Letter: Suffield still holds great, important potential

By Letter to the Editor on July 25, 2024.

I read with great interest Collin Gallant’s articles on ‘Operation Snowball’ in last week’s Medicine Hat News online addition.

On July 24, he raises an interesting question, what is to become of Suffield? This question has hung over the facility for years. I remember well the plan of James Richardson and Pierre Trudeau government’s plan to shut DRES and shift the scientists, engineers and technicians working there to various points across the country.

His ultimate goal was to build a research facility in his riding near Winnipeg. Thankfully, for DRES and the City of Medicine Hat, a local group of DRES employees took it upon themselves to challenge the plan and lobby the government – successfully – to cancel the planned closure of the facility.

I do not know what the overall economic benefit is to the city by having the research facility and military base on its doorstep, but it most certainly is significant – C$80 million the last figure I can find according to the Medicine Hat News (27-08-2020).

As the economic contribution of the oil and gas industry in southern Alberta declines, this contribution must be increasingly important to the economic well-being of Medicine Hat and southeast Alberta.

The ‘intangible’ benefits of maintaining DRES and CFB Suffield must be obvious to even the most naïve observer. Canada’s political commitment to the country’s defence has been, quite frankly, a joke for decades.

Under the current regime, even more so. There current prime minister has no credibility on the world stage, especially in matters of defence. Despite the seeming indifference of the country’s federal government to the nation’s defence and NATO commitments, someone in the country must begin to mount a strong challenge to the current status quo.

In an increasingly unstable and dangerous world, and as the way wars are waged, there is golden opportunity to repurpose Suffield to accommodate training in modern technology, tactics and techniques.

In my travels, I have met soldiers from several countries who have trained at Suffield. All had nothing but positive comments about the facility, the training the got there and their experiences in Medicine Hat when the training was done.

I would hope local MPs, MLAs and city council are already fast at work lobbying the feral governments in Canada and the U.K. to modernize and repurpose the facility as required to ensure its long-term survival.

Duncan Laidlaw

Aberdeen, Scotland

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