By RIchard Lawrence
To see the images from CANSEC – Day 1, please go to:
https://www.richardlawrencephotography.ca/rlpgalleries/2024/cansec2024d1/
CANSEC 2024 is now done for another year after having completed another successful event. And while there are many conflicts in the world, Ukraine and Gaza foremost amongst them, Ukraine still received most of the commentary from the speakers. I won’t go into what all the speakers had to say other than Christyn Cianfarani who, in her opening remarks on the first day, said that “… If Russia isn’t stopped now, Russia will not stop.” Why can’t the world see that this is a repeat of what Hitler did in the mid/late 1930’s and react appropriately and with purpose? Never again, my ass!
As does everyone else, I feel for the innocents caught in the middle of the Gaza conflict as I do for every civilian caught-up in warfare since the beginning of warfare – and there have always been innocent civilians killed in warfare. But it used to be that the armed forces took pains to remove civilians from areas of conflict and did not directly target them. This changed in WWII, of course, with the strategic bombing campaigns of “Bomber” Harris and Goering directly aimed at the civilian population in order to force governments to redirect scarce resources away from the war effort to care for the civilians and worker populations. But not even Hitler used his own civilians as human shields.
Remember that Hamas started this conflict and they have the ability to stop it by surrendering the remaining hostages and to stop being cowards and using civilians as shields. The only mention of Gaza that I heard in the entire event was from the protesters at the entrance and as I don’t agree with their methods nor their protest (that is to say I do agree that the killing of civilians should stop but I don’t agree with their blaming Israel as the “bad guy” when that honour goes to Hamas), you will not see any further mention or pictures of them.
So CANSEC didn’t have a lot of big hardware on display other than a few truck based vehicles (Babcock, General Dynamics, Roshel, UTV), Mission Master Autonomous vehicles (Rheinmetall), ATV types (Polaris, Airforce, Podolinsky) but there were still some interesting things to see. Clearly, there is an impetus to use drone technology as well as defence against drones given their effectiveness in Ukraine.
This is the first year I’ve seen HANWHA at the show (Korea’s 7th largest manufacturer) touting models of tanks, armoured vehicles, submarines, missiles, and a futuristic aircraft carrier launching what appears to be Chinese Sky Hawk or Lockheed Martin Wraith drones, both of which look like baby B2 bombers.
Other big players were present such as Irving and Davie Shipyards, Saab, Rheinmetall, Babcock, General Dynamics (Land and Mission systems), CAE, Boeing, Airbus, Leonardo, etc. Many of the displays lacked hardware and instead had models of the equipment they’re trying to sell. I don’t know how else you would do it as you can’t get a ship in the building.
I do remember ARMX being held at Lansdown Park in the 1980s and they had the place filled with tanks and helicopters, low-level air defence (LLAD) systems, and other things you could climb over and into. Even at this location, in 2019, they had a Typhoon aircraft (probably not the real plane, just a full-size mock-up), and a CAF Cormorant. In 2022, there was a Blackhawk parked out back so that was fun. One year, it was held at CFB Uplands airbase and they brought aircraft in and parked on the tarmac.
The two speakers of Day One were Bill Blair (Minister of National Defence) and Dominic LeBlanc (Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions, and Intergovernmental Affairs). More spending promises and pats on the back about how well we’re doing and how much more we’re going to do. As a former procurement officer with the CAF myself, I’ll hold off my congratulations until I see equipment in the hands of the soldiers. I hate the fact that “Regional and Industrial Benefits” bloat these contracts all out of proportion to what the actual equipment costs and it’s the military that pays the price in protracted negotiations, long waits for equipment which allows inflation to drive up the costs so the number of equipments purchased has to be cut down, etc. But I digress.
There were a few notable appearances by people I knew such as LGen Kenny (Commander RCAF), LGen Allen (VCDS), MGen Speiser-Blanchett (DComd RCAF), Marie-France Lalonde (MP), various defence attachés, and even a few other photographers/journalists I hadn’t seen for a while. Put that together with some of the free stuff you can get at the booths (thanks Babcock for the power bank and the wireless charging pad, NWS for the t-shirt and fancy pens), and the long day becomes quite tolerable.
