There have been some recent articles in the media regarding the viability of maintaining the Buffalo, which is used on the West Coast for search and rescue, until 2015 or so when a new fixed-wing search and rescue (FWSAR) aircraft is expected to be available. The Buffalo is a small, unique fleet which is high maintenance and for which spare parts are increasingly more difficult to obtain. The replacement project has been around for about five years, but has not moved for a number of reasons. The most glaring is the fact that there are few aircraft which can meet the requirement and there is a perception that there would be no meaningful competition. The assumption that competition is good would seem to be reasonable but, in fact, the Government has had good success in negotiating a favourable price even when there is a single supplier. The recent C130J purchase is a good example of this.

Whatever process the Government chooses to follow, there is a real need to replace the Buffalo and the Hercules aircraft which are dedicated to SAR. They are old, increasingly difficult to maintain, and becoming more and more expensive. A new aircraft, with modern systems on board is not too much to expect in this critical mission where the lives of Canadians in peril are at stake.

NORAD turned 50 on 12 May with a gala celebration in Colorado Springs to which the Minister of National Defence and the US Secretary of Defense attended. Speeches identified the tremendous success of the alliance over a period of five decades and many changes in threat, mission and focus. The value of NORAD remains important to our binational security and should continue to evolve over time, perhaps to a mission that includes much more than aerospace control and maritime warning to one which reflects wider defence cooperation between Canada and the United States. Our two countries are inextricably intertwined economically and are fundamentally dependent on each other for security. NORAD, or some future version of NORAD, can help to maintain the very close military working relationship we have enjoyed since the 1940’s.