The Canadian Armed Forces is sending naval aid south to New Orleans: Canada sending four ships to Louisiana
Sounds good.
And then there’s an explanation of some of the special expertise we’re sending on the ships:
Again, sounds good.
And then this:
Oh, dear. We were doing so well …
That’s great news, thanks!
New Yorkers are also mobilizing; even theater troupes are raising money, and firetrucks and other vehicles are convoying to the South right now. We’ve never forgotten how the rest of the country helped us on 9/11 and also how great a friend Canada was.
I guess I’m a little slow today. I don’t see the downside there. What exactly is your concern?
The Sea King’s are in quite notoriously bad shape and need some large number of hours (I forget the quote) of maintenance for each hour they are in service. Replacing the Sea King’s has been a significant political football up here for quite some time.
Canada has a navy?
Cool.
Don’t let the politicos in D.C know, it might be a pretext for war if Canada sends relief effor-
WAR! CANADA INVADES NEW ORLEANS!
“We will locate Saddam’s missing WMD, even if we have to burn down Calgary to find them!” says Prez.
Haliburton awarded 100 Gazillion dollar contract. VP Cheney says, “That’s just peachy!”
All military aircraft require lots of maintenance relative to their flying hours. The Sea King is ancient, but as long as they’re properly maintained they are real workhorses.
This is true, but the Sea Kings are long, long, long overdue for replacement and have been experiencing highly publicized mechanical failures at extremely inopportune moments for some time now. That they’re still being used is due to stupid, petty politics. The Tory government of Brian Mulroney had contracted to buy EH-101’s to replace them, but the Liberal opposition seized on the $8 billion price tag and vocally opposed the purchase. Ironically, it was one of the few smart moves the Mulroney government made in its later years. Upon winning the '93 election, the Liberals followed through on their promise and tore up the EH-101 contract, paying a huge penalty. Since then, a lengthy selection process was undertaken, but had to be constantly rigged to be biased against the EH-101 in order to save the political face that would be lost buy buying them after all when we could have had the same machines at far less expense a decade ago. It’s finally been decided to replace the Sea Kings with Sikorsky H-92’s, but they’re not yet in service. At this point it’s probably the single largest bungling waste of taxpayer money by the Liberal government, eclipsing even Adscam.
While Canada’s navy is away, Denmark is going to take over that island.
Well, we appreciate the help, in any event. Thanks!!
Canada is sending its Naval ships to New Orleans? That’s a mighty long trip down the Mississippi River !!! (Will they even fit?)
Seriously, it’s good to see that Canada is once again our Good Neighbor to the North. (Remember in 1979 and the hostage crisis in Iran? Canada was helpful then too:
It’s good to know that Canada can always be counted on to do the right thing.
Thanks to our Canadian friends! (And I didn’t know Canada had a navy, either – cool!)
But no thanks to you, wolf_meister, for somehow putting the Nitty Gritty Band’s earworm “Battle of New Orleans” into my befuddled little brain!
…wanders off singing endlessly to herself, “We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’…”
What do you mean by “once again”??
Betcha didn’t know that at the end of WWII, Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world. We also had the 4th largest air force.
Today Canada has 12 frigates, four destroyers, and four used British submarines, plus a few ancilliary ships.
I hope they can be of some real help. Canada’s soldiers are superb, and they’ll be professional and efficient.
Is this a whoosh? Or do you mean he should have said ‘still’?
Northern Piper, when I read your thread title, I thought I’d be a smart arse and come in and ask just how long it was going to take us to get our ship out of West Edmonton Mall. 
When I read your post and got to the part about the Sea King helicopters, I laughed out loud and thought of the standing joke: When the U.S goes to war, they drop bombs. When Canada goes, we drop Sea King helicopters. 
Yep, we DO have a warped sense of humour.
Ouch!
Hey, if you guys don’t want them I’d be happy to take one off your hands.
If you can get it to fly… come and get one!
I presume he’s referring to the disagreements about the Iraq War. IMHO, they never really stopped being our friends. I certainly never noticed any hard feelings from the Canadian people, and most Americans have never held it against them. (Although Maxim magazine seems to have a bizarre irrational hatred of Canada.)
This was the first thing that popped in my head when I read the OP.