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Canadian Defence Procurement — updated and revised January 2004
Politics, Procurement Practices, and Procrastination:
the Quarter-Century Sea King Helicopter
Replacement Saga
Part 14 — the 1994 Defence White
Paper and the Cormorant SAR Helicopter
The Liberal’s 1994 White Paper made replacing the CF Labrador search-and-rescue helicopters a top
priority. Even so, it was 4 years
and two defence ministers later before a decision was made. Art Eggleton announced the winning candidate
in 1998 after much casting about for an acceptable alternative. Of course, as is now well known, the winner was
the self-same EH-101 cancelled by the Liberals 5 years earlier – much to the chagrin of Jean
Chrétien. But, the new CH-149 Cormorant[1] SAR
helicopter wasn’t the same as the NSA winner. Instead, this new Cormorant was simply
a civilian utility EH-101 model adapted for the SAR role. In a word, DND had gone ‘green’. This begs
the question again: why didn’t DND planners suggest changing the NSA order from military- to
utility-model EH-101s in 1993? Was $478M just not worth the bother?
The 1994 Defence White Paper did not ignore the need to replace Sea
King shipboard helicopters. It simply assigned the replacement a low priority. The result
was the ‘Maritime Helicopter Project’. Seventeen years had passed since the Sea King
Replacement project began, a decade had passed since the start of DND’s New Shipboard Aircraft
project. How long does it take to buy helicopters?
One problem was that the government continued to tweak the terms of the MHP. The project was divided into two
sections, with distinct airframe and integrated mission systems components. The two-parts decision was attacked from all sides. Opponents
insisted that separating the major MHP components would only drive up total costs. What the government had done, in
effect, was to arrive at the idea of a ‘green’ airframe while simultaneously eliminating any possibility of
savings.
[1] The ‘unused’ CH-149 designation has been recycled but not the Chimo name.
Technically, Cormorants are model AW520s. AW because EH Industries became AgustaWestland in 2000, 520
because the ‘utility’ EH-101s are 500-series models.
< Part 13 — Simultaneously Running Out of
Time, Options, and Alternatives
> Part 15 — “... Once more unto
the breach ...” — the MHP Candidates
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