Features
TracShare: Networking the maritime picture
“What we are doing with TracShare is developing a maritime social network.” Dr. Tony Ponsford’s use of “social network” grabs your attention. But what Ponsford, an engineering fellow with Raytheon...
Distributed security in the cyber ecosystem
Named to the Order of Ontario in January, Ron Deibert, a professor of political science and director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, is a leading voice on digital technology, advising...
Be wary of off-the-shelf options
In recent years, the government of Canada has been looking at renewing the federal fleets. Without a doubt, this is the largest and most ambitious shipbuilding initiative since the Second World War. The...
Maximizing Canada’s ship buying power: The value of off-the-shelf modified designs
The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) is the federal government’s program to build fleets of combat and non-combat vessels in support of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the Canadian...
Close Combat Vehicle: A solution to the IED threat
Incorporating lessons learned into battlefield strategy and adapting equipment and tactics to the less conventional methods of warfare seen in recent times will be critical to reducing casualties in future...
In The News
While regions of the country from Alberta to New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador have been pitching the development of designated areas for testing and operating unmanned aircraft – Happy Valley Goose Bay has been one of the more prominent – the town of Alma, Quebec has quietly made it happen. Last week, the municipal [...]
General Dynamics Canada has developed what it calls the next-generation of airborne acoustic processing systems, the UYS-505 system, also known as VENOM. Built specifically for fixed and rotary-wing applications, it leverages advances in commercial hardware and innovations in signal processing technologies to maximize the detection of submerged threats in deep and coastal waters. In line [...]
It probably comes as no surprise to those in business, but almost 70 percent of Canadian defence and aerospace companies have experienced some sort of cyber attack within the previous 12 months, according to a study by the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA). Last fall at SecureTech in Ottawa, ICSPA announced an anonymous survey [...]
Opinions
During a recent presentation to the Canadian Security Partners’ Forum, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the former director of Combating Terrorism for the White House National Security Council, reminded the audience of the link between national security and corporate security. Corporations, she said, will need to approach intelligence gathering much as governments do. “If you don’t have good [...]
The Global Positioning System, or GPS, is vital for military navigation. But its inherent weaknesses are also spurring rapid innovations in navigational technology. Part of the challenge arises from the push and pull relationship between civilian and military use of GPS, which can be found everywhere in civilian applications, from cell phones to spacecraft, for [...]
Focus On: JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER
As the chief test pilot for Boeing F/A-18 programs, Ricardo Traven has a bias for the Super Hornet. But as someone who has flown both the NATO and NORAD missions of the Royal Canadian Air Force, he has a distinct vantage point on Canada’s acquisition of its next generation of fighter aircraft. Following an RCAF [...]
AT A CEREMONY IN LATE SEPTEMBER, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL YVAN BLONDIN ASSUMED COMMAND OF THE ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE. A FIGHTER PILOT WITH OVER 3,000 FLYING HOURS IN HIS 32-YEAR CAREER, BLONDIN HAS SERVED IN BOTH NATO and NORAD COMMANDS AND MOST RECENTLY AS DEPUTY COMMANDER OF THE RCAF. HE SAT DOWN WITH VANGUARD TO DISCUSS PRIORITIES, [...]
The F-35 project has attracted more media attention than any other Canadian procurement in recent history. Claims of poor government communication, misleading cost estimates, and defence procurement incompetence have dominated the headlines for some time now. Through all this, we have lost sight of the fact that Canada needs a new fighter to replace the [...]
