Recent content by stevenstaples

MDA sale caused unlikely alliance of opponents Esprit de corps military magazine. June 2008, Vol 15 Issue 5. p 12. by Steven Staples Members of the Canadian Forces have a lot to celebrate in the government’s decision to block the sale of a large part of Canada’s space industry to a U.S. firm...

We are arguing that Canada needs this satellite for national security reasons (see our legal opinion on www.rideauinstitute.ca). All concerned about our national security and the safety of CF personnel should put aside their differences and oppose this deal. Col. Pierre Leblanc (ret.) (former...

A coupla points for ya.... 1. For all you Zapruder film fans, in the age of Google you can't hide anything. The fact that so many of you folks are able to cut and paste my bio from our websites onto army.ca should dispel any claims that I have a hidden agenda. ::) 2. The "MSM" is pretty frank...

The point is that there needs to be a debate, and we provide a different point of view than what is typically handed out by the government to the media and the public. Our research has been proved correct time and time again. In fact, we often rely on the government's (and even NATO's) own...

Thanks for coming to the debate. Of course, I would say it was a bit closer than "hands down" for Doug... If you are interested in reading the formal part of the debate, each of our opening statements are in today's Whig Standard (Sept 22, 2006) in the opinions section...

To “the Ruxted Group.” Thanks for highlighting our report this week. A couple of brief responses… First, you suggest “the timing of the release of the ‘analysis’ is highly suspect, coming as it did immediately before a critical vote on the future of Canadian operations in Afghanistan.” Not...

I thought you might be interested in this quite reasonable Editorial from the Ottawa Citizen. -Steve PUBLICATION:  The Ottawa Citizen DATE:  2005.12.09 EDITION:  Final SECTION:  News PNAME:  Editorial PAGE:  A18 SOURCE:  Ottawa Citizen WORD COUNT:  271...

Was away for a while - Glad you caught the Nov 11 special on TVO - I enjoyed the program, despite having to go down to TO and back in the same day. Good to meet Gen MacKenzie and the others. Don't agree on everything, but have to respect people for their accomplishments. I thought the mercs...

Folks - Thanks for all of the comments. Very interesting and useful. I sense that a lot of people on this forum consider themselves independent thinkers - and I see evidence of this spirit all the time in the CF at large. For example, have you seen the Corporals' Report by Corporal W.C...

The recommendation from our report this week called for the creation of a new Defence White Paper through public participation (and I don't mean expert hearings in Ottawa), and until that time a freeze on defence spending. Get the policy right first, then set the budget. When asked, we suggest...

I'm surprised no one has taken up our criticism of useless spending programs taking up valuable resources. Ever wonder why all the defence experts we always see on the news go silent when something goes wrong with the subs?  How many other uses could $150 million U.S. go to instead of the F-35...