Monday, March 19, 2012

Bad Canada! Buy more planes!

More on the claim that the Halifax spy case may be putting our intelligence-sharing arrangements at risk (Colin Freeze, "Spy case could have done ‘grave injury’ to Canada's ties with allies," Globe and Mail, 14 March 2012):
The case of a naval intelligence officer accused of leaking classified military documents to a foreign adversary has done significant damage to Ottawa's treasured intelligence-sharing relationships with key allies, sources say. ...

Some sources characterize the damage – particularly to relations with the United States – as grave, while others say they hope bad feelings will blow over.

Personally, I think it's all B.S.

Our UKUSA allies have seen spies before -- in the hearts of their own agencies. They don't like it, but they're not stupid about it: they know it happens. Canada's record is, if anything, better than theirs.

At most, they probably see this supposed scandal as an opportunity to exert a little pressure on other questions.

What is much more likely to be of concern to our American cousins is the possibility, raised by the Associate Minister for Pork just one day before this latest scare story hit the press, that the Harper government might be going wobbly on the F-35 fighter purchase.

Now that our friends to the south can be expected to really care about.

Time to scare some of our reliably credulous politicians?

Sunday, March 11, 2012

TS//siPod

CSE's recently opened Mid-Term Accommodation Project building now has a new designation:

Pod 1 of the Long-term Accommodation Project.

Not the most inspiring name, IMHO, but it beats calling it the M. Brian Mulroney-Air Canada-Airbus Centre.

February 2012 CSE staff size

1957.

(If you click through on the link and get a different figure, it's probably because the Canada Public Service Agency has updated its website; they update the numbers once a month.)