Latest news with #CANSEC
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
U.K.'s defence review has lessons for Canada, says former NATO chief
Britain intends to expand its submarine fleet and refresh its nuclear deterrent capability as part of a wide-ranging defence review that one of its authors says Canada should read and take to heart. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who ordered the review, unveiled the plan, saying it is meant to prepare the country to fight a modern war and counter the threat from Russia. "We face war in Europe, new nuclear risks, daily cyberattacks, growing Russian aggression in our waters, menacing our skies," Starmer said during a media availability at the Govan Shipbuilders Ltd. yard in Scotland. He praised Lord George Robertson, the former secretary general of NATO who led the defence review. Robertson also spoke last week at CANSEC, the Ottawa defence arms exposition. On Monday, Starmer said Robertson's review team delivered "a blueprint to make Britain safer and stronger: A battle-ready, armour-clad nation, with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities." At the centre of the review is a plan to replace the U.K.'s existing Vanguard-class nuclear submarines and to expand the fleet to 12 boats, including both nuclear and conventional attack variants. Significantly, the review pledges to update the U.K.'s nuclear weapons deterrent, known as the sovereign warhead programme, a £15-billion ($27.8-billion Cdn) investment. There are growing questions in Europe about whether it can rely on the nuclear umbrella of the United States. Unlike other nuclear military powers, the U.K.'s deterrent is deployed exclusively on ballistic missile submarines, not on land, nor in the air. Britain has at least one ballistic missile boat at sea at all times. The defence plan also calls for the construction of six munitions factories in the U.K. and for closer co-operation between government and the defence industry in order to accelerate innovation to a "wartime pace." In total, the review makes 62 recommendations, which the U.K. government is expected to accept in full. Starmer, as part of his statement Monday, pledged a hefty increase to U.K. defence spending, bringing it to 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic product by 2027, with "the ambition to hit three per cent in the next Parliament." He added, however, the goals are subject to economic and fiscal conditions. Robertson, speaking at CANSEC last week, said there's a lot in the U.K. review for Canadians to consider — a message he conveyed privately to Canadian ministers, including Mélanie Joly, the newly appointed industry minister. In a later interview with CBC News on the margins of CANSEC, Robertson said in order to meet ambitious defence plans, bottlenecks in procurement are going to have to be removed. "We are actually seeing on the battlefield in Ukraine that we can duplicate that. How can we speed up decision-making?" he said. He said there needs to be "a much closer and more intimate relationship between the defence industry and the politicians in charge of defence" so that the decision-makers understand what's needed and what's possible from a company perspective. Robertson met with several defence contractors at the conference. "I get from a lot of the companies here, the Canadian companies here, a degree of frustration about the procurement process," he said. "I think [the ministers] are beginning to see, that if they are going to spend more money on defence, they can only spend it if there is a a more streamlined form of procurement." He said both the U.K. and Canada need to "much more to protect themselves, rather relying endlessly on the Americans, for ammunition and for equipment." Canada updated its own policy in the spring of 2024, under the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau. The re-elected Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney is promising to increase defence spending, as well as buy a fleet of new conventionally powered submarines. Carney has promised Canada will reach the NATO benchmark of two per cent of GDP defence spending by 2030 — or sooner. Robertson, in his interview with CBC News, said it's been frustrating to watch a nation for which he has so much affection "not living up to the obligations" originally set out by the Western military alliance in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea. He said he's encouraged by Carney's pledge.
Korea Herald
02-06-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
S. Korea pitches submarines, howitzers, trainer jets at Canadian defense exhibition
A senior arms agency official visited a Canadian defense exhibition last week for talks on possible exports of South Korean submarines, trainer jets and self-propelled howitzers, the state arms procurement agency said Monday. During his three-day visit to Ottawa from Tuesday, Kang Hwan-seug, vice minister of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, met Judith Bennett, Canada's associate assistant deputy defense minister of materiel, on the sidelines of the CANSEC defense exhibition to brief her on the advantages of South Korea's submarines. Canada is seeking to acquire new conventionally powered submarines to replace its aging vessels, with South Korean shipbuilders competing for the project reportedly worth around $20 billion. Kang also met other officials at the event and pitched the K-9 self-propelled howitzer for the Canadian Army's modernization plan and the T-50 trainer jet for the Royal Canadian Air Force's pilot training program, according to DAPA. (Yonhap)
CBC
30-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
The time when foreign invasions were impossible is over, former diplomats tell defence conference
Social Sharing At the onset of the First World War, Britain's veritable foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, remarked that the lamps were going out all over Europe and "we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." The metaphor has long been considered as the unofficial epitaph to what at the time was the longest run of peace and prosperity on the continent. The retelling of that story has become commonplace since the invasion of Ukraine. It was hard not to think of it this week when listening to both a former NATO secretary general and the man who was Lithuania's foreign minister as they each delivered stark assessments of where the world is going and how it got here. Neither Lord George Robertson, who led the Western military alliance from 1999 to 2003, nor Gabrielius Landsbergis, the Baltic nation's top diplomat for years, argued that we're on the cusp of war. Rather, they both called for clear-eyed deterrence as they delivered separate, sobering messages at the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries annual gathering of defence contractors in Ottawa, known as CANSEC. Even still. The post-Cold War era where nations didn't have to worry about their sovereignty and territorial defence is over, Robertson told the conference. "That world has evaporated, and it will not return even in our children's lifetime," he said. NATO's Article 5 — the pledge of collective defence and that an attack on one was an attack on all — gets all of the attention, Robertson said. But he argued that the third article of the Washington Treaty, which established NATO in 1949, will get more and more attention in the coming months and years. That clause says members must have the individual and collective capacity to resist an armed attack. "In other words, there is an obligation to defend your own homeland, an obligation that was, too often in the past, overlooked as we've looked at the [terrorist] enemy abroad," Robertson said. "There's no longer room for business as usual." It's been that way for more than a decade, he said, following the Russian annexation of Crimea. "As we see every day in the east of Ukraine, the threat of naked aggression and wonton violence in the Euro Atlantic region — it's no longer theoretical, no longer just a remote possibility," Robertson said. "It's real. It's brutal and it's very, very close to us." The challenge today for nations, including Canada, is to stop believing that some things, such as invasions, are impossible. "We need to be alert and wide awake," said Robertson, who admitted in a later interview to being frustrated with Canada's anemic record of defence spending. But he added he's encouraged to see promises to do more from Prime Minister Mark Carney's government. Canada is hoping to soon sign on to a major $1.25-trillion European Union defence-industrial plan known as ReArm Europe. Landsbergis was intensely critical of European leaders, who he says have been hitting the snooze button on defence since the 2008 Russian invasion of neighbouring Georgia. His reaction to the ReArm Europe plan could be summed up in two words: about time. "We're finally starting to see our leaders talk about serious money," Landsbergis said. "The European ReArm plan might be the first step in the right direction." Landsbergis said Europe simply allowed the crisis to build following Russia's annexation of Crimea, rather than taking decisive action. It has been, he said, a wasted decade. "During that time, Europeans said all the right things, but unfortunately very little preparation," Landsbergis said. "After the 2022 [Ukraine] invasion, there was hope that the situation would change dramatically and European factories would start rolling out tanks, howitzers and ammunition. This happened, but not to the extent that one would have hoped." WATCH | Canada plans military buildup in the Arctic: Canada plans Arctic military expansion as part of sovereignty push 15 days ago Duration 2:02 Canada is planning a major Arctic military expansion, boosting its presence by several months each year and inviting more NATO troops to join. The move aims to assert sovereignty and respond to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. NATO does its best to put things in context, saying over the past decade, European allies and Canada have steadily increased their collective investment in defence — from 1.43 per cent of their combined gross domestic product in 2014, to 2.02 per cent in 2024. (Canada currently sits at 1.37 percent of GDP) The increase represents $485 billion US in defence, the alliance says. Landsbergis's criticism, however, was not restricted to the political establishment. He said defence contractors and the corporate world have been equally stuck on the notion of business as usual. "Every conversation I had with defense industry representatives during the years of war would end with a phrase: 'I'm not building anything until you show me the money,'" he said. "And that was the crux of the problem. Europe would talk nice but spend little and business leaders, Putin or anyone who's good at math would see right through it." The lack of urgency, Landsbergis said, was evident in Ukraine's life-and-death fight to hold the line from the advancing Russian army. As a Lithuanian who understands life under Russian occupation, the arming of Ukraine in fits and starts was painful to watch, he said. "Whenever another baby step is taken, I must show gratitude and whisper to myself, 'Better late than never,'" Landsbergis said.
Ottawa Citizen
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Ottawa Citizen
Media outlet demands apology after Ottawa police arrests citizen journalist
A volunteer-operated media outlet is decrying the arrest of one of its volunteer journalists at a protest opposing the CANSEC military trade show in Ottawa on May 28. Article content Article content The North Star, an independent media organization, said Ramona Murphy was one of the 13 individuals arrested by the Ottawa Police Service during demonstrations that sought to disrupt the annual major arms show. Article content Article content Article content Another demonstrator was later arrested in a separate demonstration in front of OPS headquarters on Elgin Street. Article content The North Star said police threatened Murphy with mischief and resisting arrest charges, but she was released without charge eight hours later. Article content 'Arresting a journalist, whether a volunteer or not, is a frontal attack on press freedom,' the news release added. Article content Bruno Le Héritte, a spokesperson for The North Star, said citizen journalists were recognized 'as important as any other journalist.' Article content 'I think everyone who tries to reveal the truth about the world is important,' he said. 'When we say people say we are in a democracy, then we should prove that.' Article content Article content In 2021, Darnella Frazier won a Pulitzer Prize for her recording of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., which set off a global reckoning on racial injustice and police brutality. Article content Article content Le Héritte said those who were doing their job documenting protests shouldn't have to worry about the risk of arrest. Article content The Ottawa Police Service could not confirm whether or not there was an exclusion zone set up for media during the protests against CANSEC. An exclusion zone is a practice by police to place journalists in a specific area and away from a police operation. Article content In an interview, Murphy said that, if there was an exclusion zone, it was 'difficult to ascertain where it was' given how quickly the police formations shifted.
Toronto Star
29-05-2025
- Business
- Toronto Star
Saab, CAE to work jointly on training for Royal Canadian Navy's new submarine fleet
OTTAWA - Swedish defence manufacturer Saab and Canadian tech company CAE Inc. say they will work together to create training simulators for the Royal Canadian Navy's next submarine fleet. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the initiative on Thursday, the last day of the CANSEC defence industry trade show in Ottawa. Ottawa plans to purchase up to a dozen new conventional submarines for the RCN to replace the rapidly aging Victoria class, and has said it expects to award a contract by 2028. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Saab is a heavy equipment maker that has expertise in Arctic submarine technology, while CAE is known for its submarine detection software and naval and flight simulators. Canada has come under heavy international pressure to spend more on defence to meet its NATO commitments. Senior government officials have suggested that purchasing the new subs could push Canada past the NATO spending target the country has long struggled to meet. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2025. Politics Headlines Newsletter Get the latest news and unmatched insights in your inbox every evening Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Yes, I'd also like to receive customized content suggestions and promotional messages from the Star. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Politics Headlines Newsletter You're signed up! You'll start getting Politics Headlines in your inbox soon. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page.
