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From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Canada's defence : Doesn't anyone care?
Message-ID: <1262@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 03:02:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1262
Posted: Thu Sep  5 03:02:20 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 14:14:32 EDT
References: <833@utcs.UUCP> <764@lsuc.UUCP> <5906@utzoo.UUCP> <774@lsuc.UUCP> <1952@mnetor.UUCP> <3501@garfield.UUCP>
Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 46
Summary: 

In article <3501@garfield.UUCP> robertj@garfield.UUCP (Robert Janes) claims:
>we can serve NATO and ourselves by securing the North from the
>Soviets ( serves NATO and ourselves ) and the Americans ( serves
>ourselves ). This would probably entail cancelling he construction of 
>those frigates which have not yet begun construction and building a 
>few Polar x class icebreakers as well as redeploying troops in Europe
>in the North ( with the proper retraining of course ).
>

The basic problem with this proposal is that it just reallocates where
we spend our money and does not address the fact that we are incapable of
patrolling or defending any of our coastlines. Switching money from frigates
to icebreakers would only moderately improve our position in the north
at the expense of the east and west coasts.  With such an approach we 
would continue to be applying typical Trudeau type band-aid solutions
to real problems. In keeping with my previous postings of advocating a 
strong defence for Canada I would suggest that we build both the icebreakers
and frigates. Additionally our air force should be expanded so that it 
can properly patrol and monitor our coasts and the high arctic. As for
where we would get the money for this, I refer you to my network response
to John Hogg's article of a couple of weeks ago asking just this question.

For those of you in central Canada, far from the frontiers, who think I am
being hysterical about this I would just like to point out that it is not 
your neck the Soviets are busy breathing down. At this very moment,
according to a Canadian Armed Forces spokesman and reported in the Vancouver
Sun, there sits a 4,000 tonne friendly Soviet warship carrying a crew of 
200 and armed with surface-to-air missiles just over 30 kilometres off 
our coast. Its purpose, along with Russian and Polish fishing vessels,
is to monitor Canadian and American military radio communications.
I have no idea how long this ship was off our coast before being detected,
but given the size and readiness of the Canadian Navy on the West coast it 
would be my guess that it was first spotted by some commercial fisherman
and not our Navy. 

This however is not an isolated incident, according to the Globe and 
Wail fighters were scrambled from Bagotville on August 20th to intercept 
two Soviet bombers off the Newfoundland Coast. The military claimed that
this was a relatively common occurrence as the Soviets test their equipment
and our reaction times. For both the people of the Atlantic provinces and BC,
it certainly isn't a very nice feeling knowing that if someone wants to 
they can just waltz into our air space because all our fighters are 
based well away from the coasts. 


   Donald Acton