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May 18, 2015

Canada Restarts Attempt to Buy Drones

Canada does not have a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV. It uses its CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft to fulfill the ISR mission against Islamic State extremists in Iraq.
Since 2006, Canada's military has been trying to purchase a fleet of UAVs, but it has faced an uphill battle due to lack of funding.
Air Force officers announced in 2006 that JUSTAS would see the purchase of MALE UAVs, but little has happened on that project.
The Air Force made a pitch to the Canadian government in 2007 for the sole-source purchase of Predator UAVs, built by General Atomics, but that was rejected.
Instead, in 2009 the Canadian military signed a lease arrangement which provided the Heron, made by Israel Aerospace Industries, for operations in Afghanistan. That lease ran from 2009 to 2011.
When the JUSTAS project was active, both MDA and General Atomics indicated they intended to bid.
Northrop Grumman also made an unsolicited offer in 2012 to provide Canada with a fleet of Global Hawks, specifically for Arctic operations, but the Canadian government did not act on that proposal. The Air Force determined that the cost of the Global Hawks was too expensive for the Arctic capability.
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