Dominoes...|/

[Stratopaused]

We buy 30 year old submarines that don’t float from the UK.

We have f-18s flying across the country from bagotville to cold lake pretending like they do things.

We have Hercules aircraft looking for a ELT signal from a training airport.

Well great news then! The CAF put out an RFP for new submarines, the F-35 is getting delivered in less than two years, the CC-295 is about to enter service as a SAR aircraft, the old CC-150s have already been replaced by CC-330s, the CP-140s are being replaced by P-8s, and the RCN is about to receive new support ships, offshore patrol vessels, frigates, and UAVs.

But hey, why let facts stand in the way of blatant partisanship. I mean, the last CPC government cut the military budget by $4 billion between 2011 and 2014, at which time it was $1.5 billion less than it had been in 2008. They also signed a contract for the F-35, then backed out of it and delayed entry into service by a decade, but they'll definitely do things differently this time, right?!

[330heavy]

Nice to see the comradery. A few Canadian aviation companies are struggling. Even Jazz, selling off Falco to stem the debt tide, and erasure of AC flying. We are all in this together and should be supporting each other. Canadian aviation is FUBAR. No doubt. I also have no doubt in Air Transat to right the ship, one way or another.

[rookiepilot]

But hey, why let facts stand in the way of blatant partisanship. I mean, the last CPC government cut the military budget by $4 billion between 2011 and 2014, at which time it was $1.5 billion less than it had been in 2008. They also signed a contract for the F-35, then backed out of it and delayed entry into service by a decade, but they'll definitely do things differently this time, right?!

Really?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada ... -1.3237046

[cdnavater]

Nice to see the comradery. A few Canadian aviation companies are struggling. Even Jazz, selling off Falco to stem the debt tide, and erasure of AC flying. We are all in this together and should be supporting each other. Canadian aviation is FUBAR. No doubt. I also have no doubt in Air Transat to right the ship, one way or another.

The difference is Chorus created an asset worth almost 2 billion and the debt is gone, leaving a little over 814 million in cash! Enough to pay off ATs loan to the tax payer, more or less. I think this sale is the winding up of Chorus, shareholders will get a payout when all the remaining assets are sold off, the big question, who is buying Jazz?
This would be a true bail out to forgive this loan, no airline in Canada has ever received a bailout that didn’t eventually pay back the tax payer, at least as far as I remember.
I do want AT to succeed, it needs to happen while still paying back the money they borrowed, I do not wish Transat pilots the horrible fate of starting over but I also think the playing field should be fair!

[cdnavater]

We buy 30 year old submarines that don’t float from the UK.

We have f-18s flying across the country from bagotville to cold lake pretending like they do things.

We have Hercules aircraft looking for a ELT signal from a training airport.

Well great news then! The CAF put out an RFP for new submarines, the F-35 is getting delivered in less than two years, the CC-295 is about to enter service as a SAR aircraft, the old CC-150s have already been replaced by CC-330s, the CP-140s are being replaced by P-8s, and the RCN is about to receive new support ships, offshore patrol vessels, frigates, and UAVs.

But hey, why let facts stand in the way of blatant partisanship. I mean, the last CPC government cut the military budget by $4 billion between 2011 and 2014, at which time it was $1.5 billion less than it had been in 2008. They also signed a contract for the F-35, then backed out of it and delayed entry into service by a decade, but they'll definitely do things differently this time, right?!

I think your memory of events is skewed! Trudeau cancelled the program and now is spending nearly the same amount for a quarter of the aircraft, and the budget will balance itself! This guy is an idiot to the highest level!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_ ... rocurement

“On 16 July 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government announced that it intended to procure original 65 F-35s to replace the existing 80 McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornets for C$9 billion (C$16 billion with all ancillary costs, such as maintenance, included) with deliveries planned for 2016

A formal competition was launched to select a new fighter, which included the F-35. On 28 March 2022, the government announced that the competition process had selected the F-35A and that negotiations would begin with Lockheed Martin to purchase 88 aircraft. By 20 December 2022, the Department of National Defence received approval to spend Trudeau $7 billion on 16 F-35As and related equipment, including training systems, potential weapons and support infrastructure”

[CaptDukeNukem]

Thanks @rookiepilot and @cdnavater for doing the research and quoting facts.

This is my point exactly.

[Stratopaused]

But hey, why let facts stand in the way of blatant partisanship. I mean, the last CPC government cut the military budget by $4 billion between 2011 and 2014, at which time it was $1.5 billion less than it had been in 2008. They also signed a contract for the F-35, then backed out of it and delayed entry into service by a decade, but they'll definitely do things differently this time, right?!

Really?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada ... -1.3237046

Did you read your own article?

The Conservatives announced an agreement in principle in 2010 to buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35s, a single-engine "stealth" fighter. But the purchase plan was put on hold two years later amid growing controversies around costs and other problems. An auditor general's report accused the government of fudging cost projections without sufficient research.

[Stratopaused]

I think your memory of events is skewed! Trudeau cancelled the program and now is spending nearly the same amount for a quarter of the aircraft, and the budget will balance itself!

Harper cancelled it first. From rookie's own article:

The Conservatives announced an agreement in principle in 2010 to buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35s, a single-engine "stealth" fighter. But the purchase plan was put on hold two years later amid growing controversies around costs and other problems. An auditor general's report accused the government of fudging cost projections without sufficient research.

[Stratopaused]

For some reason, many of you are giving the previous CPC government a lot of undeserved credit for military development and procurement that more often proved to be a fiasco.

https://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vol16/ ... 75-eng.asp

t is also supremely ironic that the only new-construction naval procurement project of the Harper era on which steel is actually being cut is not a major surface combatant emblematic of a perceived “warrior nation,” but the decidedly more humble Harry DeWolf-class AOPS, a constabulary vessel that is very lightly armed even by constabulary standards. Similarly, would a government that sought to create a true “warrior nation” have unceremoniously jettisoned Canada’s contribution to the NATO AWACS force, our last major in-theatre standing commitment to NATO, or abandoned its participation in NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program?...The most telling indictment of the “warrior nation” hypothesis, and, ironically, of the Harper government’s broader approach to national defence, centres upon defence spending (or, more accurately, on the relative paucity of defence spending) during the Harper era. As Welsh reminded us in 2012, “there are real questions” to be asked about the financial sustainability of McKay and Swift’s “warrior nation project.” For “some inconvenient data, one need only consult the 2012 Harper budget, which illustrates that the regular rises in defence spending that have occurred over the past five years are at an end.” Surely a government that sought to create a “warrior nation” would provide, on a sustained and even generous basis, the commensurate level of funding for national defence. Jeffrey Simpson blended these themes in a trenchant Globe and Mail column of 28 June 2014, arguing that “Canada’s Conservative government loves the idea of the military; it just doesn’t always like the military.” The “idea of the military conforms to the Conservatives’ sense of the country and its history, ‘true north, strong and free’, and the idea of the military fits the party’s political agenda. So we have monuments to the War of 1812, a National Day of Honour to recognize the Afghanistan mission, and [a variety of] military ceremonies at home and abroad…” Meanwhile, “while all this is being done for public consumption, the defence budget, which is, after all, what reflects any government’s real policies, is now smaller after accounting for inflation than in 2007, not long after the government was elected with a pledge to boost military spending.” For “a variety of reasons, [procurement] projects get delayed, run over budget or don’t get built at all. At each stage, the government looks bad.” The resulting headlines, argued Simpson, “got the government very annoyed at the military, as opposed to the idea of the military.” It is “still easier politically, and less costly financially, to be in love with illusions about the military and its past glories than with the hard realities of today’s military and its requirements.”

[SergeFortin]

so this post is about transat and somehow you guys derailed it to military budget and harper. Wow haha

[CaptDukeNukem]

so this post is about transat and somehow you guys derailed it to military budget and harper. Wow haha

Part of the avcanada fun. If you want actual aviation news, you have to go to non-pilot forums.

[Localizer]

Nice to see the comradery. A few Canadian aviation companies are struggling. Even Jazz, selling off Falco to stem the debt tide, and erasure of AC flying. We are all in this together and should be supporting each other. Canadian aviation is FUBAR. No doubt. I also have no doubt in Air Transat to right the ship, one way or another.

The difference is Chorus created an asset worth almost 2 billion and the debt is gone, leaving a little over 814 million in cash! Enough to pay off ATs loan to the tax payer, more or less. I think this sale is the winding up of Chorus, shareholders will get a payout when all the remaining assets are sold off, the big question, who is buying Jazz?
This would be a true bail out to forgive this loan, no airline in Canada has ever received a bailout that didn’t eventually pay back the tax payer, at least as far as I remember.
I do want AT to succeed, it needs to happen while still paying back the money they borrowed, I do not wish Transat pilots the horrible fate of starting over but I also think the playing field should be fair!

Could you please enlighten the group about how “fair” the playing field is? Which Canadian airline had the Government of Canada finance there fleet of Airbus’s to the tune of $1.8 billion in 1988? Care to take a guess?

Spare us the fair nonsense.

[cdnavater]

Nice to see the comradery. A few Canadian aviation companies are struggling. Even Jazz, selling off Falco to stem the debt tide, and erasure of AC flying. We are all in this together and should be supporting each other. Canadian aviation is FUBAR. No doubt. I also have no doubt in Air Transat to right the ship, one way or another.

The difference is Chorus created an asset worth almost 2 billion and the debt is gone, leaving a little over 814 million in cash! Enough to pay off ATs loan to the tax payer, more or less. I think this sale is the winding up of Chorus, shareholders will get a payout when all the remaining assets are sold off, the big question, who is buying Jazz?
This would be a true bail out to forgive this loan, no airline in Canada has ever received a bailout that didn’t eventually pay back the tax payer, at least as far as I remember.
I do want AT to succeed, it needs to happen while still paying back the money they borrowed, I do not wish Transat pilots the horrible fate of starting over but I also think the playing field should be fair!

Could you please enlighten the group about how “fair” the playing field is? Which Canadian airline had the Government of Canada finance there fleet of Airbus’s to the tune of $1.8 billion in 1988? Care to take a guess?

Spare us the fair nonsense.

Care to show me where the fact of government subsidy to buy these jets is, I found an articles indicating the sale to the public is what financed these jets, are you going on what someone said to you because many people believe Air Canada has been bailed out but that has also been disproven.
I understand why you’re lashing out but seriously man, you(AT) borrowed the money, pay it back like everyone else did!
Show me ever where the money borrowed from the government by AC wasn’t paid back to the tax payer with interest!
If you guys don’t pay this loan back, how quick do you think financing will come your way after that, I wish you luck!

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

“And while it has assets of more than $2.4 billion and reported a profit of $36.5 million in 1987, it has an accumulated debt of more than $1 billion and needs to raise $2 billion by 1995 in order to rejuvenate its fleet.

According to government officials, the prospect of a quick infusion of funds to buy new planes was a prime motive in the decision to sell Air Canada stock to the public, since Mulroney had decided that the airline would have to finance acquisitions itself”

https://www.joc.com/article/air-canada- ... al-5601315

Leo Ryan | Apr 13, 1988 at 8:00 PM EDT

The planned partial sale of state-owned Air Canada will allow it to plan for fleet renewal, said Air Canada President Pierre Jeanniot.

Commenting on Tuesday's surprise announcement by the federal government, Mr. Jeanniot said the sale is the financial key to Air Canada's future and allows the airline to plan for fleet expansion and renewal as well as pursuing new business opportunities.Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski said

[Localizer]

The purchase which totalled $1.8 billion in 1988 was financed by the government of Canada while AC was still a crown corp.

So is it still a fair playing field? Yes or no?

[altiplano]

The purchase which totalled $1.8 billion in 1988 was financed by the government of Canada while AC was still a crown corp.

So is it still a fair playing field? Yes or no?

The Airbus Affair demonstrates the complete opposite of your assertions in fact.

The fact is that Air Canada has constant politics driving it's actions that are often in fact against it's own interests. Whether it's the Airbus Affair, AC Public Participation Act, the Canadian Airlines purchase, special language rules, restrictions on business decisions, bases, HQ placement, and more...

[cdnavater]

The purchase which totalled $1.8 billion in 1988 was financed by the government of Canada while AC was still a crown corp.

So is it still a fair playing field? Yes or no?

Stop perpetuating the lie, you are WRONG!
Here is another article from back then;

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/busi ... craft.html

The Air Canada announcement had been expected for several months, but was delayed until after the Canadian Government completed plans to sell 45 percent of the state-owned airline to the public.

The move is expected to raise about $300 million (Canadian), or about $250 million, easing financing of the Airbus purchase.

Air Canada said that it would use equity financing, public bond issues, bank credits, private placement loans and the sale and leaseback of some of its existing fleet to finance the deal with the Airbus consortium, which includes companies in Britain, West Germany, Spain and France

[fish4life]

AT either needs to stand on its own 2 feet or the rest of the airlines in Canada should get the same amount of money proportional to their revenue.
They aren’t some mega corp that is too big to fail, if they shut down the slack would be picked up.
I hope they can get out of this with a clean restructuring and come out a leaner company that will be competitive in the long run instead of a liquidation scenario.

[Localizer]

The purchase which totalled $1.8 billion in 1988 was financed by the government of Canada while AC was still a crown corp.

So is it still a fair playing field? Yes or no?

Stop perpetuating the lie, you are WRONG!
Here is another article from back then;

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/busi ... craft.html

The Air Canada announcement had been expected for several months, but was delayed until after the Canadian Government completed plans to sell 45 percent of the state-owned airline to the public.

The move is expected to raise about $300 million (Canadian), or about $250 million, easing financing of the Airbus purchase.

Air Canada said that it would use equity financing, public bond issues, bank credits, private placement loans and the sale and leaseback of some of its existing fleet to finance the deal with the Airbus consortium, which includes companies in Britain, West Germany, Spain and France

Stop the excuses … fair, yes or no.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bus-affair

[cdnavater]

The purchase which totalled $1.8 billion in 1988 was financed by the government of Canada while AC was still a crown corp.

So is it still a fair playing field? Yes or no?

Stop perpetuating the lie, you are WRONG!
Here is another article from back then;

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/busi ... craft.html

The Air Canada announcement had been expected for several months, but was delayed until after the Canadian Government completed plans to sell 45 percent of the state-owned airline to the public.

The move is expected to raise about $300 million (Canadian), or about $250 million, easing financing of the Airbus purchase.

Air Canada said that it would use equity financing, public bond issues, bank credits, private placement loans and the sale and leaseback of some of its existing fleet to finance the deal with the Airbus consortium, which includes companies in Britain, West Germany, Spain and France

Stop the excuses … fair, yes or no.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bus-affair

I’m not really sure what you are trying to insinuate, the question was whether or not the government bought the 1.8 billion dollar fleet replacement, which it did not!
Did Mulroney exert pressure on the president of a sort of almost private company to buy Airbus instead of Boeing, probably, I’ll even say most likely but that still doesn’t make it unfair to AT almost 40 years later.
Fact: Air Canada was privatized to raise the money for the fleet renewal!
Fact: Air Canada has always paid back any government loans with interest, meaning the tax payer has always benefited from loaning them money!

Fact: No other airline in Canada has the Air Canada act that actually makes the playing field unfair towards Air Canada!

[altiplano]

The purchase which totalled $1.8 billion in 1988 was financed by the government of Canada while AC was still a crown corp.

So is it still a fair playing field? Yes or no?

Stop perpetuating the lie, you are WRONG!
Here is another article from back then;

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/busi ... craft.html

The Air Canada announcement had been expected for several months, but was delayed until after the Canadian Government completed plans to sell 45 percent of the state-owned airline to the public.

The move is expected to raise about $300 million (Canadian), or about $250 million, easing financing of the Airbus purchase.

Air Canada said that it would use equity financing, public bond issues, bank credits, private placement loans and the sale and leaseback of some of its existing fleet to finance the deal with the Airbus consortium, which includes companies in Britain, West Germany, Spain and France

Stop the excuses … fair, yes or no.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bus-affair

You are right. the political minefield and unfair ACPPA legislation that only Air Canada have to operate under are not fair.

Air Canada is the only airline and possibly the only private company in the country that has to do business as mandated by the federal government in a completely political Act that exists to please Quebec. Air Canada has never taken a cash gift from the federal government, quite the opposite in fact as they are a cash cow that the government feeds off and uses for their own political purposes to the expense of stakeholders.

[Localizer]

Stop perpetuating the lie, you are WRONG!
Here is another article from back then;

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/21/busi ... craft.html

The Air Canada announcement had been expected for several months, but was delayed until after the Canadian Government completed plans to sell 45 percent of the state-owned airline to the public.

The move is expected to raise about $300 million (Canadian), or about $250 million, easing financing of the Airbus purchase.

Air Canada said that it would use equity financing, public bond issues, bank credits, private placement loans and the sale and leaseback of some of its existing fleet to finance the deal with the Airbus consortium, which includes companies in Britain, West Germany, Spain and France

Stop the excuses … fair, yes or no.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bus-affair

You are right. the political minefield and unfair ACPPA legislation that only Air Canada have to operate under are not fair.

Air Canada is the only airline and possibly the only private company in the country that has to do business as mandated by the federal government in a completely political Act that exists to please Quebec. Air Canada has never taken a cash gift from the federal government, quite the opposite in fact as they are a cash cow that the government feeds off and uses for their own political purposes to the expense of stakeholders.

I’m under no delusion that the world is an unfair place, the claim of fairness wasn’t made by me. I just find it rich that employees of that company would shit on another and play the “fairness” card when they benefited from long history built on taxpayer dollars. I’m not denying it’s a private company today, but to deny its past is silly.

[cdnavater]

Stop the excuses … fair, yes or no.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bus-affair

You are right. the political minefield and unfair ACPPA legislation that only Air Canada have to operate under are not fair.

Air Canada is the only airline and possibly the only private company in the country that has to do business as mandated by the federal government in a completely political Act that exists to please Quebec. Air Canada has never taken a cash gift from the federal government, quite the opposite in fact as they are a cash cow that the government feeds off and uses for their own political purposes to the expense of stakeholders.

I’m under no delusion that the world is an unfair place, the claim of fairness wasn’t made by me. I just find it rich that employees of that company would shit on another and play the “fairness” card when they benefited from long history built on taxpayer dollars. I’m not denying it’s a private company today, but to deny its past is silly.

Has any other airline borrowed nearly a billion dollars from the government and not paid it back?

[altiplano]

Stop the excuses … fair, yes or no.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/ ... bus-affair

You are right. the political minefield and unfair ACPPA legislation that only Air Canada have to operate under are not fair.

Air Canada is the only airline and possibly the only private company in the country that has to do business as mandated by the federal government in a completely political Act that exists to please Quebec. Air Canada has never taken a cash gift from the federal government, quite the opposite in fact as they are a cash cow that the government feeds off and uses for their own political purposes to the expense of stakeholders.

I’m under no delusion that the world is an unfair place, the claim of fairness wasn’t made by me. I just find it rich that employees of that company would shit on another and play the “fairness” card when they benefited from long history built on taxpayer dollars. I’m not denying it’s a private company today, but to deny its past is silly.

Your argument isn't correct though. Sure, 40 years ago AC was a crown corporation and all the government does is waste money in every one of their departments, surely AC as a crown corporation was no different. But then the government sold it off and since it was privatized there haven't been any bailouts. Your perception is wrong.

And as you've exposed, AC is in fact hamstrung by all the baggage that the government dumped on it and continues to dump on it.

From the crown era bloat and bureaucracy, to the retirees with pensions and benefits that outnumber active employees, then there's all the politics and the special rules and restrictions and extra costs that no other airline has to deal with.

I'm not shitting on your company. But your assertions are incorrect and irrelevant.

[Localizer]

You are right. the political minefield and unfair ACPPA legislation that only Air Canada have to operate under are not fair.

Air Canada is the only airline and possibly the only private company in the country that has to do business as mandated by the federal government in a completely political Act that exists to please Quebec. Air Canada has never taken a cash gift from the federal government, quite the opposite in fact as they are a cash cow that the government feeds off and uses for their own political purposes to the expense of stakeholders.

I’m under no delusion that the world is an unfair place, the claim of fairness wasn’t made by me. I just find it rich that employees of that company would shit on another and play the “fairness” card when they benefited from long history built on taxpayer dollars. I’m not denying it’s a private company today, but to deny its past is silly.

Has any other airline borrowed nearly a billion dollars from the government and not paid it back?

AC, AT, Sunwing, Porter took “loans” during Covid, AC received $1.2 billion to refund pax, as far as I understand today nobody has fully paid back those loans. WestJet is required to pay Sunwing’s loan back as part of the deal, no idea whether that’s happened or not.

[cdnavater]

I’m under no delusion that the world is an unfair place, the claim of fairness wasn’t made by me. I just find it rich that employees of that company would shit on another and play the “fairness” card when they benefited from long history built on taxpayer dollars. I’m not denying it’s a private company today, but to deny its past is silly.

Has any other airline borrowed nearly a billion dollars from the government and not paid it back?

AC, AT, Sunwing, Porter took “loans” during Covid, AC received $1.2 billion to refund pax, as far as I understand today nobody has fully paid back those loans. WestJet is required to pay Sunwing’s loan back as part of the deal, no idea whether that’s happened or not.

It takes 30 secs of google, instead of saying as far as I know!
https://globalnews.ca/news/8386386/air- ... -covid-19/
Air Canada is pulling out of from the federal government’s $5.375 billion aid program as its business rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic.


The company has used the aid package to refund customers’ non-refundable tickets, the airline said Friday. Out of the total aid available, $3.975 billion was not used.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busines ... ment-loan/

Air Canada AC-T +1.90%increase
has repaid $462-million it borrowed from the Canadian government to buy planes during the pandemic, as Canada’s largest airline shores up its balance sheet amid strong demand for travel