Canada looking at building military bases in Arctic

[Rudy]

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/arti ... -in-arctic

OTTAWA—It is costly to operate in the vast and inhospitable Arctic. But the Canadian military is exploring a way to cut costs and speed up the movement of troops and equipment by building several new northern bases.

Along the way it could help to strengthen the country's Arctic sovereignty claims by placing additional boots on the tundra throughout the year.

The plan, sketched out in a study that was commissioned by the force's operational support command, is a variation of the one put in place for overseas operations.

Barebones transportation hubs — essentially a suitable landing strip and storage facility — at strategic spots around the globe make it more efficient when soldiers are called out to a global hot spot in a pinch.

Just this week, Defence Minister Peter MacKay was in Kuwait to announce an agreement to use the country as a transit point for equipment coming out of combat in Kandahar and making the long journey home to Canada.

The military is looking at a domestic variant of those overseas hubs.

The plan could result in remote bases and a small-but-permanent military presence in far-off communities.

Locations could include Alert, Inuvik, Whitehorse, Rankin Inlet, Iqaluit or Nanisivik, according to the technical memorandum prepared by the research wing of the military last year.

The Canadian Forces says no decision has been made to go ahead with the construction of new hubs.

That could change.

“The hub concept referred to in this report is just one of many ideas being examined at the time to enhance our capabilities up in the North,” said Navy Lt. Greg Menzies.

The report is premised on the priority that the Conservative government has placed on a more rigorous defence of Canada's territorial sovereignty in the North, where countries including Russia, Denmark and the United States are currently staking their claims to land and underwater territory.

“To maintain its sovereignty over its northern region, Canada will need to develop enforcement and surveillance capabilities for the Arctic,” the report says.

To that end, it envisions scenarios that could call for a military response in the North: disease outbreak in an Arctic community; a major air disaster; water contamination from an oil spill, and the cleanup of contaminated space debris, such as a satellite falling from orbit.

“To quickly and effectively respond to these scenarios, the CF would need to improve its personnel and equipment readiness for deployment in the North.”

Currently, the Canadian Forces relies on the Canadian Rangers for operations in the North. More complex search and rescue requirements are handled out of an air force base in Winnipeg.

But this new plan would see the force's hulking C-17 transport aircraft be loaded with personnel, supplies and a disassembled military helicopter — likely at CFB Trenton in Ontario — and dispatched to the northern hub. There, the helicopter would be reassembled and the Arctic hub would be used as a base for the mission.

Based on calculations that factor in the time it would take to travel to the Arctic from Trenton and the costs involved (which was then cross-referenced with ship and airline traffic, as well as the probability of space junk hurtling toward Earth), the study found Nunavut's Rankin Inlet — on the western shore of Hudson's Bay — would be the most cost-effective spot for a single hub, reducing transportation costs by 28 per cent.

The average response time to get anywhere in the Arctic from the Rankin Inlet staging base was still 48 hours, underlining the vast territory to be covered. Resolute, located on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut, offers the quickest average response time at 35 hours, but the runway there would require further development to accommodate a C-17 aircraft, the study said.

“From a cost-avoidance perspective, the optimal number of hubs would be three, corresponding to Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Rankin Inlet,” said the report, noting that an average of 49 per cent of transportation costs could be saved.

The cost savings trail off after setting up those three hubs, all of which are currently equipped to handle a C-17.

“Using a three-hub solution, the maximum response time would be 46 hours instead of 64 hours for a single hub. The minimum response time would be 16 to 18 hours for locations around the hubs,” said the study.

The military wouldn't speak to the costs of mounting an operation in the Arctic, but said the total budget for its annual northern exercise, Operation Nanook — which involves moving ships, aircraft, helicopters and about 1,000 personnel into the Arctic Circle — is about $15 million.

“The Canadian Forces are ready to execute all potential military tasks in Canada's North and we're always looking at ways to improve our response to possible threats in the North,” Menzies said.

[YYZatcboy]

We will see if this happens.

[North Shore]

With a $50-odd billion deficit, and a $500 + change billion accumulated debt, let's see if we can afford it.

[Expat]

We are already in the war mongering club, and we have elected a majority conservative government...
Besides, those F-35s can't do the job from the south, so may as well build bases in the north to support them. Then, these C-17s can't very well land in the North...

We can't finish the job in Af, we strugle with all of NATO's might in ...Lybia...of all places, but we'll put a brave face face against the Russians...Oh Yeah...

We can't even replace the Champlain bridge, because it cost too much...
Sometimes, the news are funniers than the shows...

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

We are already in the war mongering club, and we have elected a majority conservative government...
Besides, those F-35s can't do the job from the south, so may as well build bases in the north to support them. Then, these C-17s can't very well land in the North...

We can't finish the job in Af, we strugle with all of NATO's might in ...Lybia...of all places, but we'll put a brave face face against the Russians...Oh Yeah...

We can't even replace the Champlain bridge, because it cost too much...
Sometimes, the news are funniers than the shows...

1) C17s land in the north semi-frequently

2) Do you think this is a bad idea then? Building some infrastructure so that one day our children's children may be able to enjoy the same luxuries that you do from that comfortable computer chair? Of course you think it's a bad idea - Because if you thought it was a good idea you would have nothing to bitch about.

3) Harper is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. But in the next 20-50 years, this peacekeeping myth is going to finally slap us all in the face. This "social worker" type mentality which has plagued the minority of this country will come back around. I commend Harper for attempting to do things which should have been done 25-30 years ago.

[System Message]

Expat, you have eight ellipses in six sentences. Why would you do that?

[TheCheez]

We spend an awful lot of money running around the north on the local economies already. Putting a base in somewhere to use as a hub is inevitable.

Funny enough a lot of the infrastructure in the north was DND property at some point in the past. Cleared out after the cold war. What's old is new!

[Jastapilot]

Maybe they'll clean up the last mess they left up there when they go back!

[KT111]

I can agree with the hub strategy. Only speaking for Iqaluit, C-130's and C-17s fly in supplies, troops, and perform search and rescue ops (C-130's) on a semi-routine basis.
Why not use the larger and existing facilities such as Iqaluit, Rankin, Yellowknife (and potentially Inuvik) to support movements into more remote locations?
Resolute Bay and Nanisivik are gravel runways and not regularly serviced by civillian airlines.

[fish4life]

I can agree with the hub strategy. Only speaking for Iqaluit, C-130's and C-17s fly in supplies, troops, and perform search and rescue ops (C-130's) on a semi-routine basis.
Why not use the larger and existing facilities such as Iqaluit, Rankin, Yellowknife (and potentially Inuvik) to support movements into more remote locations?
Resolute Bay and Nanisivik are gravel runways and not regularly serviced by civillian airlines.

define "civilian airlines", last I checked lots of airlines operate into gravel runways

[KT111]

I can agree with the hub strategy. Only speaking for Iqaluit, C-130's and C-17s fly in supplies, troops, and perform search and rescue ops (C-130's) on a semi-routine basis.
Why not use the larger and existing facilities such as Iqaluit, Rankin, Yellowknife (and potentially Inuvik) to support movements into more remote locations?
Resolute Bay and Nanisivik are gravel runways and not regularly serviced by civillian airlines.

define "civilian airlines", last I checked lots of airlines operate into gravel runways

Yellowknife, Iqaluit, and Rankin inlet have B737 service at least 3 times a week from major hubs down south. Edmonton, Ottawa, and Winnipeg respectively. Just saying that in terms of cost savings, it's easier to service and maintain the bigger communities with already existing infrastructure in place to handle the increased military traffic.

[Therewewere]

Resolute Bay and Nanisivik are gravel runways and not regularly serviced by civillian airlines.

Uhhhhhhhhhh What about First Air?

Think its still a civilian airline and goes into both YRB an YSR with Boeings!!!!

(They also go to Cambridge Bay with 737-200 which is also gravel.)

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

Expat does not respond when he is wrong.

[grimey]

We can't finish the job in Af, we strugle with all of NATO's might in ...Lybia...of all places, but we'll put a brave face face against the Russians...Oh Yeah...

The Soviet Union couldn't finish the job in Afghanistan either, but somehow it's only a negative for Canada and NATO. NATO is limited in Libya by a nearly complete lack of feet on the ground (by choice), they hardly have all of their might concentrated there.

The two theaters aren't comparable, on any level. But don't let facts and logic get in the way of your crappy analogy.

[SAR_YQQ]

Why not use the larger and existing facilities such as Iqaluit, Rankin, Yellowknife (and potentially Inuvik)

None of these places are high enough in the arctic to be worth the effort. We need hubs that we can sprint to non-stop and then deploy the smaller more organic forces. Yellowknife is too far below the tree-line to be consider truly arctic. Resolute Bay and other communities in that latitude are a nice distance from Alert to be considered worthwhile. Almost all of our fleet works out of gravel strips - so we're really not too worried about paving runways. Just need a good WAAS approach (if they can be certified that far north) and a long enough runway to support IFR operations.

[2R]

Gold,oil,diamonds,copper,zinc,silver,the worlds largest iron ore deposit,shrimp,large fishing grounds,whales,polar bears and a few strange excotic metals that are really only of value to those high tech companies.
and not forgetting the Artic Char one of the tastiest fish ever.......But they need a real beer store as the beer is too expensive and would cause a crisis in a normal town.Never mind the 20 dollar milk at the northern store the cost of beer is crippling to any serious development in the Artic.
The Artic should belong to whomever can supply beer at a fair trade price

[System Message]

Just wait for the Russians to build a weather station in Canada's Arctic that just happens to include a dock for submarines, an airstrip capable of forward deploying bombers with accompanying fighters, and long range missiles. How are you going to dislodge that research station without an act of war. It is better to be their first.

[Expat]

Expat does not respond when he is wrong.

Right on! I will not repond if I am wrong.
But since I believe that I am not wrong, I will spend some time explaining.
First, I live on the other side of the globe now, and things, seen from my perspective differ a lot from what you see down home. I hope that you educate yourself more on the web, than by simply absorbing the crap fed to you on national TV.

Although I am not against building bases on our own Canadian soil, I am against sending our youngs into a war, about which we know nothing, and which we have no chance of winning.
And even if we decided that we won...what the hell did we win???
We lost 157 soldiers, and more than a thousand have been maimed, and today, our troops are just so happy to get the hell out of there...
What do we stand to gain in Libya?
I am not saying what the US will gain, but what do gain, as Canadians?
We do not even have a defense industry that made money from the conflict. So what?
As Canadians, we gained nothing in Af, except a pat in the back by Bush...

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/17 ... he-movers/
These guys are happy to leave...
Cheers,
expat

[crankedup]

So does anyone have any idea who our military commanders fear are planning to invade this fine country from the north?

What a bunch of bunch of shit! What next? Submarines?

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

What did we have to lose? If you were walking downtown Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, wherever > and someone dear to you was blown to pieces , rather if your building was stormed by a bunch of psychos answering the word of God (massacring everybody) ,would you be angry? Would you want to track every last one of these guys down? Would you ask questions? -----Would you do nothing?---- (DOUBTFUL) . Bush is long gone, and it was our fantastic Liberal Party which , again , a) kept us out of Iraq, or b) got us involved with Afghanistan, it really is a lose lose situation.

Why does every Canadian need to see dead babies on Bay St. in order to justify a war? The whole lets let them hit us first THAT WAY, our conscience can be satisfied shit gets very old? Common, I don't think so. People forget what was felt after September 11th, and we should all count ourselves lucky that it was not "us". For F sake, Madrid was even hit. This is a new era of Warfare which our generation is not accustomed to. We are fighting the reality. How many young men and women came home mutilated after WW2? How many scars are still with our veterans? War is horrible, but its also a sad reality. We are very "United" with our southern neighbors, whether or not you choose to believe it.

As for my education - I turn on CNN - CBC - BBC etc. when I am in the mood for a comedy.I have studied a vast number of topics regarding our North (is it ours ) ? A certain amount is ! Who is entitled to none? ( your homework ) .

BTW, CNN has a "Arctic Special" on right now! I am pretty confident they are going to feed us facts such as

- the United States sold the N.W.T. to Canada in 1901

[modi13]

Resolute, located on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut, offers the quickest average response time at 35 hours, but the runway there would require further development to accommodate a C-17 aircraft, the study said.

Did anyone tell that to the CF before they took a C-17 in there last year?

[Dash-Ate]

What did we have to lose? If you were walking downtown Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, wherever > and someone dear to you was blown to pieces , rather if your building was stormed by a bunch of psychos answering the word of God (massacring everybody) ,would you be angry? Would you want to track every last one of these guys down? Would you ask questions? -----Would you do nothing?---- (DOUBTFUL) . Bush is long gone, and it was our fantastic Liberal Party which , again , a) kept us out of Iraq, or b) got us involved with Afghanistan, it really is a lose lose situation.

Why does every Canadian need to see dead babies on Bay St. in order to justify a war? The whole lets let them hit us first THAT WAY, our conscience can be satisfied shit gets very old? Common, I don't think so. People forget what was felt after September 11th, and we should all count ourselves lucky that it was not "us". For F sake, Madrid was even hit. This is a new era of Warfare which our generation is not accustomed to. We are fighting the reality. How many young men and women came home mutilated after WW2? How many scars are still with our veterans? War is horrible, but its also a sad reality. We are very "United" with our southern neighbors, whether or not you choose to believe it.

As for my education - I turn on CNN - CBC - BBC etc. when I am in the mood for a comedy.I have studied a vast number of topics regarding our North (is it ours ) ? A certain amount is ! Who is entitled to none? ( your homework ) .

BTW, CNN has a "Arctic Special" on right now! I am pretty confident they are going to feed us facts such as

- the United States sold the N.W.T. to Canada in 1901

You know little about human nature. Humans fight over only two things: Sex, and money - or something that would stop you from getting the above. When they dropped the World Trade centres it marked the end of USA as a Centre of World Trade. Get it?? See the thread on here about US airforce buying chinese owned planes. WTC was an economic hit.
So was the Vietnam war. Vietnam remains communist and is a lower wage cost area than china!!! They were bombed back into the stone age.

The media plays up the little shows of comedy where "trained terrorists" cannot even light a match properly!! Shoe bombs, underwear, times square etc. All patsies and the end result is mega security contracts signed and humiliting nude scanners . And more war. War turns millionaires into billionaires. The best business on earth.


There are tens of thousands of serious crimes in the USA each year and nobody can stop it. My point is if people were going to do something they would have done it. USA has millions of illegal immigrants who slipped in anyway.

That a few people with home made bombs could hold then entire US military industrial complex at bay is laughable. The space weapons, satellites that can count the hairs on your head and even penetrate the ground, nuke subs, nuke weapons, WMD, drones you name it and the stuff we don't even know about. Trillions have been stolen from taxpayers for the "Cold war", vietnam, "space race " (you really think the best they have is 30-40 year old shuttle technology? as if). Star Wars and now the "war of terror" aka invading every middle eastern country with oil .

[modi13]

You know little about human nature. Humans fight over only two things: Sex, and money - or something that would stop you from getting the above.

Now that's ironic; if you really think humans are that black and white then it's you who knows little about human nature. What about religion? Food? Political ideology (i.e. the Vietnam War)? Simple, irrational hate?
Anyone who questions why we sent our soldiers to fight in Afghanistan and Libya obviously hasn't asked the soldiers who actually went there. I'm a former member of the CF and I never met one person in the military who didn't want to go to Afghanistan, or return if they'd already been. The soldiers are the ones doing the fighting, and most of those who served there signed up after the war in Afghanistan had begun: they knew precisely what they were getting into, and they joined because they wanted to serve there. The only opinions that matter are those of the soldiers doing the fighting, and if they agree that the mission was worth it then it was. You might pay a few dollars in taxes each year into the DND's budget, but that doesn't mean you've earned the right to question the troops who are doing the actual fighting. Until you pick up a rifle and serve for six months in Afghanistan, you don't get to second-guess the soldiers who believe it was a worthy cause.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/afgha ... le/1022315
"Here we are fighting for your freedoms. You have the right to say what you want. We have the right to punch you in your f**king mouth if we disagree."

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

You know little about human nature. Humans fight over only two things: Sex, and money - or something that would stop you from getting the above.

Now that's ironic; if you really think humans are that black and white then it's you who knows little about human nature. What about religion? Food? Political ideology (i.e. the Vietnam War)? Simple, irrational hate?
Anyone who questions why we sent our soldiers to fight in Afghanistan and Libya obviously hasn't asked the soldiers who actually went there. I'm a former member of the CF and I never met one person in the military who didn't want to go to Afghanistan, or return if they'd already been. The soldiers are the ones doing the fighting, and most of those who served there signed up after the war in Afghanistan had begun: they knew precisely what they were getting into, and they joined because they wanted to serve there. The only opinions that matter are those of the soldiers doing the fighting, and if they agree that the mission was worth it then it was. You might pay a few dollars in taxes each year into the DND's budget, but that doesn't mean you've earned the right to question the troops who are doing the actual fighting. Until you pick up a rifle and serve for six months in Afghanistan, you don't get to second-guess the soldiers who believe it was a worthy cause.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/afgha ... le/1022315
"Here we are fighting for your freedoms. You have the right to say what you want. We have the right to punch you in your f**king mouth if we disagree."

Thank you for the response. I was beginning to think I was the only one in this thread with common sense. I hope dash-ate puts a sock in his mouth next time.

As for you Dash, I would highly suggest you do not start by launching an attack against someone . The whole purpose of my original post should have clued in that I understand human nature to a very fine extent.

"""""""""If you were walking downtown Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, wherever > and someone dear to you was blown to pieces , rather if your building was stormed by a bunch of psychos answering the word of God (massacring everybody) ,would you be angry? Would you want to track every last one of these guys down? Would you ask questions? -----Would you do nothing?---- (DOUBTFUL) """""""""

Would you be angry ? You would be. You would want justice. The bottom line - people here do not understand the threat. They have not experienced it themselves. They are chair-professionals. They claim to have credentials to back up their bullshit pacifist claims , and in reality there is NOTHING which could change their mind. They think about themselves only. Welcome to CANADA! Until they personally suffer some sort of loss, they will not give a rats ass. -to put it lightly. I challenge you to find one soldier who has served overseas which does not endorse the current serving Government. I challenge you to find one soldier who does not believe MORE should be done in Afghanistan. Politics is now pushing through , due to the lack of support from the people. When and if we experience the horrors on our own soil, then and ONLY then, will the majority of this country understand why we were there, and how tough the mission really is. It is on that day you can preach to me about human nature. Yeah yeah, War creates jobs, billionaires, etc. Draft the CEOs as well of these companies. Lets have a revolution, what do you think?

[coreydotcom]

The only opinions that matter are those of the soldiers doing the fighting

So since I am not a soldier I can't have an opinion... what? Are you serious? Soldiers do what? They follow commands. They don't do the thinking. They are told to do something, and do it. I guess that makes their opinions the only ones that matters. Granted, I am not on the front lines risking my life but if it were up to me they wouldn't be there either.

I know 3 people in the CFs who have been to Afghanistan. All 3 said it was complete and utter bull$h!t and all 3 are scared to go back. I guess we just don't know the same people in the CFs.