Canada to Spend $5.0Bil on AEW Aircraft

[dimsum]

The only Van Isle option would be Comox. Tofino isn’t even a wet dream.

Comox is out out the running for MOB West due to infrastructure costs and sacrificing the golf course.

We don’t need to position our AEW near a coast. USAF has its majority of E3 living in the central state of Oklahoma. We would fly each day to the coasts or wherever the exercises were running and then RTB each day. Deployments were a one stop flight from OKC to CENTCOM with good use of tanker support and extra crew.

Great. Now you’ve done it.

Winnipeg for the (only) AEW MOB.

 

[Cloud Cover]

YYF.- Former RCAF Station Penticton, currently very active municipal airport and wildfire base. Room for more large hangars.

737 routinely fly in/out and Boeing has an office there. I’ve seen Hercs on the ramp as well.

Great place to live. Lots of cherries, mountains, skiing, golf, hiking, camping, hunting, boating. Very mild winters, nice hot dry summers. Close to YLW, connect to anywhere. Good public schools, colleges, UBC all nearby. Seems to be affordable. Acreages abound.
Drive up to my place and cowboy about.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I keep telling you people: Mirabel has tons of room. On the North side of Montreal, so reasonable rental / housing market, and within easy reach of loads of employment for spouses / family. Bonus: easy commuting to all the activities in Montreal.

Quebec itself is a no go for me. Not interested in anyway in living in Quebec.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Quebec itself is a no go for me. Not interested in anyway in living in Quebec.

I like Quebec except the Montreal area. The Saguenay region is beautiful.

 

[Baz]

The whole dea here is to show that we are spending a lot of money on defence, not actually defending.

That sounds like the NDPs response in the Defence Committee’s report on procurement. Which may be a good point…

 

[ytz]

The procurement seems to be about how much money can be spent and the big clue is the bizarre numbers of 3- 5 aircraft. Where did that come from? Likely not enough in numbers to have one in the air more than a few hours per week.

3-5 aircraft is how many the RAF is fielding. And just slightly less than what the Aussies have. And on par with fleet size for other users like South Korea and Turkey.

These are high value low density assets. 3 frames would be enough for Force Generation and NORAD taskings. 5 frames would be enough for an additional line of tasking overseas.

 

[ytz]

IIRC no other province has language ‘protection’ like La Belle Province…

No other province has to worry about cultural extinction. You're probably not aware. But Louisiana is the Boogie man that every Quebec nationalist politician talks about: a place with a lot of French surnames and a dwindling number of native and bilingual French speakers every year.

 

[ytz]

AEW aircraft aren’t necessarily on constant patrol unless you’re in an active conflict.

I thought most people in this forum would know better by virtue of experience. There's some CBC News comments section analysis going on here where people assume we're running CAPs 24/7 off Ellesmere Island waiting for Ivan.

 

[ytz]

Great. Now you’ve done it.

Winnipeg for the (only) AEW MOB.

You jest, but that's a highly likely outcome. Lol.

 

[ytz]

That sounds like the NDPs response in the Defence Committee’s report on procurement. Which may be a good point…

The problem with this thinking, is that it doesn't do much for us to buy credit with allies, if our efforts are insincere. They aren't dumb. They will realize that more money is going towards new basing arrangements that could have bought more kit.

More broadly too, this is less about NATO than our Five Eyes relationships. Nothing is more important to Canada than the US first and Five Eyes second. NATO is a distant third. Politicians say all kinds of things. But as soon as they are in government, they discover that in practice this is how our foreign policy is designed. This is exactly why AUKUS was a painful surprise to Ottawa. With that in mind, playing games to artificially inflate spending, is not going to deliver the results we want, with the partners we prioritize.

 

[Good2Golf]

There's some CBC News comments section analysis going on here where people assume we're running CAPs 24/7 off Ellesmere Island waiting for Ivan.

I think Reddit would be more accurate in it’s prognostication…

 

[OldSolduer]

Great. Now you’ve done it.

Winnipeg for the (only) AEW MOB.

Winnipeg ain't so bad. I actually like the sound of the jets taking off as I live near the airport and 17 Wing.

 

[ueo]

Quebec itself is a no go for me. Not interested in anyway in living in Quebec.

....tons of employment... Balls, unless ones spouse/dependants are fully capable of functioning in a franco environment. including work places.

 

[ytz]

....tons of employment... Balls, unless ones spouse/dependants are fully capable of functioning in a franco environment. including work places.

Is it that different from every other air force base?

 

[ueo]

Is it that different from every other air force base?

FRranco environment!

 

[SupersonicMax]

FRranco environment!

For practically every base outside of Quebec/NCR:

....tons of employment... Balls, unless ones spouse/dependants are fully capable of functioning in an anglo environment. including work places.

 

[ytz]

For practically every base outside of Quebec/NCR:

....tons of employment... Balls, unless ones spouse/dependants are fully capable of functioning in an anglo environment. including work places.

Exactly. I'm an anglophone and I think it's BS to have a double standard on this.

I think Mirabel is less likely for other reasons. But spousal employment in an area just outside two of the largest metros in the country is unlikely to be a driving factor. Even if in Quebec.

FRranco environment!

And? I think you vastly underestimate economic opportunities in the Greater Montreal area for anglophones. It's definitely better than most of the small bases we end up at. And Mirabel is at least close enough to Ottawa to access some flexible remote work jobs from there.

 

[KevinB]

No other province has to worry about cultural extinction.

The Beothuk in Newfoundland would like to argue that point, if they could…

You're probably not aware. But Louisiana is the Boogie man that every Quebec nationalist politician talks about: a place with a lot of French surnames and a dwindling number of native and bilingual French speakers every year.

I’ve got friends from there, generally most of them even with names like Levesque don’t care about the language as they view their culture more in food than language.

Unlike Canada, we pride ourselves on being a melting pot, not a mixed salad. (I was going to use the word tossed, but that could be misconstrued ) America is a blend of cultures where despite the efforts of Irish in Boston and Italians in NY and Chicago we try to assimilate every group into the country to promote a larger sense of country (and culture given the relative age of North America European culture compared to Europe).

/tangent.

Admittedly as a really terrible French speaker despite taking it till grade 12, I’ve never had an issue in Montreal or even Quebec City, getting by in English — it’s only when you date someone from the interior of the province and you go to visit family that you have a terrible time…

My Arabic is better than my French

 

[dapaterson]

My Arabic is better than my French

Then again, you've been shot at by more Arabic speakers than French speakers.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Then again, you've been shot at by more Arabic speakers than French speakers.

There is still time…