OTTAWA—Canadian military procurement is in the spotlight these days, thanks in part to the badgering and threats levelled by United States President Donald Trump. 

While calling on Canadians to get their “elbows up” in response to Trump’s trade war tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney is actually bending over backwards to comply with the president’s demands that we drastically increase our defence budget. 

The Carney Liberals have just days remaining in the current fiscal year to push cash into the coffers of the Department of National Defence. Last summer, Carney pledged to meet the NATO alliance’s spending objective of two per cent of gross domestic product on national defence by that deadline.

Ironically, during the process of Canada nearly doubling the defence budget in a single year to two per cent of GDP, NATO—under Trump’s direction—raised their spending objective to five per cent of GDP by 2032. That would mean a whopping $150-billion annual defence budget. 

While Canadian defence procurement is notoriously glacial in its progress, it is also by its very nature extremely complex for the average citizen to fathom. For instance, major programs for things like fighter jets, warships, and armoured vehicles will not only factor in the purchase price, but also the life-cycle costs for operating those platforms. Thus, when there are billions of dollars in cost overruns or delayed projects, it is hard for a layperson to understand exactly how much was wasted. 

However, this was not the case with a recent headline in The Ottawa Citizen, which read “Company that provided new military rifles with stocks that bled red dye gets contract to fix the problem.” 

It turns out that last December, DND quietly issued an $8.8-million contract to Colt Canada to provide 7,000 new rifle stocks to replace the faulty stocks which the firm had originally provided for the C19 rifles. For those with a curiosity for Canadian military firearms, the C19 is a bolt-action rifle based on the Tikka T3, built by Sako of Finland.

Colt Canada received a $32.8-million contract to supply almost 7,000 of these C19 rifles for use by the Canadian Rangers. These unique units are a component of the Army Reserves, which are comprised of largely of Indigenous volunteers who operate in remote regions of the Arctic and coastal territories.

Since 1947, the Canadian Rangers were issued with the proven Second World War-vintage Lee-Enfield rifle. So no one is disputing the necessity of replacing the weaponry of the Canadian Rangers.

What people did question was the added cost for Colt Canada to deliver the bulk order of firearms. On the civilian market, individual Tikka T3 rifles of the similar tactical variant supplied by Colt Canada under licence retail for around $3,100. Simple math puts DND’s original cost per C19 rifle at nearly $5,000 each. 

This would admittedly be a lousy deal, but the project only got worse from there. According to the documents obtained by The Citizen, as early as May 2018 when the first of the Colt Canada C19s were being distributed to the Canadian Ranger units, users reported that the red-coloured stocks on the rifles couldn’t handle the moisture, and that the lamination on the wood stocks was peeling off. The red dye used to colour the C19 stocks was transferring to the hands of those Rangers using the rifles.

One report on the C19’s shortcomings cited an incident wherein after only a five-minute exposure to rain, the weapon was dripping red dye. 

Suffice it to say that the problems with the C19 stocks resulted in DND issuing the latest $8.8-million contract to Colt Canada to supply 7,000 new stocks to deal with the faulty ones. 

The Canadian taxpayer is on the hook for that full amount apparently, as DND claims that the one-year warranty has already expired. 

For the record, any private citizen who purchases a Tikka T3 rifle is covered by a two-year warranty that is automatically increased to a three-year warranty when you register the firearm with the company. But, I digress. 

In trying to explain away this whole mess, DND spokesperson Alex Tétreault told The Citizen: “The performance requirements detailed performance against specific environmental conditions (cold, wet, etc.), and the C19 met these criteria. Therefore, Colt Canada fulfilled its contractual requirements, based on what was asked.” 

In other words, there was no problem with the C19 rifles. Until there was one. 

Tétreault claimed to The Citizen that the problem with the C19 rifle stocks “only became apparent and reported after extended field usage in extreme climatic conditions leading to cycles of expansion and contraction in the stock. This was not observed during Initial Operational Capability training; it only became apparent in the last two months before the end of deliveries.” 

Unfortunately for DND, the dated documents obtained by The Citizen under the Access to Information Act reveal that the C19’s shortcomings were discovered almost immediately by their users. 

Presuming that Colt Canada promptly replaces the 7,000 C19 rifle stocks, and they can finally close the books on this procurement project, the results are both embarrassing and revealing. The new contract for replacement stocks brings the total value of the purchase to $41.6-million, or roughly $6,000 per C19 rifle. 

This means that, somehow, DND spent nearly $20-million more buying them in bulk from Colt Canada than they would have spent buying 7,000 individual Tikka T3s from the Sako website. And if they did it that way, they would have had at least a three-year warranty to cover the purchase.

Scott Taylor is the editor and publisher of Esprit de Corps magazine.

The Hill Times

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