When writing a blog such as this it is all too easy to fall into a negative and possibly unhelpful tone. To remedy this lamentable situation I have decided to take the high road and offer some positive suggestions directly to the Minister of National Defence. Hence the following letter has been sent to the minister.
The Honourable Bill Blair, Dear Sir,
Having
recently sent a letter to your department asking for information
about a procurement decision I received in return an automatically
generated response which included a large selection of other
departments and organizations I could try to find answers to my
questions. Sadly your office was next to last on the long list of of
people who might be able to
help me in my quest. Perhaps even more sadly the robot who sent the
response apparently believes that Anita Anand is still the Minister
of National Defence.
I
choose not to believe that you, and your office, are of so little
consequence. In fact I decided to take this opportunity to pass along
a suggestion that you may find of use.
As you know Canada has chosen the
OTO Melara 127/64 LW Vulcano gun system from Leonardo for use on at
least the first 3 of our new CSC Type 26 Frigates.
While some will question the need
for a 5” naval gun I worry that even those
who support such a choice
will fail to see the many advantages that
I am sure this particular
choice of weapons
system
will have for Canada and the R.C.N.
It is possible that these
advantages may not be obvious to those nitpicking types who inhabit
the opposition benches, the media and anyone else who does not
properly understand Canadian defence procurement policy.
There are those who might be
tempted to point out that by purchasing this particular weapon
systems we have forfeited commonality with the UK and Australia who
are also procuring Type 26 Frigate variants and who have both chosen
to arm their versions of this ship with a different 5” gun, the BAE
MK 45 Mod 4 naval gun.
As this is the same weapon used
by the United States Navy there are even some who might question the
decision to choose a more expensive gun over the option of arming our
new ships with the same weapon used by our principle ally.
I am sure that, in the long run,
the wisdom of spending more money in
order to procure a weapons system different from
our allies, which in turn will make
it more difficult to maintain, will become
apparent. However I must admit that I do wonder what kind of timeline
we are looking at for this wisdom to become clear.
While we are waiting, no matter
how long it takes, for what I am sure is the inevitable vindication
of this choice I believe there is an opportunity for the department,
and your office, to seize the moral high ground and silence any
critics of this procurement decision once and for all.
As you may or may not know, in the
past Canada purchased a similar weapons system. The
DDH-280 Iroquois Class
destroyers of the 1970’s were armed with an OTO Melara 5” weapon.
At that time those
guns were named after the OTO
Melara technicians who installed them in Canada. The names given
to the four
guns were Pasquale, Tulio,
Leno and Luigi.
As I
am sure you can immediately appreciate there
is a tremendous opportunity here to get out ahead of any similar
naming convention that might arise and at the same time advance the
progressive agenda of the Canadian Government, the Department of
National Defence and, not least, the Liberal Party of Canada.
There
may still be those who use
words and
phrases like
“combat effectiveness”, “firepower", "lethality”
or
“bang
for the buck” when trying to describe the missions
and goals of the
Department
of National Defence. I think it fair to say that a more enlightened
observer will use phrases like “creating high quality middle class
jobs” and “empowering historically disadvantaged communities”
when
attempting to identify the modern
purpose of the Canadian Armed Forces.
It
is with this understanding that I urge you contact OTO Melara and
insist in the strongest possible terms that any company
representatives who accompany these new guns to Canada for
installation include BIPOC members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community
whose names reflect the new reality of a vibrant and ethnically
diverse Italy.
The last thing we need is for
these guns to be saddled with names associated with cis-gendered
males with all their unfortunate connotations.
Finally, let
me take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck in your ministry
and be assured that I will be happy to
offer any other advice I feel can help.
J. G. Murray
PS, you might want to do
something about that whole “To contact the Minister of National Defence: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/ministers/anita-anand.html”
situation.
UPDATE: After filling out the requisite form and sending my letter I received the following response;
Contact the Minister - Thank you
Thank you for writing to the Honourable Anita Anand, Minister of National Defence. Please be assured your correspondence will be reviewed in due course. However, the whole-of-government approach to limit the spread of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) could affect the handling of correspondence, and there may be delays.
Your patience is appreciated.
Honestly, you have to see it to believe it.