Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!acton From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: Canada's defence : Doesn't anyone care? Message-ID: <1226@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 02:39:54 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1226 Posted: Tue Aug 20 02:39:54 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Aug-85 23:27:30 EDT References: <833@utcs.UUCP> <835@utcs.UUCP> Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) Distribution: can Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 69 Summary: In article <835@utcs.UUCP> shindman@utcs.UUCP (Paul Shindman) writes: > >This is actually an interesting issue, and somewhat timely (well, a >little late is close enuff) with respect to the CF-18 fighter aircraft. > >If you know anybody in the militia, you know how bad their equipment >is (ofter circa Korean War vintage). This point is applicable to all three branches of our armed forces and is not limited to the militia. Prior to acquiring the CF-18s and Auroras the operational squadrons were flying aircraft that were often older than the pilots. Needless to say the weapons and targetting systems on these aircraft wouldn't be very potent in a combat situation. Similar problems hold true for Canada's Navy which spends most of its time in port and under repair. The acquisition of these new aircraft has hardly turned our air force into a lean mean fighting machine. We purchased 18 Auroras (P-3 Orions) and based four of them on the west coast. These planes are responsible for patrolling all the arctic and Canada's west coast. That is hardly a small piece of real estate and not the type of thing that can be done properly with four planes. If the U.S. hadn't told us the Polar Sea was going through the Northwest Passage I doubt if our air force would have discovered it. Who wants to be in the arctic in the summer time when you can be salmon fishing around Comox instead? As for interceptor squadrons, the nearest one is just outside Seattle. With the arrival of the CF-18s the fighter squadron at Comox was moved to Cold Lake Alberta. The original plans (1984) called for a contingent of four planes to be rotated through Comox to provide some method for intercepting and identifying aircraft that penetrated our air space. After the tories again lost the Comox-Powell River riding to the NDP this plan was scrapped. I guess if the locals weren't smart enough to recognize who would be filling the political feeding trough after the last election then they deserve what they got. The Navy out here is of course a joke. They probably couldn't pull over and board a Russian fishing trawler if their lives depended on it. I don't want to demean the men in our Navy but just to point out that the equipment they have to do their job with is totally inadequate. If anything good comes out of the Polar Sea voyage it might be that Canada is a maritime nation and has more than just the Atlantic to worry about. > The other point this gent made >was that Canada's NATO committment could have been made with ground >air-defences, not with aircraft. Apparently the CAF has next to nothing >in the way of modern anti-aircraft weaponry. > Such an approach may be fine for a land locked nation in Europe but it hardly suits a country like Canada. We are sparsely populated and have to assert our sovereignty over vast regions of land and this can be done more effectively by air than on the ground. Living on the inadequately defended west coast I rate the protection of Canada higher on my list of priorities than meeting our meager commitments to NATO. I am sure our allies would be just as happy if we really beefed up our defences in Canada and reneged a bit on our NATO duties for a while instead of making a token gesture to NATO. Part of our NATO duties call for us to send troops to Norway in a crisis so by being better prepared at home we would be more able to meet this promise. It is about time we started to defend ourselves instead of expecting some other countries to do it for us. I don't think we can trust other nations to respect our territorial claims if we don't have a big stick to wail on them with if they don't believe us. To this end we need to acquire a lot more CF-18s, fighting ships and patrol aircraft in addition to providing our army with new equipment. Donald Acton