We are actually doing quite well given the current economic situation and the fact that a large part of the budget is being consumed on operations. Remember the last recession? We were lucky to get out of that one with 60K troops. Now at least we have 100 MBTs that have the potential to be upgraded at a later date. That is after the new artillery, surveillance suite, AFVs and smaller items are paid for. We still have to decide the fate of the RG-31s post Afghanistan. In short, we can be thankful to the current government which has gone a long way to fixing the neglect of the previous government.
What we should have done in the mid 1990s instead of the conversion of the C1 to C2 is to buy Leo IIs from the Dutch. At that time we had 114 C1s and our numbers of MBTs in NATO were limited to 114 under the Arms limitation treaty. When it became known that we were looking for an upgrade, the Dutch put exactly 114 Leo IIs up for sale. Go figure. However, I asked the dumb question at a Senior Review Board on equipment at the time, why are we upgrading an obsolete tank, when we could have a modern tank at the same price? I was politely told to shut up and afterwards I was told that the reason was politics. Tank is a four letter word as far as the Liberals were concerned, and they were hell bent on removing any offensive capability from the CF. I asked Gen Hillier the same question when he was CLS and he said it would take a change of government for the Army to get a new tank.
AS of two months ago the AEV project is still alive, but there are no plans to buy an AVLB. Hope to move back to a job 'in the know' shortly.