Month: August 2006

Commenter John Wunderlich picked up on the news that Boeing was planning to cancel production of the C-17. Well, there's a report now that Boeing has in fact told suppliers to cease work on uncommitted aircraft.
The Canadian government is interested in buying four C-17s from Boeing to fill a hole in the country's strategic airlift capabilities and we have officially told Boeing we are interested but negotiations to actually buy some of these things are just now under way.
As I'm technically on holiday this week, I will not be placing any calls to DND or to Public Works to see how, if it all, this latest move by Boeing may affect Canada's ability to buy C-17s.
I can pass on some speculation that I've heard over the last few months from different military and government sources, that being that Canada might be able to snag at least two C-17s that are right now in production and destined for service with the U.S. But beyond that, I don't what else this might mean.
If you happen to be reading this and work for DND or Public Works, feel free to volunteer your opinion your below 🙂

So a month or so ago, a very senior Canadian Air Force officer and I were chatting about Canada’s purchase of new military aircraft. One of the things Canada is buying will be some tactical airlift capacity — machines that will replace the aging fleet of CC-130s made by Lockheed Martin. The conventional thinking is that Lockheed Martin will win the multi-billion dollar deal to supply Canada with the latest version of its C-130 (right) . (Some in Canada’s fleet over 40 years old and are no longer safe to fly.)

This Air Force officer, though, told me I shouldn’t rule out Boeing, which just won the contract for Canada’s strategic or long-haul airlift and for medium-lift helicopters.

Boeing for tactical lift? Seems odd. So I ran this suggestion by some other bloggers who know a lot more than I do about military matters. They had some interesting responses.

One of the reasons I thought this just might make sense was that the Canadian military was floating this Boeing rumour as a means to keep Lockheed Martin honest during the negotiations.

Of course, then I got the bright idea: Hey, I’ll just phone up Boeing and ask if they’re bidding on the tactical airlift. Here’s the response from Boeing’s spokesperson in Ottawa: “They did not, nor do they have plans to, submit a proposal for the tactical contract.”

Well, that’s that, then.

 

Well, with a week to go until the deadline for the Canadian industry to get on board and sign the U.S-Canada softwood lumber deal, the deal’s fate is very much up in the air.

News today from the Globe’s Bert Marotte that the layoffs in the forestry sector in Canada this year is now at 6,000 and counting. Simon Tuck, my officemate here in Ottawa, reports that Canada won another World Trade Organization ruling this week and that may stiffen the resolve of some companies to refuse to back the softwood deal.

There are two key aspects of the deal that puts a lot of power in the hands of industry players. First, companies who would collectively stand to receive 95 per cent of the money coming back from the U.S. have to agree to the deal. So far, it’s not clear that companies controlling 50 per cent of that money are on side. Secondly, any company or organization that has a lawsuit over the issue of illegally collected softwood duties has to agree to drop the lawsuit. So, presumably, if just one company refuses to drop a lawsuit, the deal is scuttled.

Simon, in his story, says companies are not being very forthcoming about their intentions in the days ahead of this deadline. I, too, have been wondering what the following companies will do. All of the following firms or organizations are plaintiffs in civil actions with either or both of the U.S. government and the Canadian government as defendants and, as a result, every single one of them has to agree to drop their lawsuits. I’ve listed the name of the company, provided a link where I could find one, put the head office location is (in brackets) and given their responses, where applicable.

1. AJ Forest Products Ltd. (Garibaldi Highlands, B.C.) “AJ Forest Products has no comment.”
2. Abitibi Consolidated. (Montreal) – No decisions havet yet been made. Company spokesperson said the company’s most senior leadership continues to meet right through the week to assess a course of action for Abitibi. Abitibi is also due about $239–million U.S. in illegally collected duties so it will also be a key decision maker on the the “95 per cent” issue. “What we have said to Mr. Emerson is we need some clarification with respect to the agreement … to reassure [us].”
3. Aspen Planers (Surrey, B.C.) —message left—
4. Buchanan Lumber Sales (Thunder Bay, Ont.) — message left —
5. Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance — making no comments at this time —
6. Domtar (Montreal) — making no comments at this time —
7. Galloway Lumber Co. (Galloway, B.C.) – representative not available —
8. Gorman Brothers  (Westbank, B.C.) – representative not available —
9. Leggett and Platt (Carthage, Missouri)— — messages left —
10. Ontario Forest Industries Association (Toronto) — representative not available until the end of the week —
11. Teal-Jones Group — messages left —
12. Tembec (Montreal) — messages left —
13. Terminal Forest Products (Richmond, B.C.) — messages left —
14. Tolko Industries (Vernon, B.C.) — messages left —
15. West Fraser Timber Co. (Vancouver) — messages left —

The Conservative Party of Canada has a rule, recently ratified by its national council I’m told, which, to some, seems an odd one: Every riding association in the country must hold a nomination meeting prior to the next election — even the riding associations where there is a sitting Conservative MP.

Some groups with a conservative social policy agenda think this rule is terrific because they believe it presents them with a chance to get rid of Conservative MPs who would vote in the House of Commons for the status quo when it comes to same-sex marriage.

Garth Turner, (left)the Conservative MP for the riding of Halton west of Toronto, is one of those MPs who has been “targeted” and Turner put out a press release today on the subject. [Can’t find the link to the release but here’s an item from Garth’s blog which pretty much sets out his thinking on the matter.]

“The rules certainly favour any group who can sign up instant members and then stack a meeting,” Turner says in the release. “And while that is democracy in action, and I respect it, this also means a special interest candidate can emerge whose views might be completely at odds with the majority of people who live in this riding.

Turner’s nomination meeting is set for Sept. 11 but the deadline for new members join the riding association — who will be eligible to vote on Sept. 11 — is this Sunday.

Gerald Keddy (left), the Conservative MP for the Nova Scotia riding of South Shore-St. Margaret’s also voted in favour of same-sex marriage and earned the enmity of individuals like Charles McVety who warned Keddy that he would try to mobilize his supporters to oust Keddy at a nomination meeting. Keddy’s riding association, playing by the rules, called their nomination meeting immediately. As a result, no rival candidate to Keddy could be found in time and, when the deadline passed last Sunday at midnight for rivals to declare themselves, Keddy found himself acclaimed to be the Conservative candidate for South Shore-St. Margarets in the next federal election.

James Moore, the MP for the B.C. riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam is another Conservative who voted in favour of same-sex marriage and may find some interlopers in his riding association looking for a new standard-bearer.

 

Toronto-area Liberal MP Maurizio Bevilacqua and former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae will hold a press conference in just over an hour to announce that Bevilacqua is withdrawing his candidacy for leadership of the Liberal Party and will support Rae’s candidacy.

Mr. Bevilacqua may have some explaining to do about some comments he made in the speech on April 19 that kicked off his campaign. Most took this particular line as a shot at Rae,  who would declare his candidacy shortly thereafter:

“When it came [time] for me to choose a political party, it was the Liberal Party of Canada, my first and only choice.”

Bevilacqua was also seen as the most right-leaning of all candidate and Rae is, well, a former NDP premier :).

 

No one in Ottawa will go on the record at this point to talk about the cost of the evacuation of Canadians from southern Lebanon, but we reported Friday that, according to our sources, the cost to date is about $70–million to pull more than 14,000 Canadians from Lebanon to Canada.

That’s roughly comparable to what the U.S. has spent to pull 15,000 American citizens out of Lebanon. The lion’s share of the American bill — about $38 million CDN — has been to charter commercial aircraft. The Americans have spent another 10.5–million CDN on cruise ships and the rest — about $21–million CDN — is the cost of American military equipment and personnel and U.S. State department personnel.

We have not yet been able to get a breakdown of how much Canada spent on planes and ships.

More Canadian evacuees, incidentally, were rescued today.

If inflation is to be prevented without massive unemployment, there remains only teh control of demand, which, when required, must be primarily achieved by fiscal policy — by the federal budget, with effective emphasis on increases or decreases in taxation … When demand is exerting inflationary pressure, it is far better to restrict consumption through taxes than to cut back welfare spending for the needful and the poor. And better such fiscal restraint than monetary policy operating through murderous interest rates to restrict (primarily) investment spending, with consequent effect on industrial productivity …

– The Affluent Society (4th edition, 1984), p. ix)

… wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding. The poor man has always a precise view of his problem and his remedy: he hasn’t enough and he needs more. The rich man can assume or imagine a much greater variety of ills and he will be correspondingly less certain of their remedy. Also, until he learns to live with his wealth, he will have a well-observed tendency to put it to the wrong purposes or otherwise make himself foolish.

– The Affluent Society (40th Anniversary Edition, 1998, p i)

And in other news … The new head coach of the Minnesota Vikings tells his team that no hazing of rookies will be allowed.

“I'm happy about the situation,” one Vikings rooke told an AP reporter. “I can actually go to sleep at night without being afraid about who is coming to get me.”

 

Boeing, the giant U.S. plane maker, is set to sign a multi-billion dollar contract to supply Canada's military with new jets and new helicopters. The federal government announced late today that it had rejected bids from Boeing's rivals for the aircraft. As a result, the federal government is expected to spend up to $8.3-billion on two contracts with Boeing, based in Seattle, Washington. Ottawa plans to buy four C-17 Globemaster (left) jets from Boeing for about $1.8-billion. These planes, among the largest in the world, are capable of moving immense amounts of equipment or materiel around the world. They can carry, for example, four tanks or the entire DART team. Canada has no such capability right now and rents rides for DART when it needs to move it.

Canada will also spend about $2-billion for 16 CH-47 Chinook helicopters (right) made by Boeing. Ironically, it was the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney that sold off Canada's last Chinooks, a so-called heavy-lift helicopter that can operate in difficult conditions like those in Afghanistan. And, in another ironic touch, the Chinooks that Canada sold were bought by the Dutch who are now using them in — where else? — Afghanistan where, as part of the NATO helicopter contingent there, they are sometimes used to ferry Canadian troops from place to place.

Canada wants the first new helicopters delivered by the summer of 2010 and wants the first jet delivered by late 2008 or early 2009.