Canada’s military is planning to purchase thousands of new trucks in a deal estimated to be worth more than $750 million, even as an earlier announced truck program has fallen years behind schedule.

With much fanfare in 2006 the Harper government announced plans to spend more than $1 billion on new trucks for the Canadian Forces, but so far only a fleet of commercial off-the-shelf vehicles has been delivered and a contract awarded for specialized truck shelters. It will be another two years before a contract for the main order of 1,500 trucks is signed.

But in the meantime, the Harper government has just informed companies that it is in the market for even more trucks as part of a new project called the Logistics Vehicle Modernization or LVM.

That program, according to Public Works, will replace more than 4,000 vehicles from various military truck fleets.

But Public Works officials acknowledge that firms may have trouble meeting the numerous requirements of the new project.

“The LVM Project is seeking a wide range of deliverables that may be challenging to individual companies,” the department noted in a letter recently sent to industry.

Industry representatives estimate the cost of the LVM project to be around $750 million to $1 billion.

The letter sent to industry to provide companies with details of the proposed purchase is one of the first steps in the procurement process.

According to Public Works, the LVM Project will replace two major groups of trucks; 1,200 trucks known in military parlance as Heavy Logistic Vehicle Wheeled and 2,800 known as Logistic Support Vehicle Wheeled. The project will also modernize another smaller fleet of heavy engineer support vehicles.

The range of equipment to be bought includes multipurpose trucks, ambulances, dump trucks, tractor-trailers and wreckers.

Public Works officials say the government expects to award a contract in the summer of 2014 with first deliveries taking place a year later.

Military officers see the LVM project as further proof of the Harper government’s commitment to the Canadian Forces, even at a time when other federal departments are being cut because of concerns over the deficit.

But industry representatives are taking a more cautious view. They believe the government will eventually purchase the new vehicles but they question whether that will be done anytime soon, pointing out the Conservatives have yet to award the main contract from the first truck project announced in 2006.

Jack Harris, the NDP’s defence critic, questioned why the government was proceeding with the new procurement when the other program to buy trucks was stalled.

“How can they do this when they can’t get their act together on the other trucks?” asked Harris. “It doesn’t seem like a coherent program to me.”

Harris said parliamentarians on the Commons defence committee were never told that a second truck purchase was needed.

The other truck program, called the Medium Support Vehicle System (MSVS) project, was announced in the summer of 2006 as one of the Conservative government’s key military programs.

The main aspect of that project is the purchase of 1,500 standard military pattern trucks.

At one point those trucks were supposed to be delivered starting in 2008 but that date was later changed to 2010 and then to 2011. Under the new schedule a contract is expected to be awarded in early 2013 with initial deliveries in spring 2014.

The latest roadblock in that program came about because government officials didn’t translate into French the equipment specifications and paperwork provided to bidding firms. That is now being done.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose have, however, continually pointed out that military procurement has significantly improved under the Conservative government.

They note that the MSVS program has already seen the delivery of a new fleet of commercial off-the-shelf trucks modified for military use.

Those trucks, were built by Navistar at the firm’s Texas assembly line, and are designed to meet some of the army’s transport needs at home.

But the purchase of those Navistar vehicles was controversial as the order for the firm came as it was laying off hundreds of Canadian workers at its plant in Chatham, Ont. Union officials complained the Harper government was financing jobs for American workers while Canadians got little from the deal.

But Conservative government officials defended the deal, saying that the military trucks couldn’t be built in Canada.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Military+looking+purchase+over+trucks/5320619/story.html