Canadian media makes startling discovery – military equipment requires maintenance.
Why is it a “bombshell” when Gordon O’Connor announces an acquisition of Leopards without building in maintenance contracts, but not even newsworthy when John McCallum announces an acquisition of the Mobile Gun System with no maintenance costs attached?
Scandalous! I expect the headline over tomorrow’s follow-up piece will read “Mobile Gun System project costs including twenty-year maintenance contract would also have been double the announced acquisition price.” Unwieldy, that. How about “Former Liberal Defence Minister hid costs of MGS, full price would have been double to $1.3 billion?” Better, but I’ll never be as good as the pros slaving away in the newsrooms, will I?
As usual, there’s more in the comments ;
Look at it another way: if the Conservatives had really wanted to lowball – to hide the true costs as a hedge against public opinion – as you’ve suggested, they wouldn’t have included the price of the initial run of spare parts or the cost of the needed upgrades in the announced $650M purchase price of the Leo 2’s, would they?
This story is made out of thin air.
And Dave at The Galloping Beaver is full of crap on this one. The “existing allocations” doesn’t mean “shifting money from other essential operations and maintenance” as he states. It means taking capital budget already set aside for the MGS and putting it towards the Leo 2’s instead.
Furthermore, the announced price never included the maintenance contract, as the DND backgrounder explicitly stated, and as I pointed out in my post. Dave’s wrong on that point too (it was never a “total” cost).
The G&M got it wrong when they compared this contract with the aircraft contracts. Maintenance contracts on airframes are normally negotiated up front with the manufacturer on new purchases, and so can be nailed down with the initial purchase (you don’t normally want anyone other than the manufacturer doing aircraft maintenance).
The tank 2nd and 3rd line maintenance is a different beast – it can be unbundled from the purchase of the tanks since we’re buying them “used.” And it makes sense to unbundle the long-term maintenance contract so that we can run a competition on the contract.
Update – I can’t open it on this computer, but this Lew MacKenzie interview on Mike Duffy Live is getting good reviews.
Its amazing what you find when you use google isnt it alby?
You know, I kinda expected alby to know a little something about an industry he says he served 25 years in.
Yet, there he is. What a disgraceful human being. I wonder what his crew mates thought of him, or what they would think of him now if they knew the crap he spews… including his claim that CF personnel are brainwashed.
With friends like alby… wait, that’s not right. Alby has no friends, only comrades.
If i heard correctly, These costs were not hidden.
These costs were not included, because they already exist.
We were going to incur these costs whether we bought new tanks or not.
The old tanks required maintenance didnt they?
Cost of maintaining old tanks= 600 mil
cost of maintaining new tanks= 600 mil
Its not rocket science.
The cost of maintaining a Toyota Camry is 5% a year. The Toyota Camry costs $26,200.00… x5% =$1310 x 20 = …
Does anyone really need me to do the math?
Sorry, for the few mathematically challenged liberals in here -Iberia- the cost of maintaining a Toyota Camry over a 20 year period is $26,200.00, the same as the purchase price.
Watched most of Duffy-McKenzie interview. Needless to say McKenzie sorted things out well for anyone who cares to hear the truth, Duffy included.
If ever there were a prize for jackasses it would be a toss-up between McCallum and Coderre. Neither of them know a damned thing about Military matters and needs beyond Buffoonery and spewing crap.
Van Loan rightly took Coderre to task for his constant diatribe and spurious attacks on O’Connor, something the Liberal Speaker of the House fails to do.
Have we had about enough of this Parliament?
the spin doctors are hard at work & the thing is it is working for the libs, No matter how much you refer to past Moronic purchases by the previous Govt the people are not listening. Media & Dippers have been after the PM & Gen O’Connor since the get go, If Gen. MacKenzie had of won in his riding would we be having these discussions most likly not, with no-disrespect to a good man(Gen.O’Connor)
You know, if this Conservative government is soooo bad and soooo evil, why don’t the opposition parties bring it down?
Yeah, that’s right. They’ve got nothing but bluster.
zippy writes:
“The cost of maintaining a Toyota Camry is 5% a year.”
Where did you get that figure from? And besides, would the costs be the same for city driving vs. highway driving vs. offroading in the North European Plain vs. driving through rocks and sand?
If your argument is that the cost of maintenance for 20 years is the same as the cost of purchase, you’re nuts.