack of redundancy has left us.

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