CANOE, OTTAWA — Defence Minister John McCallum is set to approve 15 years worth of major military equipment purchases.
McCallum told a Commons committee yesterday that he's poised to sign the Canadian Forces strategic capital investment plan, which will lay out an exhaustive list of purchases to replace aging equipment such as the Sea King maritime helicopters and the Hercules transport planes, as well as specific timelines.
McCallum said under the plan the government will ensure the military has enough money to fast-track the purchase of a new maritime helicopter and conduct a major overhaul of the Hercs' engines and wiring to keep them in the sky longer.
It will also set a timeline for the replacement of the planes – mostly bought in the '60s – known as the military's workhorse for ferrying troops, equipment and foreign aid to deployments abroad.
“We need within some months a clear plan of what we want to purchase,” he said.
Reports show that throughout the past year, 19 of the military's 32 C-130 Hercules were grounded by age-related mechanical problems.
McCallum also told the committee that Canadian soldiers will be deployed to Afghanistan's badlands after the year-long mission in Kabul ends in August.
“So the idea is following the end of our mission in August of next year we will likely – we haven't committed yet – we will likely undertake a much smaller mission in the form of one or more provincial reconstruction teams,” he said.
McCallum said a team of officials from Foreign Affairs, the Defence Department and CIDA have returned from visiting Afghanistan's war-torn regions and are working out the details.
“An absolutely crucial thing is extraction in the case of an emergency,” he said. “Nothing will happen, certainly not for Canada, without a very clear and guaranteed extraction policy should things go very wrong.”
That means that NATO countries will have to pony up helicopters to allow for quick rescues if fighting breaks out.
The Canadian army's Griffon helicopters don't have the capability to fly in most of Afghanistan because of the high altitude.
