MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – June 10, 2013

• Afghanistan  There might also be a case to be made that she was working for Afghans, no?  “The letter that arrived at the home of a leading Afghan women’s rights activist in February 2012 was chilling. “Respected Adela Mohseni, you all the time betray religion and the Koran,” it began. Because she had ignored warnings and continued to “co-operate with infidels,” it said, she now faced death.  “After this, wherever our mujahedeen find you, it is obligated that they will sentence you to death and kill you in order to save our Islamic country.”  Such “night letters” are a common Taliban intimidation tactic, often producing deadly results for Afghans considered enemies of the fundamentalists. In this case, though, the message reverberated all the way to Canada.  Though not named in the letter, the “infidels” for whom Ms. Mohseni had been working were at a Canadian government-funded human rights institute. Since 2007, she had been employed in Kabul by Montreal-based Rights and Democracy, promoting legal reforms to protect the rights of women.  She went into hiding immediately after receiving the letter and then, on the advice of her superior at Rights and Democracy, fled with her family to India, seeking temporary refuge. Fifteen months later, she is still there, recognized as a refugee by the United Nations but unable to work, struggling to support her children and still fearing for her life.  “I was working for Canada, and they should support and secure me, but unfortunately they didn’t,” she wrote recently ….”
• “The Department of National Defence has been quietly spreading its wings and becoming a major torchbearer for Canadian diplomacy even as Canadian envoys stage rotating strikes and Foreign Affairs struggles to stay relevant.  Defence officials have been staging high-level meetings with foreign counterparts, spent millions of dollars more on foreign travel and hospitality and placed a greater emphasis on reaching out to non-traditional allies in recent years.  It’s all part of a dedicated strategy first launched two years ago and which has been steadily gaining steam – even as Canada’s traditional foreign service has wrestled with a diminished role and been told to focus on trade, trade and more trade.  National Defence would not make anyone available to talk about its Global Engagement Strategy, but internal documents obtained by Postmedia News show “defence diplomacy” to be a major focus in the post-Afghanistan era.  “This involves a broad spectrum of international activities by the defence team,” reads one briefing document prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay in March 2011, “from high-level engagement and visits, to international personnel placements, Canadian defence attaches, ship and aircraft visits, joint exercises and capacity-building initiatives.” ….”
• “The Canadian Army has suspended military operations in the vicinity of a tiny, uninhabited island off the coast of Greenland that has been the source of an ongoing spat between Canada and Denmark, Postmedia News has learned.  According to documents obtained under access to information legislation, the former chief of the defence staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, issued a directive in September 2012 that ordered Canadian Forces’ “operations in the vicinity of Hans Island be minimized with the exception of search and rescue (SAR) or emergency operations.”  Hans Island, which is only 1.3 square kilometres, sits between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland. While a maritime border has been agreed upon since 1973, the land border has caused diplomatic tension over the years.”
  
• “Veterans Affairs staff are bracing for as many as 500 job cuts.  The third round of cuts in the department is rumoured to be planned for later this month, though the government will not confirm if this is the case.  The government eliminated 278 full-time positions by the beginning of May but still has 506 more to cut, according to the Union of Veterans Affairs Employees.  Union president Yvan Thauvette said staff expect notices to go out shortly after the House of Commons rises this month or before it resumes in September.  “Most of the time they don’t want questions to be asked, so that’s why they send the letters when the House is not sitting,” he said.  The department has also quietly killed a quarterly performance report card that measured how well services were being delivered. The corporate performance reports also polled veterans on their satisfaction with the department.  The last report went out in November 2011, one month after the government confirmed it was planning to cut more than $200 million from the Veterans Affairs budget ….”
• “Results of an anonymous survey to be released in the fall by National Defence will shed more light on the extent of military sexual assault, including what has been called the silent crime of male-on-male rape.  Almost 68,000 troops, 86 per cent of them men, were asked last August to voluntarily complete the Canadian Forces Workplace Harassment Survey. It asks respondents their gender, years of service and rank, along with 100 questions ranging from personal harassment to whether they’ve ever been raped.  It’s the first time the military has done such a survey since 1998.  Results could provide valuable insight into the extent of military sexual violence — an issue that former soldiers and frontline social workers say is rarely reported. The extent to which men in the military are sexually attacked by other men is even more cloaked in silence, they say ….”
  
• One blogger’s analysis of the Green Party’s stance on Canadian defence
• “A gay British soldier says Prince Harry rescued him from a homophobic attack by infantry members during a training exercise in Canada.  Trooper James Wharton became the target of abuse in 2008 after bragging about ‘‘scoring’’ with a fellow soldier.  ‘‘I think I’m about to be murdered by the infantry,’’ Trooper Wharton told Prince Harry who was his tank commander at the time.  After hearing the story the third-in-line to the throne reportedly declared: ‘‘Right, I’m going to sort this s**t out once  and for all.’’  ‘‘Harry climbed out of the tank and started having a go,’’ Trooper Wharton, who was then 21, writes in a book extract published in British tabloid The Mail on Sunday.  ‘‘He wasn’t holding back. Prince Harry was sticking up for me and putting a stop to the trouble.  ‘‘I had been on track for a battering and had been rescued.’’  Trooper Wharton, who quit the army earlier this year, writes that after hosing down the 2008 incident Prince Harry told him: ‘‘I  told those other lads to back the f**k off.’’ ….” – more in the Daily Mail piece here
• “Reports that U.S. authorities have been trawling for data from the biggest companies on the internet have so rattled Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, she’s seeking clarity from the country’s cryptologic agency to find out what this means for Canadians.  Stories Thursday in the Guardian and the Washington Post detailed the U.S. National Security Agency‘s PRISM program – warrantless intelligence-gathering that ostensibly targeted foreigners and reportedly involved collecting personal information from the servers of willing companies. All the participating companies listed have vehemently denied any knowledge of the program, which a U.S. government spokesman has called ”among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect.”  “The scope of information reportedly being collected raises significant concerns,” Scott Hutchinson, a spokesperson for Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, said in an email.  “Going forward, we plan to express our concerns to and seek information from the Commissioner of the Communication Security Establishment to determine how the personal information of Canadians may be affected.” ….” – more on the PRISM program here, more on Canada’s approval of some of the work here, some media commentary here and here, and some commentary from a former CSIS dude here
• “The federal government says it will allow an Ottawa man accused of terrorist ties to have a mobile phone, but balks at the idea of giving Mohamed Harkat access to the internet or removing his electronic tracking bracelet.  In documents filed with the Federal Court, the government says it is also open to dropping a requirement that Harkat get prior approval before travelling out of town.  The concessions would ease current release conditions for Harkat, but fall short of the full list of freedoms he will seek Tuesday during a one-day Federal Court hearing.  It has been more than a decade since Harkat, a refugee from Algeria, was arrested under a national security certificate on suspicion of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent — an accusation he denies.  He has essentially been living under house arrest with stringent conditions for seven years ….”
• “On his way to becoming Canada’s top cop, Bob Paulson told internal reviewers the national security certificate process for detaining suspected terrorists was “completely off the rails,” newly released documents show.  In an interview with an auditor examining the controversial program, Paulson, now RCMP commissioner, expressed concerns about excessive state secrecy in certificate proceedings.  The national security certificate is a seldom-used tool for removing non-citizens suspected of terrorism or espionage from Canada.  “In my view, we over claim the protection of sources and methods and this is convenient if you can get away with it,” say notes from the October 2009 interview, recently released under the Access to Information Act.  Paulson was assistant RCMP commissioner for national security at the time of the interview. Two years later, he was picked by the Harper government to become commissioner ….”
• “A bomb threat that forced one of the Canadian Cancer Society’s biggest fundraisers to cancel on Friday night is still being felt by other groups organizing their annual walks and runs this weekend.  Halifax Regional Police said someone called 911 from a payphone at the corner of Spring Garden Road and South Park Street and made threats that alluded to the Boston Marathon bombing.  Nearby, nearly 700 people were gathered at the Oval in the Halifax Common for the Relay for Life.  Police met with the organizers and the fundraiser was called off, ruining a year’s worth of work by dozens of volunteers ….”
  

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – January 30, 2013

• Mali (1) “MPs will soon debate Canada’s involvement in Mali as the Conservative government continues to offer limited support to the French-led mission in the west African nation.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed Monday the issue would be debated in the House and be studied by the Commons foreign affairs committee in the coming weeks.  NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said New Democrats would wait until Parliament has studied the issue before deciding whether to push for further intervention.  “We’re going to get full information on the state of play in Mali,” he told reporters.  “That’s the undertaking. There’s nothing else on the table right now. But anything else would of course come before Parliament or its committees. That’s what the Prime Minister said and that’s what we agreed to.” ….” - more from Monday’s Question Period in the House here.
  
• Mali (2) “The feds are well advised to use an ounce of prevention to protect Canadian diplomats in Mali with special forces soldiers, says an international security expert.  If special forces are indeed on the ground, Christian Leuprecht says it’s at least partly because officials don’t want Canada to be caught in an incident like the deadly terror attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya last September.  The Queen’s University and Royal Military College professor says the government “wants to be careful and take the right precautions so that we don’t become the next victim” of that sort of attack ….”
• Mali (3a)  More mission creep worries from ceasefire.ca and a yahoo.ca commentator
  
• Mali (3b)  Liberal Defence Critic:  “…. The prime minister is right to express his non-verbal hesitations about engagement in yet another “African” conflict, but he is the prime minister and Canadians are entitled to a well-articulated, coherent expression of his views.  He might start with an articulation of the foreign policy goal of this mission.  Is it to contain militant Islamism, and if it is, say so.  If there are other goals, state them.  What will be the measure of success and when will we know it’s time to leave?  What will be the likely consequences on regional and international interests, and what are Canada’s interests? ….”
• Mali (3c)  Toronto Star columnist  “Inch by inch, Canada and the West are being drawn into an African war we don’t understand ….”
• Mali (3d)  Toronto Star editorial  “…. While the Conservatives have rightly drawn a line against sending combat troops, Ottawa should be prepared to offer not only political support for the French-led mission, but also cash, humanitarian aid and other non-lethal assistance as the African stabilization force ramps up.  That help should be conditioned, however, on Malian President Dioncounda Traore’s government setting the country back on the path to democratic, constitutional rule ….”
  
• Mali (4) “Canada will provide another $13 million in aid to Mali, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino announced Tuesday in Ethiopia.  Fantino is the Canadian representative at a donors conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital ….” - more here and here.
  
• Mali (5)  More on whazzup in Mali here (Google News), here (EMM Explorer) and here (France’s defence ministry’s daily update in French)
• Elsewhere….  “Spillover from Mexico’s violent drug war is prompting the Harper government and the Canadian military to become more involved in helping defend the tiny Central American country of Belize.  A series of internal reports, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, show the government has quietly increased co-operation with the Commonwealth nation, formerly known as British Honduras.  Canada is providing non-lethal equipment for security services and helping with strategic planning and the training of soldiers.  The documents, which all date from the spring of last year, describe the situation in Belize as deteriorating in the face of ultra-violent drug cartels that are battling not only Mexican and U.S. law enforcement, but each other as well.  “Belize is of growing importance to the Canadian government due to the increasingly precarious security situation in Central America, particularly along the Belize-Mexico border,” said a March 23, 2012, briefing note prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay ….”
• Joshua Caleb Baker, 1985-2010, R.I.P.  “Three days after leading a training exercise that went horribly wrong and killed a fellow soldier, warrant officer Paul Ravensdale told a military investigator he had no idea what caused the accident.  “All hell broke loose and I honestly don’t know what happened,” Ravensdale is heard saying in the recorded interview, played Tuesday at his court martial at CFB Shilo in Manitoba.  “I honestly felt I did everything right.”  Ravensdale, who is now retired, faces six charges — including manslaughter and unlawfully causing bodily harm — stemming from an incident on a weapons range in Afghanistan on Feb. 12, 2010 ….”
  
• “The Official Opposition has launched new salvos against Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s credibility over revelations about his controversial 2010 ride on a military helicopter from a central Newfoundland fishing camp.  Postmedia News reported earlier this week it has obtained emails that show government officials did not want MacKay to attend an Ontario news conference that prompted use of a Cormorant helicopter in July 2010.  As well, the emails appear to contradict MacKay’s assertions that the chopper ride was arranged at the last minute, and that officials knew 11 days in advance of the event that critics have slammed as a “photo op.”  Defence critic Jack Harris hammered MacKay in the House of Commons on Monday ….” - more here.
• “A Conservative MP wants to reward permanent residents serving in the Canadian Armed Forces with faster citizenship and revoke the citizenship of people who engage in acts of war against Canada.  “Canadian citizenship is an honour and a privilege,” said Devinder Shory, who represents Calgary Northeast, in a press release. “Those who put themselves on the front lines for Canada deserve to be acknowledged, while those who repudiate their citizenship by committing violent acts against Canada’s armed forces should not be able to retain it.”  Shory’s private members bill was debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday.  Bill C-425 would allow permanent residents who have signed a minimum three-year contract with the Canadian Forces to gain citizenship one year earlier than normal.  While citizenship is generally a requirement to join the Canadian Forces, permanent residents can receive a citizenship waiver if they have specific skill sets needed.  The second, and more contentious part of the bill, would see people stripped of Canadian citizenship if they fight against the Canadian Armed Forces. The provision would apply to dual citizens, citizens who are also a legal resident of another country or permanent residents of Canada who have applied for citizenship.  Shory commissioned a poll last year which suggested 80 per cent of Canadians would like to see citizenship be revoked in such cases ….” - more from the House of Commons debate here.
  
• Oopsie…. “The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax raised eyebrows in Newfoundland and Labrador after an official at the centre confused the names of a western Newfoundland peninsula and a Caribbean city.  In a voice recording made by a JRCC employee, there was some confusion about the location of a duck hunter who was reported missing Monday evening when he did not return to his home in the West Bay area.  “We are currently assisting the police up in Newfoundland on a search for a 51-year-old male duck hunter that is missing in the Port-au-Prince peninsula area.”  JRCC official Maj. Martell Thompson explained that the employee meant to say the Port au Port Peninsula.  “Pure slip of the tongue,” Thompson said.  “We all understand that Port-au-Prince is in the Dominican Republic.”  Port-au-Prince is actually the capital city of Haiti ….” - mention in the House of Commons here.
• Speaking of search and rescue….  “One year after the death of Labrador teen Burton Winters, Liberal MHA Randy Edmunds says a lot of good has happened, but if more isn’t done, another similar tragedy could happen again.  “We’ve got to find out what went wrong. I mean, inquiries have been called for far less situations than what happened with Burton,” Edmunds said.  “You’ve got to find out what went wrong. For one reason, if not any other, it’s to fix what went wrong. I don’t like to see governments blaming each other and the issue not being addressed,” Edmunds said.  On Jan. 29. 2012, Burton’s body was found on the sea ice off Makkovik. He got lost on his snowmobile three days earlier, and tried to walk home.  Confused, in a snowstorm, he walked 19 kilometres in the wrong direction before he froze to death.  In the months after his death, questions were raised about why the Canadian Forces failed to send a helicopter to search for the teen ….” - more on the anniversary in the House of Commons here and here.
  
• Way Up North  “Canadian Rangers from seven First Nation communities made a big impression on an army colonel during a recent four-day visit to Northern Ontario.  “It has been a wonderful and very useful experience,” said Col. Jennie Carignan, chief of staff for Land Force Central Area, the military name for the army in Ontario.  “I was absolutely astonished at the way the Rangers have adapted to living extremely well in their environment.  “They are very knowledgeable about their own areas and their role is absolutely critical to the safety of their communities.”  Carignan encountered severe weather conditions during her visit, with temperatures dropping to -40 C and windchills reaching as low as -58 C.  Despite that she shot outdoors with Rangers at Lac Seul, near Sioux Lookout, and went snowmobiling with Rangers on the shore of Hudson Bay at both Fort Severn and Peawanuck. She also saw Rangers from Attawapiskat, Kashechewan, Fort Albany and Moose Factory teaching winter survival techniques to soldiers from Toronto at a temporary training site near Moosonee ….”
• Naval spy sentencing approaching  “…. The senior officer at the Trinity naval intelligence centre inside CFB Halifax, where SLt. (Jeffrey) Delisle worked, raises a key issue facing Crown prosecutor Lyne Décarie and defence lawyer Mike Taylor as they prepare for SLt. Delisle’s two-day sentencing hearing, which begins on Thursday – the length of time he should serve in prison.  No one in Canada has ever been charged or convicted under the Security of Information Act. The 41-year-old intelligence officer pleaded guilty in October to two charges under the act of “communicating with a foreign entity.”  Nova Scotia’s Chief Judge of the Provincial Court, Patrick Curran, is expected to consider the sentencing submissions for a couple of weeks – and when he gives his decision, SLt. Delisle will become the first Canadian sentenced under the law created a decade ago in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.  With no precedents in Canada, Ms. Décarie and Mr. Taylor have been searching legal textbooks and data bases from around the world to make their case for the navy spy’s sentence ….”
• Minister of Defence responding to an NDP question on the potential privatization of managing DND property  “…. I am very proud of the significant investments we have made through the Canada first defence strategy to infrastructure on bases across the country. The Department of National Defence continues to ensure that members of the Canadian Forces and their families have the necessary infrastructure to train, to live, to do the important work that we ask of them. The department will leverage private sector capabilities with the realignment of internal resources to oversee the right mix of in-house and external delivery options ….”
  
• “Canada’s military ombudsman is calling for the Department of National Defence to re-examine its long-standing practice of sending thousands of military personnel to new postings every year, including the relocation policies to manage those moves.  Pierre Daigle said the military should rethink how often it needs to transfer soldiers and uproot their families as part of its “operational requirements.” He said moving 20 per cent of the forces every year is expensive for taxpayers and can impose major personal and financial hardships on military families.  “Why do we move people so much and how many times do we have to move?” said Daigle in an interview. “Yes, they need operational capacity and people have to be moved, but when they are moved for operational requirements, it is not their choice where they have to go so to they shouldn’t be paying for it and that’s where we see the unfairness that needs to be addressed.” ….”
  
• Date set for Federal Court hearing into long-term disability clawback settlement  “T-463-07; DENNIS MANUGE v. HMQ Federal Court Hearing will take place at the World Trade and Convention Centre, 1800 Argyle Street, Halifax, NS on February 14 and 15, 2013 at 10:00 a.m.”
  
• “The Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, (yesterday) participated in events organized by the True Patriot Love Foundation, and the Veterans Transition Advisory Council (VTAC), a team of corporate champions committed to removing the barriers that Veterans face during the transition to civilian employment …. The day began with a “From Battlefield to Boardroom” conference, which saw human resources executives from corporate Canada gather to learn more about the value and experience of military Veterans. The conference was followed by the inaugural Veterans Transition Advisory Council meeting ….”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – November 27, 2012

• Afghanistan (1)  Senator selling the mission (glad SOMEONE is)  “It doesn’t always get the headlines.  It’s not the image most people see when they think of soldiers.  But Canada’s brave men and women in the military are not only protecting Canadian freedoms around the world, they are also providing hope to the downtrodden where freedom has long been only envisioned in dreams.  The Canadian military has built more than 50 schools in Afghanistan since war broke out following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Senator Pamela Wallin told more than 100 local dignitaries and veterans at the Scotiabank Convention Centre Monday.  “(When the mission started) no girls were going to school. Now the girls are going to school, millions of them. They are taking the veil from their faces and they are feeling what freedom feels like.”  She told the crowd the Canadian military has helped countless Afghan’s go from nothing to Grade 3 literacy skills in nine weeks.  “It makes me a little bit optimistic what might happen in that country,” she said, adding there remains a lot of work to do ….” - more here.
  
• Afghanistan (2)  Columnist’s glass-is-half-empty assessment of the Defence Minister’s view of the situation  “….  MacKay’s message was that Canada’s sacrifice — 158 soldiers killed and another 2,000 injured — was offset by the progress the international community has made in developing that war-torn country.  The yardstick MacKay used to determine this progress was the same well-worn platitudes about girls attending schools and the crowded market places in Kabul.  However at the Halifax forum, MacKay went one step further when he said that on his most recent trip to Afghanistan, he had flown on a commercial passenger plane, which according to MacKay was “once impossible.”  This was offered by MacKay to the assembled brain trust as further proof that NATO is making headway.  MacKay’s claim is entirely baseless ….”
• “Media are invited to the Canadian Military and Veteran Health Research Forum 2012 at the Ambassador Conference Resort in Kingston, Ont., from November 26th through 28th.  The forum will bring more than 450 Canadian researchers and international delegates to the forum to share key research and studies into the critical field of military and veteran’s health. Keynote speakers include the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, and Lieutenant-General the Honourable (Ret) Roméo Dallaire, Senator and Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs.  Also on hand to present her research will be Dr. Stéphanie Bélanger of the Royal Military College of Canada who is the Associate Director of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran’s Health Research ….” – more on the forum here, and more on the Minister being there from the Info-machine here.
• “More federal politicians and senior military officials could find themselves flying commercial in the years ahead as the Harper government plans to retire and not replace most of its VIP Challenger jets.  Defence sources say most of the fleet, which has often been in the news for being air taxis for senior officials, will reach the end of its service life by 2014, at which time the jets will be taken out of service.  CTV News reported Monday that four-of-the-six remaining aircraft will be cut, something defence insiders say is a function of their age and the fact the Harper government doesn’t intend to invest in a service life extension.  The Conservatives, for over a decade, have made a political lightning rod out of the jets, pointing to their use as a sign of Liberal excess.  Once in office, they drastically curtailed the use of the executive jets to the point where one military official, who would not be identified, said the pilots have been reduced to flying training missions as a way to keep up their qualifications.  Jay Paxton, a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, would not confirm the cutbacks, but said the government is always looking for efficiencies in order to sustain a combat capable military ….” – more on this here and here.
• “The Canadian army’s east coast branch has hired a civilian to tweet and Facebook for the troops.  Major Mark Gough is the media contact for Land Force Atlantic Area, but said he needed outside help for using social media.  “None of us are experts in social media. We all have our own Facebook pages, individually, personally. Some of us engage in Twitter, but none of us have used this in an organizational sense,” he said.  He said it’s not a tool for recruiting new members, but a way to better inform the public about what their army does every day.  The 7,000 personnel in the region include regular forces and reserve members in all four Atlantic provinces.  Gough said Land Force Western and Land Force Central, the other two branches, do not use civilians for social media, but he felt an outside perspective would help the army connect with civilians.  “We are opening ourselves up to conversations that traditionally, you might not want to engage in. But those conversations are happening whether you want them to or not,” said Gough.  “By having our own social media sites, we can be part of that conversation.” ….” – more on the civvies with the new gig here.      
  
• “Last week, The Link received an email—subject “Concordia’s Military Complex”—containing information about the university’s ostensible ties to the Department of National Defence and military industries.  The email was sent by a student activist from the newly formed Anti-War Efforts Group.  “It’s an attempt to show that the military is deeply involved in Concordia’s administration, deeply involved in the funding of Concordia and deeply involved in the research at Concordia,” said Gabriel Velasco, one of the original members of the AWEG.  The group sprang up in September as an offshoot of the Mob Squad, a campus-based activist organization that supported the student strike and stands against the privatization of universities.  So far, the Anti-War group has roughly a dozen active members and a mailing list of about two hundred people.  The group’s research was partly based on a five-year-old pamphlet entitled “Military Research in Our Universities” by another local activist group and summarized in a flowchart scribbled on the back of a concert poster—hardly what one would call compelling evidence.  Indeed, it would have been easy to disregard their allegations, had they not found a few real—albeit ambiguous—links between Concordia, the defence department and large corporations involved in different aspects of military production ….” – more on the Montreal university group at its Facebook page here.
• Way Up North (1)  Norwegian troops on major exercise  “As the Norwegian Armed Forces are changing the training model to focus more on cooperation between different branches, “Flotex Silver Rein II” is a foretaste of how military exercises will be organized in the years to come. In 2013 there will be four so-called joint operational exercises, the Armed Forces’ web site reads.  The exercise “Flotex Silver Rein II” used to be three separate exercises: “Flotex” – a navy exercise, “Falcon Silver” – an air force exercise and “Rein” – an exercise for ground forces.  The aim of the exercise is to practice procedures, interaction and a common understanding of the situation between the different land, naval and air units. Systems for network based defense (NBF) will be tested and all branches will be conducting live firing ….”
  
• Way Up North (2)  “The Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, in partnership with the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, The Inuit Knowledge Centre, St. Jerome’s University and the Trinity-Munk Centre for Contemporary International History, is pleased to host the third annual Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Conference, entitled:  Arctic Peoples and Security  The goal of this conference is to explore different ways of conceptualizing and understanding security in the Arctic in order to develop and implement sounder, more productive, and more inclusive public policies in the North ….”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – November 5, 2012

• Remembering (1)  Remembering at Beaumont-Hamel  “Many Canadian and French citizens gathered (Saturday) at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, in France, to pay tribute to the men and women who served their countries from the First World War to current missions.  The Government of Canada representative, Vice-Admiral Bob Davidson, Canadian Military Representative to NATO, addressed the gathering on behalf of the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs. He was joined by the French Republic representative Mr. Joël Dubreuil, sous-préfet de Péronne ….”       
• Remembering (2)  Remembering at Vimy Ridge  “Many Canadian and French citizens gathered (Sunday) at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, in France, to pay tribute to the men and women who served their countries from the First World War to current missions.  The Government of Canada representative, Mr. Kim Butler, Plenipotentiary Minister, Canadian Embassy, Paris, addressed the gathering on behalf of the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs. He was joined by the French Republic representative, Mr. Pierre Clavreuil, sous-préfet of Lens ….”       
• Remembering (3)  Remembering in the Senate  “Media are invited to attend a special ceremony (today) with the Honourable Noël A. Kinsella, Speaker of the Senate of Canada, the Honourable Andrew Scheer, Speaker of the House of Commons and the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, for the launch of Veterans’ Week 2012. Canadian youth participating in Encounters with Canada will offer reflections on the Battle of Passchendaele ….”       
• Remembering (4)  Remembering the animals  “Mr. Royal Galipeau, Member of Parliament for Ottawa-Orléans and representative for the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, Senator Yonah Martin, Mrs. Laureen Harper, Honorary Patron of the Animals in War Dedication Project, Brigadier-General M.K. Overton, Assistant Chief of Military Personnel of the Canadian Armed Forces, and Mr. Russell Mills, Chair of the National Capital Commission (NCC), along with Veteran Lloyd Swick, founder of the project, (Saturday) unveiled a dedication to honour animals who served alongside their human comrades in war. The dedication consists of three interpretative plaques explaining the roles played by animals during past wars. A bronze statue of a medical service dog stands nearby ….”       
• Remembering (5)  Remembering to remember  “The Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, today issued the following statement encouraging all Canadians to take time to remember this Veterans’ Week from November 5 to 11 ….”
  
• Remembering (6)  University of Toronto paper:  “…. Whether our soldiers personally support the war or not is irrelevant. Whether or not the war should have been fought is similarly irrelevant. These soldiers went to war, end of story. Now it is up to us as civilians to be there for them in terms of civil employment, mental and physical health services, and veteran pension plans — something that, with the recent government cuts to Veteran’s Affairs, we unfortunately have yet to live up to. Veteran’s benefits are the neglected cost of war ….”
• Remembering (7)  How Applebees helps remember  “In what has become a neighbourhood tradition, Applebee’s restaurants will honour our nation’s veterans and active duty Canadian Forces by inviting them to their neighbourhood Applebee’s for a free meal on Remembrance Day – Sunday November 11 …. Veterans and active duty military will need to provide proof of service, which includes: permanent ID card for active personnel, temporary ID card for reservists, veteran’s card or a photograph in uniform or wearing uniform ….”
  
• Remember this guy, a retired Colonel charged with forgery and uttering a forged document (news release also here if previous link doesn’t work)?  He’s been found guilty of “altered a document made for a departmental purpose”, and fined $5000 – more from the Court Martial sentencing report here.
• “A federal burial fund meant to give impoverished veterans a final, dignified salute has rejected over two-thirds of the applications it’s received since 2006.  And of the requests that are accepted, Ottawa contributes just over $3,600 toward the funeral cost of destitute ex-soldiers, a figure that is substantially lower than what some social services departments pay towards the burial of the homeless and those on welfare.  According to figures put before Parliament, of the 29,853 requests made to the veterans funeral and burial program, 20,147 pleas for funding 67.4 per cent were rejected.  They either did not meet the eligibility criteria, or failed a means test, which says a qualifying veteran’s annual income must have been less than $12,010 per year ….”    
• Conference:  It take more than just the military to sort things out overseas  “Although the Canadian Forces have always been a world leader in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, they’ve never done it alone.  How Canada works with agencies in other countries was among the topics on Saturday as the Thunder Bay Branch of the Canadian International Council, the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment, the HMCS Griffon, and the Lakehead University Department of History hosted a symposium entitled Military Operations Achieving Humanitarian Goals that examined some of the Canadian Forces recent humanitarian missions around the world ….”
• NGO types:  “…. Since the First World War the global community has agreed to limit or outright prohibit the production and use of certain weapons, because of the scale of destruction (nuclear bombs), because of their horrific effects (poison gas) or, like cluster bombs, because they overwhelmingly affect the innocent. Canada, once a leader in fighting such weapons, is now a laggard ….”
• “Extra police, security and attendants were called in to work at Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain Saturday following the discovery of an explosive device on a commuter line in Surrey. B.C.  The increased security came after the RCMP detonated an explosive found Friday on the elevated tracks. Hours after locating the first package, police also found a second suspicious object at a station in Burnaby that turned out to be a false alarm.   Transit police spokesperson Anne Drennan told The Canadian Press that about a dozen detectives will spend Saturday trying to figure out how the device ended up on the tracks.  The first device was spotted by a Surrey passenger on Friday afternoon. The device was lying between two sets of tracks and appeared to be a pipe bomb strapped to three small, empty propane tanks.  Police evacuated the station and then shut down a portion of the line as explosives experts moved in to remove the device.  Drennan said the device was the size of three fire extinguishers. It could have been thrown or placed on the guideway, she said ….”
• More on the potential Chinese buy-in to a Canadian petro-business  “As a former deputy minister at Industry Canada, there was no one in government who knew the Investment Canada Act more intimately than Paul Boothe.  The top-tier bureaucrat, who has since migrated to academia, was instrumental in guiding a relatively young Conservative government when it surprisingly blocked the sale of domestic space technology, including the Radarsat-2 satellite, to an American firm in 2008.  After recently poring over the pros and cons of the $15.1-billion energy deal between Chinese-controlled CNOOC and Calgary’s Nexen, Boothe can’t see any good reason for turning down the deal.  He’s also well aware the answer may not be Yes.  Despite attempts over the years to make approvals of foreign investment as clinical as possible, the CNOOC-Nexen decision comes down to pure politics ….”

What’s Canada Buying? August 30, 2012

• Wanted:  civilian contractors to help keep Canadian Forces good to go on foreign deployments (Info-machine translation:  “The Department of National Defence (DND) has a requirement to provide the Canadian Forces (CF) with operational flexibility through a contractor augmentation capability in support of deployed operations abroad; thus enabling the CF to re-deploy military personnel where their skills are needed most” ) – more details in the Statement of Work here, and an interesting (fictional) scenario about the kind of work such a contractor could be undertaking here (NOTE:  the ubiquitous Corporal Bloggins isn’t even listed among the notionally-available personnel).
• Wanted:  someone for “the provision of a Ferrous Ordnance Locator (FerOL), commonly known as “Bomb Locator” or “Unexploded Ordnance Locator” (to) replace the Canadian Forces (CF) in-service bomb locator ….” – more details in part of the Statement of Work here.
• Wanted:  someone to help “Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) – Suffield, Medicine Hat, Alberta …. develop a reagentless, handheld biological sensor” – this from the Statement of Work here:  “The Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) has a requirement to develop a reagentless, handheld biological sensor. Development of a reagentless, handheld sensor capable of differentiating pathogen classification (Gram+, Gram-, virus, fungi) in the air is critical so that medical personnel can quickly treat if the Canadian Forces (CF) is suspected of exposure.”
• Wanted:  someone to test radio headsets/earbuds in noisy conditions.
• Wanted:  someone to make “flight suits, flight jackets and sausage bags for the Snowbird Team at 431 Air Demonstration Squadron” – more details/pictures in the Statement of Work here.
• Wanted:  someone to make loads o’ box lunches for CFB Valcartier as needed – more on what’s wanted on the menus here.

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – August 6, 2012

• “Federal cuts are threatening the future of a program that hires veterans who have been medically discharged from the Canadian Forces, according to a Liberal senator.  “It is a program that’s in trouble,” says Percy Downe, who was so worried about the fate of the program he wrote Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministers asking why they weren’t doing more to support the program.  In a letter to Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq CBC News obtained through the Access to Information Act, Downe writes, “I urge you to instruct your deputy minister to follow the spirit and intent of the regulation and appoint qualified medically released veterans … to employment in your federal government department.”  The priority hiring program for Canadian Forces veterans discharged due to physical or psychological injuries was introduced in 2005 as part of the Veterans Charter. RCMP officers were also included in the program, but most participants are vets.  According to a CBC News analysis of statistics from the Public Service Commission, the federal body responsible for administering the program, Health Canada has hired nine people on the priority list, well behind National Defence, the Correctional Service of Canada and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.  Of the nearly 1,000 people who found jobs through the program, National Defence hired 73 per cent of them. Nine federal employers, including the Privy Council Office, haven’t hired anyone ….”  Kudos to CBC for sharing at least some of the documents in question here and here – more from the Public Service Commission of Canada here, and some discussion over at Army.ca here. 
• Meanwhile, what’s up with Canada supporting vets?  “On behalf of the Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification) (on Saturday) joined Veterans, Canadian Forces members, community leaders, and members of the public for the opening ceremony of the Canada Remembers Our Heroes Tribute. The event honours the contributions of Veterans and pays tribute to fallen Canadian Forces members. Veterans Affairs Canada has contributed up to $8,000 to this event through the Community Engagement Partnership Fund ….”
  
• Way Up North  More on OP Nanook underway  “The Canadian Forces have set up camp outside Inuvik, N.W.T., for the annual summer Arctic exercise Operation Nanook.  Last week, Maj.-Gen. Christine Whitecross, the Canadian Forces’ chief military engineer, inspected the camp which was put together in 10 days.  “What I look for are systems that are efficient,” she said. “Design that makes sense so we’re not creating something unsustainable. Comfort is nice, but it’s a low priority. Efficiency, effectiveness and ability to operate.” ….”  
• The City of Halifax appears to be working more closely with the CF for emergency preparedness  “Halifax is no stranger to emergency and crisis in recent years: hurricane Juan in September 2003, the blizzard of February 2004; and even the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon caused airliners to be rerouted to Canadian airports, including Halifax International.  The many situations that could constitute an emergency or a crisis for the Halifax Regional Municipality prompted municipal authorities to take advantage of a military exercise to practise and refine their procedures and processes to meet the challenges of a major emergency.  The Halifax Emergency Response Exercise (HEREX) began early on Wednesday, June 27, at HRM’s Emergency Operations Centre in Dartmouth. The exercise design team put the municipality’s senior elected and administrative staff through their paces.  “The military exercise gave HRM an opportunity to dovetail with the military in rehearsing and validating how we meet emergencies and crises,” explains HRM’s manager of public affairs, Shaune MacKinlay. “This allowed us to build and confirm partnerships with other players in emergency management, including DND, Public Safety Canada, Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office, Capital District Health Authority, Emergency Health Service and the municipality.” ….”
• No more trespassing for YOU (in B.C.)!  “The majority of Nanaimo’s most popular recreational spots used by mountain bikers, hikers, swimmers and all-terrain vehicles are on private property.  In July, Canada’s Department of National Defence announced they would step up patrols, replace no trespassing signs and barbed wire and hand out fines to those found trespassing on their Nanaimo rifle range.  A new, six-foot high fence topped with barbed wire, around DND’s property line would permanently seal off some of Nanaimo’s oldest and most popular trails behind Westwood Lake, including the very popular Westwood Ridges. This area is supposed to be off limits because its within the danger zone boundary of the active rifle range, outlined by the DND. Richard Harding, City of Nanaimo director of parks, recreation and culture, will meet with the DND to discuss the boundary lines and access issues behind Westwood Lake next week ….”
• Some media relations advice from a newspaper responding to this fracas  “….  She was upset the lead of the story referred to her as MacKay’s wife. But her name started the second paragraph, which was also just the second sentence of the story. And she was upset with the headline: Time to bring Khadr home: defence minister’s wife.  Now, full disclosure: The Guardian is owned by the same company that owns this newspaper. But really, our view would be the same regardless: as the wife of a prominent government figure, you should know the rules of engagement when you speak to the media.  If it comes out of your mouth, it may appear in a story.  A journalist isn’t speaking to you to pass the time, or because s/he likes you – they’re doing their job and want a story to write based on the conversation you’re having.  You will be described in the story in the terms most meaningful to readers. Nazanin Afshin-Jam means less to readers than “wife of the defense minister,” regardless of how you wish to be known.  When you say controversial things, they will probably be the focus of the story.  If you want the story to be about your one cause – promoting a book, for example – only say interesting things about that one subject ….”  Media Relations 101, straight from the horse’s mouth.

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 24 May 12

• Afghanistan (1)  Canada “condemns …. cowardly and senseless act” of attempting to poison Afghan girls in school.
• Afghanistan (2)  Congrats to the Americans! “His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, announces the awarding and presentation of the Commander-in-Chief Unit Commendation to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (United States Army). On behalf of the Governor General, Lieutenant-General Stuart Beare, C.M.M., M.S.M., C.D., Commander Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, presented this honour to the battalion during a ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on May 23, 2012 ….” - more from the U.S. Special Forces Info-machine, The Canadian Press, and the Fort Bragg hometown paper.
• Afghanistan (3)  Column:  “The lesson from Afghanistan should be obvious. But it is one we forget again and again. The lesson is that war is not a game. Nor is it simply a tactic that aspiring middle powers like Canada use to burnish their foreign policy credentials. Clausewitz was wrong. War is not just diplomacy by other means. It is something far more dangerous and should be used sparingly …. Now the Afghan war is a political orphan. Even Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, who came to power promising to win “the good war,” have disowned it. The war, it seems, was no one’s idea — just something that happened. No one has taken responsibility for it. We have again learned nothing.”
• Afghanistan (4)  Column:  “When NATO formally decided earlier this week to pull out of Afghanistan in 2014, no less a global realist than Henry Kissinger grumbled that the exit strategy is now “all exit and no strategy.” Still, that’s preferable to the reverse — strategy without any end in sight. Personally, after a decade of listening to the endless debate between generals and diplomats over how best to deal with Afghanistan, I’ve long felt that NATO was never going to find a clear-cut way to end the insurgency no matter how many bright minds were thrown at the quest ….”
• Afghanistan (5)  “The federal Opposition is calling for the creation of a task force to find ways of dealing with the growing “crisis” among Canadian veterans suffering from war-related mental illness. “There is a reluctance to treat this as a crisis,” said NDP defence critic Jack Harris Wednesday, “but that’s what it is. We are trying to deal with it in a patchwork fashion and we need to find a better way.” In an interview with the Citizen, Harris slammed the Conservative government for announcing a $110-million annual training budget for Afghan soldiers while returning Canadian veterans are suffering from inadequate mental health care. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would contribute $110 million a year to build the Afghan army just weeks after his government cut the budget of Veterans Affairs Canada and slashed jobs of research professionals involved in suicide prevention and monitoring post-traumatic stress disorders. “What about our soldiers we asked to go there?” said Harris. “The cost for their treatment should be made part of the entire mission. Instead of laying people off, we should be dealing with the problem and doing everything we can to make them whole again.” ….”
• Meanwhile, “The Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs, (Wednesday) met with a group of Veterans from the Québec City area who have been getting together for breakfast at the Galeries de la Capitale for more than 10 years. The Minister, accompanied by the former mayor of Québec City and former Lieutenant-Governor of the province, the Honourable Gilles Lamontagne, took time to meet and chat with the former soldiers ….”
• “George Matte, a retired brigadier-general, says too many Canadian soldiers have trouble finding jobs after leaving the military, let alone writing a résumé. That’s why he decided to become executive director of Helmets to Hardhats, a program aimed at helping Canada’s veterans, soldiers and reservists transition into careers in the skilled trades. A fundraiser for the initiative, featuring Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, was held in Woodbridge on Wednesday. Mr. Matte, who worked in public service after serving as a Canadian fighter pilot for 29 years, said he and his colleagues experienced great difficulty re-entering the everyday workforce. “I found the transition to be challenging on many levels,” said Mr. Matte. “One of them is, how do you prepare your C.V.? When you apply for a job, how do you explain what it was you did in the military in a way that the civilian employer will go, ‘OK, I get it. I understand what you did there and we can see value in that.’” Helmets to Homes intends to make that process easier by establishing formal relationships between the Canadian Forces and Canada’s building and construction companies. Apprenticeships and on-the-job training sessions will be reserved for soldiers ….”
• “It has been a tradition for the Government of Canada to offer an official gift commemorating Royal Tours. In recent practice, these gifts have taken the form of federal donations to charitable initiatives that benefit Canadians, in the name of the Royal guests and consistent with their own charitable activities or interests. In honour of the Canadian tour of Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on May 23, 2012, that the Government of Canada will make charitable donations to The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur program and the RCMP Foundation. The Government of Canada will contribute $100,000 to The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur program, which provides recently retired and transitioning members of the Canadian Armed Forces with the education, financing and mentoring needed to launch and sustain successful businesses. Canada will also be providing $50,000 to the RCMP Foundation, which supports community-based volunteer engagement with youth at risk.”
• Way Up North (1)  “The Canadian Forces recognized the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group Tuesday in Yellowknife for the role they played in the aftermath of the First Air crash in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, last August. The Canadian Forces’ Unit Commendation honours a military unit that has performed a deed or activity considered beyond the demand of normal duty. Canadian Rangers were in Resolute on Aug. 20, 2011, as part of the training exercise Operation Nanook, when a 737 passenger jet crashed near the airport. Twelve people on board were killed, three survived. After the crash, rangers guarded the site 24 hours a day. Authorities investigating the crash relied on the Rangers to frighten away polar bears drawn to the site by the smell of rotting food cargo ….”
• Way Up North (2a)  “Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale says she believes a military Cormorant helicopter should have been dispatched to aid in the search for a boy who went missing while snowmobiling in coastal Labrador. Since the death of 14-year-old Burton Winters in February there has been an ongoing debate in the province over the use of military resources. The Department of National Defence has said weather conditions were too poor to fly at the time the call for assistance was made in the Winters case. But Dunderdale says that reason just isn’t good enough. She says the province’s helicopter was able to fly two hours after the assistance call was made and the military could have at least attempted to join the search effort. Dunderdale says it’s one of the issues she wants to discuss in a requested meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. She says a meeting hasn’t yet been finalized.”  More here.
• Way Up North (2b)  “Federal cabinet minister Peter Penashue says Ottawa would by necessity co-operate with a provincial inquiry into the death of Burton Winters, if Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale calls one. Family and friends of Winters have wanted an inquiry into the search for the 14-year-old Makkovik resident, whose frozen body was found outside the community on Feb. 1, three days after he went missing. In an interview with CBC News, Penashue said it is not the place of the federal government to call an inquiry, but said the federal government would take part if the provincial government called one. “We would not be in a position not to co-operate,” Penashue said during an interview recorded Wednesday for On Point with David Cochrane. The full interview will air on Saturday’s program. “This is a legally initiated process and everyone would have to co-operate.” ….”
• Way Up North (3)  Remember this CF helicopter flying into powerlines outside Yellowknife, putting the community in the dark for a bit, during a major Arctic exercise in February?  The initial accident report is out.  REMEMBER – the investigation is still not over!:  “…. The investigation is focussing on aircrew supervision, pre-flight preparations and briefings, aircrew human factors, in-flight decision making, low level flying in the wires environment and the wire strike protection system.”
• Speaking of unpleasantness in flight, remember this explosion/fire on a Hercules transport plane flying in Florida in February of this year?  The initial accident report is out.  REMEMBER – the investigation is still not over!:  “…. The investigation team identified that a stainless steel braided flexible hydraulic line associated with the auxiliary hydraulic system pump was breached where it routed next to an electrical power cable. The ongoing investigation is focussed on the maintenance history of the auxiliary hydraulic system.”  A bit more from The Canadian Press here.
• F-35 Tug o’ War  “Only 6% of Canadians say they give the federal government a passing grade on how it’s handled the F-35 fighter jet program, according to an Abacus Data survey exclusive to QMI Agency. Even among Conservative supporters that number is only 11%. “They recognize and admit that the federal government hasn’t handled the issue well,” says David Coletto, president of Abacus Data. Overall, 32% of respondents say the way the government has handled the F-35 program makes them “much less likely” to vote Conservative in the next election. Coletto says that includes a big chunk of voters who wouldn’t support the party anyway. More interesting for him, says Coletto, is that only 4% of those who cast a ballot for the Tories in 2011 say they’d be a lot more reluctant to do so in the next election in 2015. “It doesn’t look like this issue is a game-changer,” says Coletto ….”
• Canada, U.S. agree to keep a closer, more co-operative eye on outer space  “The Department of National Defence (DND) announced today the establishment of a long-term partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense on Space Situational Awareness (SSA). Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, and Heidi Grant, Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Air Force (International Affairs) signed the SSA Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of their respective departments at National Defence Headquarters, in Ottawa on May 4, 2012. Under the agreement, data from DND’s Sapphire satellite will be contributed to the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, enhancing the ability of both countries to detect and avoid the collision of critical space platforms with orbital debris ….”
• Canadian Special Forces troops training in Florida?  “…. In a mock drill, downtown Tampa was invaded by Special Operations Forces in a rare public display of U.S. military might. Ninety nations showed up to be a part of the special drill, almost never seen by the public. The staged mission was to rescue Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who, under the scenario, was kidnapped by terrorists. Chinook helicopters offered aerial support, and the tactical assault showed up by water. Two special ops teams invaded the “terrorist village” near the Convention Center. Within seconds, Special Operations Forces rescued the hostage, and got him to a safe location …. SOF members from from Canada, Brazil, Australia and many more were part of this staged combat mission.”
• What’s Canada Buying?  “Temperature data loggers” for delivery to CANSOFCOM in Petawawa and to Richmond, Ontario, someone to build a new cenotaph at St. Jean Garrison, and someone to do research into blowing things up better.
• What’s Canada Selling?  Canadian company CAE signs deal with “Armour Sentral, a Malaysia-based technology management and services firm, (and) the National Defence University of Malaysia to develop simulation-based training solutions for the land systems market in Malaysia and the surrounding Asia region ….”
• “Residents of a Scarborough highrise have mixed feelings on whether terrorist Omar Khadr should be allowed into their building to live with his family when he’s released from U.S. custody. Khadr’s mother, Maha el-Samnah and her daughter, Zaynab, have been living for about two years in a Kennedy Rd.-Eglinton Ave. E. area apartment building, which may become home for soon-to-be-released detainee. His release plans call for Khadr, 26, to be transferred from a U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, so he can live in the community under supervision of the National Parole Board. The Khadrs refused to comment on Tuesday about his impending return …. News of Khadr’s return to Scarborough was not welcomed by some of her neighbours. “He shouldn’t be in Canada after what he has done,” said student Shashwad Bokhriyal. “This is a very dangerous man and he should be kept in detention.” Bokhriyal said Khadr should not be walking free in society. Wally, a two-year tenant in the building who did not wish to give his last name, said he used to live 10-minutes away from the World Trade Centre when it was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. “No way (do) I want to see this man here,” he said. “These terrorists don’t play around and no way this man should be here.” ….”
• “Canadian Mounties made an historic ride down the Mall (in London, England Wednesday) as they acted as the Queen’s personal bodyguard. In the run-up to the Diamond Jubilee, the Commonwealth personnel received a special invitation from Her Majesty and have been trained by the Household Cavalry. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took part in the 11 o’clock Changing of the Queen’s Life Guard ceremony with the Household Cavalry. The Mounties became the first non-military unit to guard the Queen during the centuries’ old tradition.” More from media here, here, here and here.
• “Quick, identify the Canadian battalion that celebrates its 75th anniversary this month. If you didn’t guess the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion you’re not alone. Few would. Their founding date, May 1937, will go unheralded and the vets who served with them in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) won’t be celebrating either. Of approximately 1,543 original members, only Jules Paivio is still alive and at 95, he’s too frail to be kicking up his heels …. It’s been 75 years: it’s time to cut these men, their families and their memory some slack. It’s time to accord them their rightful place in the history books and time to give them a thought come next Nov. 11.”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 18 May 12

• Whither Goose Bay? (1)  Remember the “Goose Bay may not be getting what was promised” story?  Defence Minister MacKay had this to say shortly after the story was published:  “I wish to reaffirm that the defence team is working to fulfill our commitment for an operational mandate for Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay so that the Base, and the community, prospers for years to come. Minister Penashue and I look forward to announcing this operational mandate as soon as work is complete. Our government is committed to ensuring a clear operational mandate for 5 Wing Goose Bay that takes advantage of its unique location and enhances the protection of Canadian sovereignty, including in the Arctic ….”  I wonder if that means “we’ll soon have a specific job for Goose Bay to do soon”?  I personally enjoy the thought and imagination that went into the title of the statement.
• Whither Goose Bay? (2)  More on Goose Bay from the House of Commons yesterday, this time from Minister for the area Peter Penashue:  “Mr. Speaker, I can reaffirm that our government is working to fulfill our commitment for an operational mandate for 5 Wing Goose Bay that takes advantage of a unique location and enhances the protection of Canadian sovereignty, including in the Arctic. Since 2006, our government has consistently worked to ensure the future viability of 5 Wing Goose Bay through investments, such as runway resurfacing and decontaminating sites around the base.”  Well, the feds DID spend ~$16M to leverage more than $300M to do environmental clean-up in the area….
• Whither Goose Bay? (3)  In fact, lookit all the recent MERX listings that pop up for “Goose Bay” and “5 Wing” (including a search for someone to provide “site support services” at 5 Wing Goose Bay, with more on that contract – including how DND’ll engage industry and Aboriginal groups as part of the work – in bid documents here)
• Afghanistan  Interested in how many projects Canada funded to help women in Afghanistan, and how much each one cost?  Check out this written response to an MP’s question (via Google Docs)
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1a)  Remember this Canadian Press story?  “The Harper government called in the RCMP to investigate a politically embarrassing story involving the decision to sole-source the purchase of the F-35 stealth fighter, claiming it was a breach of national security, The Canadian Press has learned. The Mounties conducted a five-month review into an alleged leak of cabinet documents under the Security of Information Act, recently used to charge a naval intelligence officer in an apparent spy case ….”  CP Reporter Murray Brewster is kindly sharing the documents this story was based on – check here (Google Docs)  Special thanks to Murray and CP.  More discussion of this story over at Army.ca
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1b)  The Government’s Message on this, from the Public Works Minister:  “Mr. Speaker, the RCMP was asked by the Clerk of the Privy Council to look into a possible unauthorized disclosure of confidential information, which is done from time to time.”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (2)  Opposition MP’s getting antsy about costs again after some reported U.S. defence cuts  “A U.S. Congressional recommendation to cut $528-million from planned F-35 fighter jet acquisitions over the next year suggests the costly project the Conservative government has signed on to may be “crumbling before our eyes,” NDP MP Matthew Kellway says. Mr. Kellway (Beaches-East York, Ont.) and other critics said the reprimand from a powerful budget appropriations panel in the U.S. House of Representatives should make Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) take a serious look at “alternatives.” Despite increasing U.S. Department of Defense requests for spending by a total of $5-billion on a range of other weapons and system procurements, and other defence areas, the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee recommended $528.5-million in procurement cuts for the F-35, Gannet Company’s DefenseNews.com reported. The reduction would be a six per cent drop in the $8.9-billion U.S. Department of Defense request for funding in the 2013 fiscal year, including $5.2-billion for 25 F-35s. Opposition MPs said the U.S. procurement costs for 2013 are an indication of how much the estimated costs for the sophisticated new fighter jets have risen since the Harper government announced in 2010 it intended to acquire 65 air force versions of the F-35 at an initial purchase price of $5.58-billion with an additional $2.98-billion for add-ons and weapons in Canada ….”
• What’s Canada Buying? (1)  Potential bidders get more time to send in a proposal to convert some armoured vehicles and artillery guns into display pieces (via Army.ca)
• What’s Canada Buying? (2)  Wanted: someone to “to design and develop a knowledge-rich agent-based social simulation architecture and to carry out a parameter sweeping analysis of the system to fully understand social identity dynamics in the model and to see where various real world societies lie on this possibility-space of artificial worlds” (software to simulate people from different societies and with different thought processes to help train troops to interact?) – more in bid document extract here
• Way Up North (1)  Remember this CP story?  “Six years after the Harper government declared the Arctic to be a new operations area for the Canadian military, the army has struggled to find enough parkas, cold-weather tents, lanterns and heaters to equip forces that take part in its annual summer exercise. The “critical equipment shortfalls” were so bad last year, the head of the army approved a request by area commanders to buy missing gear themselves, say internal briefing documents ….” More sharing from Murray Brewster/CP – documents here and here (via Scribd.com)
• Way Up North (2)  Researcher wonders if it’s time to consider using more unmanned aerial vehicles to keep an eye on places  “In Canada, could drone technology help with Arctic surveillance? If so, should it lead us to re-think the acquisition of Arctic patrol vessels? What other Canadian military priorities could drones help us to meet at lower cost? These and other questions like them are wide-ranging. The answers could have transformative implications. Now is the time to think them through ….”
• Way Up North (3)  Elsewhere in the Arctic neighbourhood….  “The largest military exercise in the High North, inside and immediately outside the Arctic Circle, since the end of the Cold War (and perhaps even before) was completed on March 21 in northern Norway. Except for the crash of a Norwegian military transport plane in Sweden during its course the world would have been unaware of it. Cold Response 2012 was conducted from March 12-21 primarily in Norway but also in Sweden with the participation of 16,300 troops from fifteen nations as part of full spectrum – air, sea, infantry and special forces – maneuvers against the backdrop of the past three years’ new scramble for the Arctic. The term High North is a translation of the Norwegian designation nordområdene which was adopted by NATO in January of 2009 for its two-day Seminar on Security Prospects in the High North in Reykjavík, Iceland attended by the bloc’s secretary general, chairman of its Military Committee and two top military commanders, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. Four of the five Arctic claimants – the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark – are members of NATO. The other, Russia, is not. In 2010 Norway became the first Arctic nation to move its military command center within the Arctic Circle, transferring the Norwegian Operational Command Headquarters from Stavanger to Bodø, a five-story complex built during the Cold War to withstand a nuclear attack. The preceding year Norway purchased 48 Lockheed Martin F-35 fifth generation multirole fighters ….”
• Here’s why it’s called QUESTION Period, not “Answer Period”:  “Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Eastern Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, when Canadian military personnel serve their country, they do not get to make up their minds. They follow orders. Unfortunately, many of them become disabled. Over 6,500 disabled veterans and their leader Dennis Manuge are asking the government to stop the appeal of Justice Barnes’ decision to end the SISIP clawback. These are the heroes of our country. Unfortunately, they served their country and became disabled. Two different judges have ruled to stop the SISIP clawback. Will the government now serve these disabled people by stopping the legal proceedings, meet with Dennis Manuge’s legal team and pay out the money they so rightfully deserve? Hon. Julian Fantino (Associate Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, we are committed to supporting our veterans and those who have served our country so ably. I would like to also point out for the member that the government has stood up for our veterans and brought a number of programs, which I can list. In that regard, we are also saying, once and for all, that we will not be second to anyone when it comes to looking after our men and women in uniform, those who serve today and those who have served very ably in the past.”
• Former head Canadian civilian in Kandahar Elissa Golberg:  helping doesn’t always mean just sending the troops  “…. Canada does not adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to disaster response, recognizing that needs vary from crisis to crisis, and that our mechanisms must do the same. Financial support, for instance, may include funding through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), civilian-led efforts, the United Nations, and/or, other humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement. This is often the most effective means of providing life-saving assistance, as these operations are on the ground, able to recognize the most urgent needs of the affected areas. However, Canada also maintains emergency relief stocks that can be shipped quickly, and can deploy pre-identified Canadian civilian technical and humanitarian experts – including a Canadian Red Cross field hospital – when additional support is needed. In certain situations, when local and international capacities to respond are overwhelmed, Canada can, and does, deploy Canadian Forces personnel and assets. In specific contexts, the Canadian Forces bring unique capabilities and can provide valued logistics support (including airlift), or medical, engineering, and communications expertise to assist in responding to natural disasters ….”
• Analyst on how General Leslie’s recommendations on reorganizing DND’s “head shed” should be done:  “…. Leslie’s analysis was as meticulous as it was shocking. Between 2004 and 2010 the number of people in DND/CF grew by 18 per cent. The regular force grew by 11 per cent, but the number of full-time reservists at NDHQ grew by 22 per cent and the number of civilians by 33 per cent. In sum, the non-operational “tail” grew by 40 per cent; the front-line trigger-pullers — the “tooth” — by 10 per cent. His recommendations were obvious: reduce NDHQ staff, especially civilians, consultants, and full-time reservists, but maintain expenditures on spare parts, capital and infrastructure, to maintain future effectiveness. Unfortunately, the most valuable part of the DND/CF “diarchy,” namely the front-line forces, are also the most vulnerable when it comes to cuts. We all know that Canadians do not admire the Canadian Forces because of the valiant work of tweedy, bow-tied civilian consultants at NDHQ. We also know how good bureaucrats are at protecting themselves and that their measure of success has nothing to do with military effectiveness or taking care of veterans. This is the context within which to understand the F-35 controversy. Of course the RCAF requires an “affordable replacement” for the CF-18. The serious strategic question is this: 20 years hence, will Canadian pilots be flying an up-to-date or obsolete aircraft? Gen. Leslie’s report has provided the government with principles for decision and excellent detailed advice. They have an opportunity to act in the interest of all Canadians. Even with fiscal restraint, all it takes is leadership.”
• Oopsie – glad nobody was injured  “A Snowbird jet was damaged when it hit a bird during the aerobatic team’s first show of the season. The military precision flying team’s performance over 15 Wing Moose Jaw on Wednesday was going well until one of the Tutor jets struck the bird. Team lead Major Wayne Mott says they stopped the show so the pilot could land, then re-started the performance. Mott says the minor damage to the plane should be fixed by Friday when the team leaves for a Winnipeg show this weekend ….”
• “Prime Minister Stephen Harper …. announced that he will travel to the United States to participate in the G-8 Leaders’ Summit at Camp David, Maryland, on May 18 and 19, 2012. He will then participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit in Chicago, Illinois, on May 20 and 21, 2012. At the G-8 Summit, Prime Minister Harper will reinforce Canada’s commitment to working with international partners to bring forward concrete solutions to the world’s most pressing economic, political, social and security challenges …. At the NATO summit, Prime Minister Harper will reinforce Canada’s commitment to helping advance ongoing issues that are central to the success of the Alliance. The Prime Minister will be joined by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay ….” - more from media here
• Defence Minister speaks to Lithuania’s Defence Minister
• Defence Ministers says “way to go” to latest Royal Military College graduating class

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 17 May 12

• Afghanistan  The latest tally of wounded (April 2002 through 31 Dec 11), according to a written response to a question from an MP:  635 “wounded in action”, 1412 “non-battle related injuries”
• Here’s a chance to listen to Canada’s first ROCK (Representative of Canada in Kandahar) Elissa Golberg “imagine what role the military can play in complex crises” as part of an online discussion organized by the Canadian International Council - the topic of this morning’s (11am Eastern) discussion:  “the role the Canadian military can play in disaster relief operations abroad.”
• Where’s the Chair of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Been Travelling?  Check out the discussion over at Army.ca, where some folks seem…. underwhelmed by the Chair’s travel itinerary of late.
• “Researchers studying the brains of soldiers exposed to blast injuries have found evidence of a degenerative disease also detected in athletes who have suffered repeated blows to the head, raising a worrisome prospect for thousands of combat veterans. Scientists from the United States and England say brain tissue in four American military members showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a progressive disease normally linked to repetitive concussions. The condition has been identified in more than a dozen professional football players who have died after suffering multiple concussions …. Patric Stanton, a cell biologist at the New York Medical College, said the international team of scientists found telltale signs of the disease in veterans exposed to even just one blast from an improvised explosive device  …. Col. Rakesh Jetly, a senior Canadian Forces psychiatrist, said he had read the Boston University report and was awaiting further details on the research. He added that the Canadian Forces has created a special panel on managing brain injuries in the military. “The Canadian Forces Health Services is constantly studying evidence-based research related to blast exposure and seeking ways to improve care to personnel suffering from brain injuries,” he said in an emailed statement ….”  You have to pay to access the entire paper, but here’s the journal abstract and here’s the University’s news release on the study.
• “The Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) is pleased to be working with the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) chapter at Memorial University in Newfoundland to help Canadian Forces members transition to civilian life by launching and sustaining successful businesses. Uniquely Canadian, The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur is an exclusive national program for transitioning or transitioned Canadian Forces members interested in becoming entrepreneurs. It offers them entrepreneurial education and business planning support, access to start-up and growth financing, specialized business mentoring, the opportunity to attend entrepreneurship boot camp and networking and community support. The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur program is supported by Prince’s Charities Canada, the Department of National Defence (DND), Veteran Affairs Canada (VAC), and Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE). The program was created and built upon the foundation of the CYBF’s 16 years of experience in mentoring and financing new entrepreneurs and the “Based in Business” educational boot camp offered by SIFE Memorial ….”
• Q)  When is the first official mention of a project to convert Leopard tanks into armoured engineer vehicles not really an “announcement”?  A)  When it’s a “Backgrounder” that doesn’t include 1)  a Ministerial quote or 2)  any dollar amounts.  You can also see the CF Info-machine announcement Backgrounder here if the link above doesn’t work.
• Looks like Goose Bay isn’t getting its promised battalion of troops or unmanned aerial vehicle unit anytime soon – here’s the 2006 letter from Stephen Harper promising this (PDF), some discussion here and here on this over at Army.ca, and here’s part of a written response to an MP’s question on that very issue (PDF) from this story from CBC.ca:  “…. (Defence Minister Peter) MacKay confirmed “there are currently no plans” to establish a 650-member battalion at 5 Wing. As for the unmanned aerial vehicle squadron in Goose Bay, there is nothing firm on the horizon for that either. “As part of the [defence strategy], there will be a surveillance ‘system of systems’ that will be comprised of sensors, unmanned vehicles and satellites that will keep Canada’s maritime approaches safe and secure, including in the Arctic,” MacKay’s response notes ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1)  No sign of the obtained documents mentioned in this Canadian Press story being shared yet, so no word on what else might be in them. “The Harper government called in the RCMP to investigate a politically embarrassing story involving the decision to sole-source the purchase of the F-35 stealth fighter, claiming it was a breach of national security, The Canadian Press has learned. The Mounties conducted a five-month review into an alleged leak of cabinet documents under the Security of Information Act, recently used to charge a naval intelligence officer in an apparent spy case. Records obtained under the Access to Information Act show investigators had doubts almost from the outset in July 2010 that any laws were broken in the Globe and Mail story. The story revealed angst within government about possible alienation from Washington if a competition was held to replace the air force’s CF-18s. Still, the review pressed ahead and drew in one of the RCMP’s four Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams, whose job it is to chase terrorism threats. It was shut down in December 2010 for lack of evidence ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (2)  Yet ANOTHER worry (for some, anyway)  “And then there was the software. Already, the F-35 program has been singled out as a target for international hackers and now a former vice-chairman of the U.S. military Joint Cheifs of Staff is raising the issue again. Marine Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright told the Joint Warfighting Conference that he fears the F-35 could prove to be as vulnerable to enemy hackers as older Humvees were to roadside bombs, according to a report from AOL Defense. “We built the F-35 with absolutely no protection for it from a cyber standpoint,” he said, adding that there ought to be a switch that can shut off the aircraft’s electronic transmission functions in case enemies access them. Cartwright’s words come only months after Chinese hackers broke into computers owned by UK defence manufacturer BAE in an attempt to steal details about the F-35’s design and electronic systems ….” – more from blogger/info curator Mark Collins on this worry
• F-35 Tug o’ War (3)  Meanwhile, an American analyst wonders if the Chinese will see as much angst over the development of their own next generation fighter.
• Taliban Propaganda Watch  Taliban web page calls for protests leading up to NATO leaders’ meeting in Chicago (links to non-terrorist site)
• “Four members of the Royal Canadian Navy will be given the opportunity to avoid having a criminal record for impersonating police. The Crown has agreed to refer the charge against the sailors to the province’s adult diversion program, a Dartmouth provincial court judge was told Wednesday. If the young men accept responsibility for their actions and meet the terms of a contract to be drawn up by a probation officer, the charge will be withdrawn by the prosecution. The four men were charged after someone in a car pulled in behind a vehicle that was parked on Bissett Road in Cole Harbour on March 25 at about 1 a.m. and activated blue and red flashing lights on the dash and a siren. After the fake police car pulled away without anyone getting out, the people in the other vehicle called 911. A few minutes later, RCMP stopped a Dodge Avenger matching the description of the suspicious car and arrested the four occupants for posing as police ….”
• PM: No need to worry about doing business with that big Chinese telecom  “Mr. Thomas Mulcair (Leader of the Opposition, NDP): Mr. Speaker, earlier today, the Minister of Public Safety stood by a Conservative decision to roll out the red carpet for a Chinese company called Huawei. Huawei will be allowed to buy up key telecommunications assets in Canada, despite the fact that the United States and Australia have blocked it from major telecom projects due to serious national security concerns. The United States and Australia are two of our closest allies. They still see the risk. Why did the Prime Minister choose to ignore their warnings? Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP is speaking of some contractual relationships between some Canadian companies and foreign companies. The particular concerns that he raised in fact have been addressed. Those concerns have been examined and those concerns have been addressed in our mind. I would remind the leader of the NDP that we do not take dictates on security from the United States.”
• A piece of Canadian underwater military history is closer to having a permanent home near London, Ontario  “The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence, has signed an agreement that will allow the Elgin Military Museum in St. Thomas, Ontario, to take possession of one of the Royal Canadian Navy’s decommissioned submarines – the former HMCS Ojibwa – for permanent, public display. HMCS Ojibwa is an Oberon-class submarine, commissioned in 1965 and removed from operational service in 1998. Ojibwa was one of three Oberon-class diesel-electric submarines acquired in the 1960s by the RCN; the others being Onandaga and Okanagan. A fourth Oberon-class submarine, Olympus, was acquired in 1989 to serve as a stationary training vessel in Halifax …. The museum will fund the physical transfer of the 90-metre Ojibwa from Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, to a site at Port Burwell, Ontario, and Ojibwa’s establishment as a museum open to the public.”  More from the museum’s home page on the project here (including their news release), from hometown media here and here – also, a bit more of the history of the hunt for a home for HMCS Ojibwa here (via Army.ca)
• “Swaths of academics and historians have descended upon the Greek island of Thasos to investigate newfound airplane wreckage on the side of a mountain. But it is a local amateur sleuth who may be the closest to solving a 95-year-old mystery involving the disappearance of a Canadian First World War pilot. Details on the life of Flight Lieutenant Warner Hutchins Peberdy are largely confined to a graduation photograph from the Curtiss Aviation School in Toronto and a series of scrawled records locked in the British National Archives. Mr. Peberdy left the British Airfield in the village of Prinos on an ill-fated reconnaissance mission in January 1917 and has since been considered missing in action, presumed dead in the Aegean Sea ….”
• War of 1812  “The Grande Parade and Military Tattoo on June 23, 2012 will be one of the largest 1812 Bicentennial celebrations in North America, and General Rick Hillier will be there to salute the passing procession as the Honourary Parade Marshal. General Hillier is the Former Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Forces, the highest rank in the Canadian Forces. He held this position from February 2005 until his retirement in July 2008 after a 35-year long career in the Canadian Forces. This June, General Hillier will commemorate the War of 1812 as the Honourary Parade Marshal at the largest 1812 Bicentennial parade in North America. The parade will take place in Fort Erie, ON, on the ground that was once the most contested site in North America during the War of 1812 ….”

MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 27 Jan 12

• Where do we move those search-and-rescue planes?  (BTW, no sign of the Toronto Star sharing the “obtained” report)  “The military’s response to search-and-rescue calls could be improved by moving aircraft out of Canada’s largest East Coast base, according the air force’s most recent performance analysis. But the study finds little reason for a dedicated Arctic rescue team, despite high-profile disasters last year that led to renewed calls for a more robust northern presence. The report, obtained by the Star under the Access to Information Act, proposes moving two Hercules more than 600 kilometres north from their Nova Scotia home to Stephenville, N.L. The Greenwood, N.S., transport and rescue squadron has been based there since 1968, responsible for distress calls over an almost 5.2 million-square-kilometre area stretching from Quebec City east to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and from Nova Scotia north to Iqaluit. Using a formula that weighs geographic coverage of Canada with response times to distress calls, the 2011 report says the move could provide a substantial improvement in performance.  An RCAF spokesperson said that the study, along with ongoing plans to purchase new search-and-rescue airplanes when the current fleets are removed from service between 2015 and 2017, will be used to determine the best locations for Canada’s search-and-rescue crews. “This study will be used with many others to inform future decisions on SAR basing,” Maj. Sonia Dumouchel Connock said in an email ….”
• Libya  New tyrants, same as the old tyrants?  “The new leaders of Libya, helped to power by an air war waged by Canada and major allies, were denounced as torturers Thursday by major international groups. The Canadian leader of Amnesty International called on the Harper government to use its influence with Libya’s new transitional government to put an end to the abuse of prisoners, documented by the organization in a new report. And Doctors Without Borders said it was suspending its work in Libyan prisons because of rampant torture of detainees. The group said it was pulling out of the city of Misrata because some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation. Amnesty said several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in recent weeks and months, and cited wide-spread, ill-treatment of loyalists of deposed dictator, Moammar Gadhafi ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1a)  “U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed Thursday that $488 billion U.S. in Pentagon budget cuts will affect his country’s plans to purchase the troubled F-35 joint strike fighter — which likely will threaten Canada’s timeline for acquiring the stealth fighter as well ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1b)  “The federal government is reviewing Canada’s planned purchase of up to 65 F-35s after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed Thursday his country will be slowing production on the troubled stealth fighters. Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino said in a statement the government is still committed to the F-35 program, but that he had ordered defence department officials in Ottawa to investigate what implications the Pentagon’s decision would have on Canada ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (1c)  Associate Minister Fantino’s update: “…. We continue to monitor the progress of the multinational Joint Strike Fighter Program closely and exercise responsible stewardship of taxpayers’ hard earned dollars. “That is why I have instructed officials to review the implications of the United States’ announcement on Canadian Forces’ readiness so that they may be incorporated into preparations for the replacement of our aging CF-18 fleet. “Information we have received indicates that the impact on Canada’s procurement plans is minimal at this stage. As has been the case up to the present, we will continue to monitor developments closely ….”
• F-35 Tug o’ War (2)  “…. With U.S. defense budget cuts looming and many critics of the program still unconvinced, foreign support is a make-or-break issue for the program, which has been described as too big to fail. It could become the cornerstone of global air strategy for the next few decades, or a trillion-dollar bust. “The U.S. fighter jet industry has all of its eggs in this one basket,” said Richard Bitzinger, a security expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. So many countries have bought into the program, he said, there is now no realistic choice but to forge ahead with it. “It would be almost impossible for the U.S. to cancel the F-35, since the repercussions would be global,” he said ….”
• “The manufacturer of the air force’s new maritime helicopter has told National Defence it will deliver only five test aircraft this year — opening the door to tens of millions of dollars in fines on a project the auditor general has said is late and over budget. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. is supposed to deliver a “fully mission capable” version of the CH-148 Cyclone helicopter by June, or face a further $80 million in contract penalties on top of $8 million the federal government has already levied. Senior defence officials say safety certification of the aircraft is still ongoing and it’s highly unlikely the giant U.S. aircraft-maker will meet its target, even though the program is years behind schedule. “Sikorsky are only committing to deliver five by this year, which will be training aircraft,” said a high-level defence source, who spoke to The Canadian Press on the condition of anonymity. The Cyclones are the highly touted replacement for the CH-124 Sea Kings, which will mark a milestone 50 years in service in 2013 ….”
• What’s Canada Buying?  Someone to carry out “analysis and software development in order to prototype a system that makes use of various COTS and OEM software used in mine countermeasures (MCM) operations …. to demonstrate ene-to-end MCM operation with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles …. ” and someone to “…. design and fabricate an underwater magnetic signature collection system which is essentially the array and the associated interface components and connecting cables …. in support of the Halifax Class Modernization Project (to) be used to measure the magnetic signature of Canadian warships when they are deployed on operations around the world ….”
• Happy 50th, Canadian Coast Guard, from the PM and the Defence Minister!
• “The family of a woman murdered by convicted sex killer Russell Williams is suing the former military commander and his estranged wife. Williams, who was once a rising star in the Canadian Forces, was sentenced to life in prison in October 2010 after pleading guilty to the murders of Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau. Lloyd’s brother, Andy, says he and Lloyd’s mother, Roxanne, have filed a statement of claim in Belleville’s Ontario Superior Court of Justice which, among other details, seeks damages for the mental suffering they say they’ve had to endure. Andy Lloyd, 31, says the family wants a fast resolution to the suit so that they can put the experience behind them and move on with their lives. He says the last two years have been “quite a struggle” and both he and his mother are seeing counsellors for the depression they’ve had to deal with ….”  More on this here.
• “Five years after Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a historic apology to Chinese Canadians, a new photo exhibition opened today in Vancouver honouring the history of World War II veterans of Chinese heritage. Nearly 100 people packed into the exhibit launch of the multi-room archive of photographs, anecdotes and documents – titled Chinese Canadian Veterans: Loyalty to Country – today at the Chinese Cultural Centre. Roughly a quarter were veterans themselves, many of whom guided visitors around the exhibit and shared their stories of both heroism and discrimination ….”