By Scott Taylor
Earlier this month, Defence Minister Anita Anand boasted that Canada is regarded as a ‘leader’ in the provision of modern armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine.
In an interview with Global News, Anand stated “in terms of vehicles, I’ve told my colleagues across the NATO alliance to think about Canada as a leader in this area because what we are providing to Ukraine are brand new vehicles fresh off the [assembly] line to make sure that Ukraine has best-in-class technology.”
What Anand was referring to was the recent shipment of 39 Light Armoured Vehicles (LAV) directly from the General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) facility in London, Ontario to Ukraine.
While I have no doubt that the hard pressed Ukrainian military will welcome any donation of modern weaponry, I do not think that Anard quite grasps the scale and scope of the current conflict in Ukraine.
According to U.S. and UK intelligence sources, Russia has lost over 2000 main battle tanks in the first eight months of combat. While Ukraine’s losses are not reported, it is safe to say that Canada’s 39 Light Armoured Vehicles will make roughly one week’s worth of battlefield attrition in Ukraine.
Also, if NATO sources are accurate, to date Ukraine has captured and re-employed some 440 Russian main battle tanks and it is believed that Ukraine now possess more armour than the Russian invaders.
As for Anand’s point that Canada can lead the way in terms of providing armoured vehicles in the future, one has to politely ask “in what universe?”
The fact that Canada had these 39 brand new LAV’s to give away directly from the GDLS factory has it’s origins in a 2018 diplomatic spat between Canada and Saudi Arabia.
It is a little publicized fact that Saudi Arabia is Canada’s best customer for arms exports. Over the past two decades GDLS-Canada has produced over 1400 LAV’s for the Saudi Kingdom.
In August 2018, the Saudis had just placed a whopping $15 billion order for more LAV’s from GDLS when Global Affairs minister Chrystia Freeland publicly denounced the Saudi Kingdom for human rights violations. In turn the Saudis expelled Canada’s ambassador to Riyadh and cancelled all new trade deals.
Canada stood by Freeland’s position and shrugged off the Saudi rebuke as simply the cost of holding rogue regimes accountable.
That was not the sentiment at General Dynamics USA when Saudi Arabia stopped making payments for the Canadian built LAV’s.
Technically Saudi Arabia did not owe any money to GD-USA as military sales are run through the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), which acts as the middle man.
However this was simply semantics, and GD-USA was indeed taking the hit as CCC could not pay for the vehicles if the Saudi Kingdom didn’t fork over the cash.
To resolve this impasse, the Canadian government hastily moved up its own plans to buy new LAV’s, doubled the purchase order and provided GDLS-Canada with an upfront $600 million interest-free loan.
This deal was for $3 billion and GDLS-Canada is to build a total of 360 new LAV’s for the Canadian Army.
The 39 we just shipped to Ukraine were available only because the Saudi dispute forced the Liberal government’s hand into bailing out GDLS-Canada and their parent company in the USA.
While this batch of new LAV’s never actually entered service with the Canadian Army, they are still slated to eventually replace our army’s existing worn out older armoured personnel carriers.
Given GDLS-Canada’s production track record, which assembles about 70-100 LAV’s a year, Anand’s promise to lead the way in arming Ukraine is a pipe dream.
Furthermore, while GDLS-Canada produces a world class quality LAV, to date this class of light-armoured vehicle has not played a major role in the static battlefields in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian Soviet era built LAV’s have proven to be extremely vulnerable to modern anti-tank weaponry. Even the heavier main battle tanks on both sides have been of questionable value.
What has proven effective in Ukraine is long-range artillery with precision munitions.
That is what Ukraine really needs and unfortunately Canada does not produce such ordnance.
While it is understandable that Anand would like to capitalize on the ‘Stand with Ukraine’ public sentiment by telling us we are ‘leading’ the way, we are not, nor will we be in the foreseeable future.
