Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/274231
In critical technology areas to security and sovereignty, the jobs created are highly skilled jobs which in turn cre- ate many indirect support jobs both in the industrial sec- tor and in supporting industries such as transportation, infrastructure, etc. • Supply Chain – Canadian companies that are building in Canada and exporting from Canada are far more likely to buy from and support the development of small and medium sized companies in Canada in their supply chain. • Innovation – once an export business is established, those international customers demand improvements to products from Canada. This drives innovation which both improves the existing products but also creates spin- off products which, in turn, can create additional export businesses. The innovation snowball starts to roll and simply gains more and more momentum. • Education – demand for jobs, supply chain and innovation drives the need for more and higher quality education. Better education benefits all Canadians in that it creates a higher standard of living and more and better opportuni- ties for all Canadians. • Cost Effectiveness – ironically a sur- prising side effect is that Canada's long-term costs for technologies and capabilities that come from Canadian industrial sectors with strong export businesses are often cheaper and of higher quality for Canada as the devel- opment, sustainment and maintenance costs are now born not only by Canada but also by a broader base of interna- tional customers. There are a number of well-known Canadian companies that have generated numerous successful examples repre- senting the broad suite of benefits listed above. Examples come from all over Canada and include CAE, MDA, Bom- bardier and Provincial Aerospace. Let's take a little known but amazing example from MDA. Headquartered in Vancouver, MDA is a true Canadian com- pany that started in the late 1960s in John MacDonald's basement (John is the "M" in MDA). From those small beginnings, MDA has grown to have approximately 4,500 employees worldwide with revenues of approximately $1.8 billion. MDA builds a broad range of operational high tech- nology solutions in communications, surveillance and intel- ligence for both government and commercial markets. In 1971, MDA won a small contract (no one really re- members how much but likely between $1 and $2 million) for an Earth imaging satellite ground station for the Cana- dian government. Fast-forward 40 years, Canada's Depart- ment of National Defence has bought another ground sys- tem from MDA under a project called Polar Epsilon. Polar Epsilon is the critical Canadian infrastructure that receives and processes data from Canada's RADARSAT satellites to provide broad monitoring of ships approaching Canada. Most notably, Polar Epsilon detects those ships that are NOT transmitting the required reports and hence may well have less-than-admirable intentions. This capability enables National Defence and other agencies involved in maritime security to respond more quickly as required. Most Canadians would agree that this capability bene- fits Canada's security and is an ideal candidate over which Canada should maintain sovereign control through the Ca- nadian industrial sector. However, the benefits of that small Canadian government contract in 1971 go well beyond security and sovereignty. From that early contract, MDA has built a significant, long- term (more than 40 years) global leading business selling Earth imaging satellite ground systems to customers and countries all around the world. These ground systems are used not only for defence and security but for many applications that benefit people all around the world including en- vironment, agriculture, natural resources, disaster management and response and land management. The export revenues accumulated by MDA from this business total well over $1 billion with 100-150 sustained direct jobs and many more indi- rect jobs. From this small start, MDA has grown numerous other successful export- from-Canada businesses, many with Ca- nadian government initial procurements, to today where it is a globally leading company still headquartered and based in Canada. Canada needs to build more MDAs. So how to do that? The new Defence Procurement Strat- egy (DPS) announced on February 5, 2014 is a good start. Based on the DPS, Canada needs to select those Key Indus- trial Capabilities (KICs) that strongly contribute to Canada's sovereignty and security and also have significant export potential. By procuring these KICs in a strategic manner from Canadian industry, Canada not only meets its sover- eignty and security needs but also forms foundations for long-term, sustainable growth export businesses that result in almost immeasurable multiplicative benefits for all Ca- nadians. While the key objective is export, the key criteria for export success is strategic decision making in Canada. The Cana- dian government should build capability and processes to work with the Canadian industrial sector at a strategic level to select the KICs and structure Canadian Defence procure- ments to strategically support and grow those KICs. Lastly, the Canadian industrial sector should be defined by those companies that make their strategic decisions in Canada and have the infrastructure, human resources, networks and expertise to export from Canada to customers around the world. By following this approach, more companies like CAE, MDA, Bombardier and Provincial Aerospace can be built for the benefit of all Canadians. www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014 31 Most Canadian's would agree that this capability benefits Canada's security and is an ideal candidate over which Canada should maintain sovereign control through the Canadian industrial sector.