Politics always spoils military procurement

Re: Ontario Firm Launches Lawsuit Over Helicopters, June 21.

Those of us who have spent much of our careers in the Canadian military procurement industry will not be surprised at the government’s decision regarding the directed sourcing of Coast Guard helicopters to Bell. In the 1980s, the Liberal government did the same thing with directing a Bell helicopter as the replacement for the Canadian Forces “Hueys,” despite the fact that National defence had a large project office tasked with an open competition for this replacement.

When acquiring any major equipment, the first thing that should be considered is the existing capability that lies within Canadian industry and the development of project acquisition criteria that would tailor the process so that the probability of the then-current government taking overriding sourcing decisions would not occur. Project acquisition criteria should and must be free of favouring one region of Canada over all others. and be defensible under scrutiny. In the case of maritime projects, the government’s intentions regarding sourcing and keeping Canada’s shipyards going was clearly expressed and governed the competitive process.

This second occurrence of directly or subtly having the government directing a major contract to Bell, maybe politically expedient but is just plain bad tactics.

R. Nash, Stittsville, Ont.