Concerted approach creating greater interoperability
Despite the government-wide push for interoperability, information sharing remains a challenge. Agency culture, turf and legal restrictions all play a part. But increasingly, departments and agencies are looking for “better ways to act collaboratively,” says Capt (N) Ken Hoffer, assistant chief of staff for plans and operations with Maritime Forces Atlantic.
At Defsec Atlantic in Halifax last month, Hoffer told a panel exploring marine security issues that the introduction of the Marine Security Operations Centres on each coast and the regional Joint Task Force structure under Canada Command is forcing the likes of Transport, DND, RCMP, CBSA, Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans, Public Safety and others to be more concerted in their approaches to security.
“All of this requires good sharing of information, good architecture,” he said. “There are still legal issues but procedures are in place” and lessons continue to be learned from joint exercises.
That optimism was shared by Brad Sullivan, an inspector with the RCMP, who noted that while timeliness is still the biggest challenge to information sharing, processes are changing. “Silos are being torn down and we are working together as much as possible within the existing legislation,” he said.
Amendments to the Emergency Management Act last year might further interoperability, suggested Joanne Scarf of Public Safety Canada. Changes to the EMA are intended to ehance collaboration and improve information sharing with other levels of government and the private sector. “We now have the ability to share information with a broader community,” she said.
To push the pace, Hoffer asked industry representatives at the conference for more tools to facilitate rapid information sharing.
IRB program diversifies industry
The mention of industrial and regional benefits (IRBs) may send some defence industry executives running for the door, but Gary Payne isn’t one of them.
Payne, IRB coordinator for the defence and marine branch of General Dynamics Canada, says the rules requiring foreign companies to invest in Canadian firms to build their major platforms have helped GDC grow. From one office in Ottawa, the company has expanded to Halifax and Calgary, and is considering Vancouver.
“[IRBs] drive you to that type of diversification,” he told an audience at Defsec Atlantic in Halifax last month.
Payne had a few pointers, however, for companies grappling with the rules: relationships with regional firms must be beneficial to all “or at some point it is going to go off the rails;” and any partnership must lead to long-lasting development, not one-off deals. He also stressed the importance of evaluating all IRB aspects of the contract before the end of the process.
IRBs will be applied to almost all defence procurement over $100 million, but Industry Canada is exploring ways to improve how they are applied, said Greg Browning, senior manager of defence IRBs. As it moves forward with major navy and coast guard builds, the government wants long-lasting participation and consistent and reliable application of the IRB policy so that industry “gets a fair shake,” he said.
To avoid problems, however, he stressed use of the audit process earlier in contracts to ensure that builds are not off track. In the current procurement environment, he also advised companies to be prepared and “face the reality that we will [see] pretty significant contract amendments.”
The lengths of contracts require good relationships between DND, IC and industry, he concluded.
Major navy builds pose workforce challenge
Is it time to consider allocating navy shipbuilding contracts so that everyone gets a piece of the pie?
With the Joint Support Ship down to the final two contenders and major navy builds such as modernization of the Halifax class frigates, replacement of the destroyers and arctic patrol vessels on the horizon, some are wondering if there isn’t more than enough work to go around.
“I think we are at least ready to enter into dialogue about it,” said Andrew McArthur, president of McArthur Consultants and a board member of the Shipbuilding Association of Canada. “[The association] has discussed it.”
Some are also questioning whether Canadian industry can handle the pending workload.
The $2.9 billion JSS contract, expected to be awarded early next year, will be a boon for an industry that has lain dormant for decades.
In a presentation to Defsec Atlantic in September, McArthur said the program could mean 1,200 new jobs and an opportunity to showcase Canadian technology. But he noted that the naval engineering workforce is aging, and though the prospect of consistent work might attract young talent, the program will be competing with Newfoundland and Labrador’s Hebron offshore oil project and continuing investment in the Alberta tar sands.
For that and other reasons, Peter Hayden would like to see a national debate about core naval requirements. “We need to convince government of the need for broad capability.”
The former navy commander says politicians have never been convinced of the need for a navy – it’s been dismissed by some as a “sea-going version of Allied Van Lines” to haul the army’s toys around. “Central Canada just doesn’t understand how broad shipbuilding is, how many trades are affected,” he said.
Hayden, a senior research fellow with Dalhousie University and editor of Canadian Naval Review, said the navy needs a system “flexible enough to adapt to new ideas.” The JSS – part replenishment ship, part sealift, part joint task force command vessel – fits that category, he said.
As with all defence procurement, the JSS program is highly political and “being watched like a hawk” by politicians, media and industry alike, he added, but it has potential to deliver huge benefits.
Afghan suicide bombers being coerced: UN
On Sept. 17, a suicide bomber approach the police station of Nad-e Ali, a small town in Helmand province, and detonated his vest of explosives, killing seven people and marking the 103rd such attack in Afghanistan this year.
If the attacker was anything like previous bombers, he was not “crazed, fanatical or brainwashed,” according to a recent United Nations report on suicide attacks in Afghanistan.
Released on the anniversary of the death of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan’s first known suicide attack in September 2001, the report on more than two dozen failed and alleged suicide attackers concluded that suicide bombers are typically young, poor, uneducated, and easily influenced. They are motivated by grievances with the foreign occupation, anger over civilian casualties and humiliation, but they ”are being coerced or duped into carrying out such operations.” That fact, the report suggests, is a possible reason why many attacks fail.
Suicide attacks are not innate to Afghan culture – in an interview with Vanguard, Afghan ambassador Omar Somad noted that while Afghans have been quick to pick up arms to solve conflict, they have “never subscribed to these tactics.”
The UN report confirmed that Afghanistan does not have a “martyrdom culture.”
“In fact, in Afghanistan it is rare that one can identify, much less celebrate, the attacker and his deed,” it observed.
However, there was a seven-fold increase in suicide attacks between 2005 and 2006, and that trend has continued, though at a slower rate, in 2007.
In addition to reducing civilian casualties, the report recommends that coalition forces take steps to diminish perceptions about the occupation and work through political channels to meet the demands of the population, “cutting corruption, overseeing fair judicial processes and providing basic public services.”
It also recognizes the need to improve Pakistan’s efforts to eliminate “domestic enablers for the insurgency in Afghanistan and address militancy within its own borders.”
