PM announces a new helicopter hanger for the 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 

I would like to take a moment to comment on recent events in New Zealand.

This is fairly close to home for us.  My wife, Laureen, lived in Christchurch when she was younger, and I think we have all been affected by the images of destruction there. That country has had a very rough year.

I want to take this opportunity on behalf of all Canadians to express our condolences to all New Zealanders, and obviously more particularly to all those who have lost family and friends in the terrible earthquake there.

We have been in touch with our friends in New Zealand, and have offered them our assistance should they need it.

My office has been in touch with that of Prime Minister Key, and I hope to be speaking to him in the not-too-distant future.
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I now want to resume where my introducer, Minister Peter MacKay started off, by thanking him for his warm words of greeting, and also for the tremendous work that he is doing as Minister of National Defence, as we continue the long job of reequipping and rebuilding our Armed Forces.

It is always great to see my other friends and colleagues who are present; Stockwell Day, President of the Treasury Board and the Honourable Gary Lunn. I also pass on my greetings to MP Rob Anders who is present as well.

I’d also like to acknowledge Rear Admiral Nigel S. Greenwood - Commander,  Maritime Forces Pacific, Colonel Carl Wohlgemuth - Commander, Air Component Coordination Element (Pacific) and of course, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Allan, Commanding officer of 443 Squadron.

It’s a great pleasure for me to visit the men and women of the Canadian Forces, and it is a particular pleasure to visit your establishment, to meet your personnel and to enjoy their hospitality, Colonel Allan.

For the benefit of anybody here who doesn’t know their whole story, Hornet Squadron is one of the great names in the Canadian Armed Forces. Raised as a Spitfire squadron nearly 70 years ago, 443 earned a tremendous reputation over Europe during the Second World War. Now reconstituted as a Maritime Helicopter Squadron here on Canada’s West Coast, 443 is as dangerous to Canada’s enemies today as it ever was.

Deployed afloat, any one of its Sea Kings will extend the reach of a Canadian warship, to detect, and just as importantly, to counter, a variety of sea-borne threats.

And, in a few years, 443 will be re-equipped with the powerful, state of the art Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone, that will – how do you say this nicely? – give the Hornets a bigger sting -  a much bigger sting.

Now, our purpose here today is to announce an important investment in Canada’s west coast defences. Across from where the squadron’s existing Sea King hangar now stands, our government will build a new, larger building.

It will accommodate the nine Cyclone maritime helicopters that are to replace 443 Squadron’s six old Sea Kings.  I will have a little more to say about that entire project in a few moments.

First though, I want to make a larger point about national defence, and why we’re here today. We live in a society that expects many things from government. So many, in fact, that we need to regularly - and deliberately - remind ourselves of this fundamental truth: The first duty of a national government, everywhere and always, is to protect its people, and its territory, from external threats.

If you don’t do that, you soon don’t have a country, and you don’t have any of the other good things you once thought were more important, either. So, while the nature and intensity of threats to Canada change over the years, this duty never does. And our government takes it very, very seriously.

Let me give you a short progress report.

Nearly three years ago, we went to Canada’s major East Coast naval base to launch our government’s Canada First Defence Strategy. This is a long-term plan to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces have the people, the equipment, and the support they need to do what we ask them to do, or what we might ask them to do in an unknown future.

So there in Halifax, we said we would strengthen the Canadian Armed Forces to defend and protect our country. We also said we would shoulder our fair share of the burden of defending North America.  And, because Canadians aspire to be a force for good in the world, we committed to ensuring that Canada can be a robust, reliable contributor to global security, and to humanitarian interventions.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is what we set out to do, and that is what we are doing.

We have expanded and extensively re-equipped the Canadian Armed Forces. We are rebuilding our capacity to share in continental, hemispheric and global defence, security and assistance missions.

And as a result of our re-equipping the Forces, our men and women in uniform have been able to do great work, from unprecedented manoeuvres in our Arctic, to fighting a hot war with the world’s enemies in Afghanistan, to bringing relief to Haiti.

Canadians are no longer seen around the world as people who talk a good game, but don’t get off the benches. We shall continue with the Canada First Defence Strategy. The new Cyclone helicopters, and this base reconstruction here that we are announcing today, are perfect examples of what that means in terms of our government’s commitments to action.

I am pleased to officially tell you therefore, that here at Pat Bay, we shall build a combined operations and maintenance centre for 443 Squadron. It will be ready in 2014.

That is when the squadron will need it, as it re-equips with the Cyclone. The new building will consolidate all squadron functions under one roof, making the squadron more efficient in many ways. It will also be a solid investment for the future of naval aviation in Canada.

It will be one more highly visible demonstration to Canadians of our government’s faithfulness to the nation’s core priority, defending Canada and Canadians.

Now, Ladies and gentlemen, in general it is always better to be an optimist.  And our country certainly has never gone, and never will be looking for trouble. However, many times during the last 200 years, trouble came looking for Canada, and the pessimists had their day. So, while Canada does not aspire to be an armed camp, neither is there any place in national defence for wilful naiveté.

That is why guided by the Canada First Defence Strategy, our government will continue to ensure that our men and women in uniform get top-of-the-line infrastructure and equipment, so that they can do their jobs safely and effectively – whatever the future may hold.

Thank you.

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