MILITARY PROCUREMENT

you can thank 80 years of relative global peace for ensuring that Canada’s consistent failure to equip its military is usually just an embarrassment, and not a national tragedy. Our soldiers can’t go to shooting competitions without their Second World World-era pistols seizing up. The navy’s only resupply vessel is a hastily converted commercial ship that can’t enter war zones. The RCAF is so accustomed to flying planes that are decades past their service life that Canadian military contractors are now sought-after leaders in the niche realm of patching up antique airframes.

The reason for these failures are wellknown: Fiscal neglect, understaffing, and politicians wholly unable to resist the temptation to meddle in military contracts. And this is definitely a bipartisan problem. Whether the government is Conservative, Liberal or some minority parliament mixture of the two, Ottawa is pretty committed to ensuring that the mere act of firing a Canadian Forces service pistol will slice off chunks off your hand.