Julie McLaughlin
Inside the little-known world of Calgary’s defence contractors
In Afghanistan they provide the technology that allows soldiers in light armoured vehicles to locate Taliban fighters and shoot them down. In the Persian Gulf they provide the machine guns that protect American warships from incoming missiles. Around the world they will one day supply the latest in high-tech fighting vehicles: a tank that can sail to the scene of a battle.
These are the defence contractors that have set up shop in Calgary. Some are subsidiaries of large American corporations and some are homegrown. In recent years nearly all have benefited from Canada’s war effort in Afghan- istan and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Since the early 1990s the industry has been growing in the city taking a piece of the estimated
$4 billion that flows into Canada’s defence industry every year.
Much of the industry’s operations are shrouded in secrecy — no one is sure exactly how much it produces or where all the weapons go. At least one human rights group is troubled by figures that show Canada exports millions of dollars of military equipment to countries mired in civil unrest and internal conflicts.
In the last few years Calgary has become an integral part of the weapons logistics and high-tech components of the U.S. and Cana-dian militaries. Fast Forward takes a look behind the scenes at the companies that are making it happen.
A GROWING INDUSTRY
A radar device for the CF-18 fighter-jet lies in five pieces on the table. Across the room another radar box is open and small microchips are spread across a desk. Men in blue labcoats adorned with yellow “support our troops” ribbons run computer tests of the equipment and select microchips to replace broken ones.
This is Raytheon Canada’s Calgary plant located near the airport in a sprawling industrial park. The company which is one of the world’s largest missile manufacturers uses its Calgary facility to repair and upgrade radar systems for Canada’s CF-18s and the high-tech infrared and targeting equipment for the Coyote light armoured vehicles that Canadian troops use in Iraq.
Raytheon also builds the Phalanx a turret-mounted machine gun that vaguely resembles R2D2 the Star Wars robot which sits on battleships or accompanies convoys of U.S. troops in the desert and shoots down incoming missiles and mortar shells.
“We do all the high-tech stuff” says Ron Guidinger the company’s vice-president. “Calgary attracts the best and the brightest.”
Outside the windows of his corner office the Canadian flag flies next to the Stars and Stripes. This remote suburban area is the epicentre of Calgary’s defence industry. Behind a facade of dark tinted glass across the parking lot from Raytheon’s boxy grey plant is the Calgary location of General Dynamics one of the largest defence contractors in the world. Down the street is another contractor Harris which helps repair the CF-18s and also provides satellite communications to the army.
Guidinger has watched the local industry grow. After serving in the Canadian air force and commanding a group of fighter pilots in Operation Desert Storm the ex-colonel took a job with General Dynamics which opened its Calgary plant in the early 1990s. In 2004 he came to Raytheon which has been in the city since 1991.
General Dynamics’ Calgary facility is involved in manufacturing biological weapons detection systems for Canada the U.S. and Egypt. It’s also helping to build one of the U.S. army’s largest new technological developments a floating tank called the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV).
Launched from a battleship the 10-metre-long 34-tonne vehicle can carry 17 marines to shore. Once on land the EFV can manoeuvre with the same agility as a tank and shoot down shore defences up to two kilometres away with its 3.4-metre cannon and its 7.6 mm machine gun.
NovAtel a Calgary-based company manufactures GPS and antennae for use by the Canadian and U.S. militaries. Atco Frontec another Calgary-headquartered company provides a range of support services to the army in Afghanistan. Five hundred of the company’s employees run the Kandahar airfield offloading cargo repairing aircraft and ferrying soldiers to the base. The company also operates NATO’s computers in the area.
Unlike Raytheon and General Dynamics Atco Frontec isn’t exclusively a military contractor. Many of the company’s operations are more innocuous like supplying food to workers in mines in the Arctic. However it identified the need for logistics support to NATO troops and in 2000 became the first contractor to provide logistics to the Canadian army.
“It’s a market that’s grown quite rapidly over the last few years” says Michael Gervais Atco Frontec’s vice-president of business development. “It is one of our growth areas.”
However Calgary’s most improbable defence industry success story is that of SMART Technologies. Founded in 1987 as a home business by partners David Martin and Nancy Knowlton SMART originally made most of its money selling office projectors. In 1990 however Martin perfected his first white board and the company began to market it.
SMART’s white board is like a cross between a PowerPoint a chalkboard and e-mail. A presenter can create diagrams and write on the board. The boards can be linked through a network allowing a user in one place to write on the white board of a different user across
the world.
Although the board first found success as an educational tool it was soon clear that it had wide-ranging military applications as well. SMART started marketing its technology to the army. An officer can use it to draw diagrams and brief troops. Drill seargents can train soldiers with it. While remaining at headquarters a commander can issue instructions to front-line troops and draw maps showing them where to attack.
Today the company makes $13.3 million in annual sales to the U.S. government and military has offices in 25 countries and contracts with armies in Australia the Netherlands Norway and Switzerland. There’s even a SMART board in the situation room at the White House.
TRANSPARENCY PROBLEMS
While Calgary’s weapons companies are relatively open about their contracts with the United States and Canadian armed forces the industry’s dealings with other regimes are more murky.
Under Canadian law companies that want to ship weapons to a country other than the U.S. must apply for an export permit. The government tracks the sales and occasionally releases data on them. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) forbids the export of arms that could be used in an internal conflict or deployed against a civilian population. However a government report released last year indicates that several conflict-ridden countries benefited from imports of Canadian military equipment.
Israel which is mired in a bloody fight with Palestinian insurgents received over $4.6 million in Canadian arms between 2003 and 2005 the latest year for which numbers are available. Turkey which has fought an on-and-off war with Kurdish separatists since 1984 received over $2.6 million worth of military eqipment in the same period. Other conflict-prone states that have imported Canadian military goods since 2003 include Colombia Iraq and Lebanon.
It is almost impossible to know exactly what these goods are which companies are exporting them and where in Canada they are made — the government keeps this information secret.
“There’s basically a transparency problem” says Ken Epps a researcher with Project Plough-shares a Waterloo-based antiwar organization. “There’s no obligation for the industry to report.”
DFAIT insists that it has a rigorous process for ensuring Canadian equipment isn’t used to commit human rights abuses but Epps argues that without full disclosure there’s no way of knowing. What’s more the defence industry’s networks are so complicated that a Canadian company could make part of a weapon destined for one country and that country could then sell it to another. Canada’s Pratt & Whitney for instance manufactures an airplane engine that it sells to a Brazilian company. The aircraft can then be used to train troops to attack guerrilla fighters in Colombia.
“While Canada’s record is better than most it still has a long way to go before it’s even living up to its own guidelines” says Epps.
Guidinger says his company doesn’t have any ethical problems. Raytheon’s Calgary plant only works on equipment for the Canadian U.S. and Australian armies and he argues that DFAIT would forbid any unethical sales. “Every year we provide ethics training to each and every one of my staff” Guidinger says. (Both General Dynamics and NovAtel were unable to comment by
press time.)
Despite the ethical questions raised by groups like Project Ploughshares Calgary’s defence industry is forging ahead. General Dynamics is scheduled to build more than 500 EFVs by 2015. Atco Frontec plans to keep growing with its military contracts front and centre.
In the past few years Guidinger estimates Calgary’s defence industry has doubled in size and now employs between 1000 and 1200 people. “I can see that growing by 50 per cent in the next five years” he says.
