In 1993, it was the EH-101. The right helicopter for the mission purchased at a good price.
Used as a scapegoat by Liberal leader Jean Chretien during the federal election campaign, axed unceremoniously once Chretien took office.
The price to Canadians? Lives and hundreds of millions of dollars - if not billions - above what it would have cost to carry on with the EH-101 purchase.
In the end, the air force got the EH-101 for search and rescue but was forced to purchase a second-rate aircraft for its naval requirement in a process that also drove up long-term costs to Canadians through the purchase of a second aircraft (savings from a single aircraft with a single spares requirement went out the window.)
Heck, the American president will be flying in the EH-101; our navy is using an aircraft even the American military hasn't bought, thereby reducing its inter-operability with a key ally and...yet again...driving up our long term costs solely because of political folly.
Watch apologists rush forward to point out the military made the decision on the SH-92.
Then watch the same politicos rush forward to slag the military for having "too much" control over defence procurement, thereby prompting the latest exercise in the cynical, pointless political theatre called defence procurement.
Here's the short answer:
In the tactical lift helicopter procurement, there simply isn't another helicopter worth buying except the CH-47 Chinook.
In the Herc replacement, there simply isn't another capable airframe. The A-400 hasn't even flown yet; we need the aircraft now based on a requirement that sat unaddressed under the Liberals.
In the SAR role, we are buying a decent aircraft that combines the capabilities of two aircraft currently filling the role and doing so with one dedicated to the search and rescue mission. In the current situation, we are flying transport aircraft (Hercules) on SAR missions, thereby taking them away from their primary task. The slight change in airspeed requirements (from a max of 130 knots to 140 knots) should not wipe out competitors - the Globe story on this is sheer bunk.
But overall, this sort of nonsense - both from the Globe and from the Liberal, Blochead and New Democrat tag team - is sadly what Canadians get when it comes to defence.
For far too long, defence procurement in this country has been about political pork. Successive Liberal and Conservative regimes have wasted billions - literally billions - solely to satisfy civilian, partisan needs to pay off political supporters or create jobs in underdeveloped regions of the country.
More often than not the equipment purchased - like the LSVW currently squealing its brakes all over Afghanistan - is a second-rate, clapped-out POS that would never have been selected by a process dominated by operational military requirements as the major criteria for selection.
The Liberals reviewed procurement in 1994 and the Liberal dominated committee recommended more off-the-shelf purchases in order to save money and get needed equipment to our soldiers, sailors and air crew.
The result? A weapons-effects simulator (WES) purchase that took 13 years from inception to delivery. WES has been on the market since the early 1980s.
Off-the-shelf doesn't equal a decade and a half.
That's just one. Your humble e-scribbler has been studying this issue for a couple of decades.
There is a need to shake-up up defence-related procurement in Canada but it damn-well isn't a shake-up like the opposition parties are suggesting.
The shake-up needs to be among the grossly irresponsible and grossly ignorant politicians who use defence procurement solely as a means of scoring political points.
Like now.
Sadly, the men and women of the Canadian Forces are the perfect patsy for our pissant politicians.
Their needs offer the chance for billions in public money the politicians can spread at whim among their buddies. The costs - in cash and lives - are borne by someone other than the politician who thinks its a great idea to buy a shovel and a rifle-shield in one combination based on a design by a political secretary all in the name of "civilian oversight".
It's enough to make your humble e-scribbler consider running for public office just to sort out the crap.
