New Defence Policy Initiative

I was despondent until I read an interesting paper from the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a think tank in Halifax. They talk about something they call Contestability, a sort of opening up the market for things which traditionally government has done using their own people, and of course which, because it’s the government doing it, usually ends up in a cock-up. They favour getting three quotes from outsiders and even better, coming up with ideas. Reminds me of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer shouting: “Gentlemen, we’re run out of money, now we’ll have to use our brains”. Fresh thinking there, I must say. I think all those left brainers at AIMS are on to something. They think we should just get three quotes from people who can do the stuff we need to do. In other words, get government out of it. Sounds great to me. We could just pay protection to violent countries and insurgent groups that want to hurt us. Evidently there are a lot of them around as Stephen tends to piss people off. So instead of worrying about Al-Qaida, I say get in touch with three of them (Jack Layton can help here) and pick the lowest bidder. We’ll pay him so much not to screw with us for a year, maybe two. Make a deal, be businesslike. Private industry does this every day. This could definitely be a win win. Or maybe even a tie tie with a shoot out. We‘d stay peaceful and the winning bidder offs anybody who wants to attack us, like the other two bidders, for instance. Better still, we can put it in the contract that they would also attack people we don’t like. A little value-added feature there and let’s face it that’s what business is all about; value-added stuff, and taking care of the bottom line while improving performance per dollar spent. That’s what AIMS calls high performance government and it’s high time we had some of our own. Also, paying protection means the building of relationships. Just ask a restaurateur in Montreal. Paying protection means no expensive army or navy with all those frigates with their scary hairball-coughing helicopters. Nothing except a cheque going out every week. It’s private enterprise at its best, for god’s sake, and it lets the government do what governments do best; cut stuff out and lower taxes. If paying protection’s not for you (and let’s face it, some people may feel paying protection is sleazy) there are alternatives, particularly suited to the bigger kind of government which needs a physical armed forces presence. So instead of paying through the nose for an army of our own as we do now, let’s just get three quotes and then pick the lowest cost, which as business well knows is the best value. In these times of living with the residue from those horrid years of Liberal profligacy not to mention scandals, and excessive rights-giving, a more flexible armed forces needs to be able to go where there are wars as we don’t seem to have any here any more. We haven’t had an invasion of Canada since the early 1800’s except for those Fenian dudes, but hey they were Irish and just wanted to have nosebleeds. So why would we buy $3 billion worth of those Boeing C17 Globemaster transport planes just so we can get to wars conveniently? Whoa! That doesn’t make sense, does it? Not by AIMS thinking standards! Why not get three quotes and rent? As for all the rest of flying stuff around, it can be handled by the private sector right here. After all, we’ve got millions of poor people in this country who are as needy as anyone in Afganistan and you don’t need a 290-ton C17 Globemaster to reach them. A perfectly adequate Dash-8 or Cessna Caravan or deHavilland Beaver will do. I personally know where there’s a Noorduyn Norseman which would do the job. Throws a little oil, but runs pretty good. But I digress. Summing up, let’s explore the ideas of those bright lads and lasses at AIMS and their Contestability premise. A more sensible answer would be to get three quotes from armies in the regions in which we want to fight and hire the cheapest proposal. Let’s say Sunnis, Shiites and those other dudes who backed Saddam. Presto, no need for C17 Globemasters. And don’t forget there are whole African armies we could get cheap. They all have neat uniforms (and camouflage which suits the foliage where we want to fight, another value-added feature!) Some of these armies are quite mean which is good if we really want to fight well somewhere far away, and be a leader on the world stage, which those waste mongering Liberal wuzzes kept us from becoming. Many thanks to the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies for showing how it all gets simple as soon as you get government out of the picture. I eagerly await their remedy for global warming. Graham Watt Thinking nice thoughts in Sackville NB