The Medium Support Vehicle System (MSVS) program appears to have hit a road bump. Defence contractor Oshkosh has filed a complaint with the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) alleging that there was a lack of fair conduct and transparency in the process that resulted in awarding an $834 million contract to provide new military trucks to the Canadian Forces to the contractor’s competitor.
In July last year, then Defence Minister Jason Kenny announced that the MSVS program to deliver 1,500 standard military pattern (SMP) trucks, 300 trailers and 150 armour support systems for the vehicles as well as an initial five-year period of in-service support had been awarded to Mack Defence LLC of Allentown, PA. The deal also includes an additional option period of up to 15 years.
The vehicles were to be assembled in the Sainte-Claire, Que facility operated by Prevost, a partner of Mack.
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The government estimates that the deal will create 590 new jobs and maintain another 110 jobs across Canada.
Yesterday, however, the Canadian arm of the U.S.-based Oshkosh, Oshkosh Defence Canada Inc., announced that it filled a challenge with the CITT of the Public Works and Government Services Canada’s (now Public Services and Procurement Canada) decision.
“The MSVS SMP competition was intended to provide the most capable technical solution to the Department of National Defence, as well as the best value for Canadian taxpayers,” Wilson Jones, president and chief executive officer of Oshkosh Corp., said in the statement. “We firmly believe Oshkosh provided the overall best value offering for the MSVS SMP.”
Oshkosh was proposing its Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) which is currently in use by the U.S. military.
The statement did not go into detail, however, Wilson said: “Following a thorough review during the past five months, Oshkosh has concluded that there are significant questions regarding the conduct of the MSVS SMP testing and evaluation under the terms of the Request for Proposal that support a formal challenge with the CITT.”
The challenge process is a legal process designed to provide an independent review of Canadian government procurements.
The challenge was initiated by Oshkosh in January 6.