Punishing Failure

Think the F-35 fiasco is a mess, you might want to take a look at the Sea King replacement program. In 2004 the former Liberal government contracted Sikorsky to build 28 of it's Cyclone helicopter to replace the decrepit Sea King fleet, the first of which was to be delivered in 2008, with the balance due by early 2011. Well as you can guess these deadlines have not been met, but wait it gets worse.

The Conservatives instead of administering the prescribed penalties as agreed to in the original contract decided to punish Sikorsky by renegotiating the contract adding $117 million to it's worth. Under this new agreement we were to receive five cyclones this year and nineteen in 2013,( Wait. What? My math skills aren't the greatest but even I can see that only adds up to 24, Four less than originally contracted. Great now we are paying more for less,oh if only I could get punished like this) however as you can likely guess Sikorsky now says they cannot meet these new deadlines so eight years after the original contract was signed we still don't have one single helicopter in our possession


Government documents obtained by the Citizen show that the Conservative government could have hit Sikorsky with up to $89 million in fines for missing its deadlines but it decided to waive those penalties.
Instead the government renegotiated with Sikorsky and, under a new deal, Canada is to pay the U.S. aerospace firm $117 million extra for improvements to be made to the Cyclone, as well as changes to the long-term in-service support package for the aircraft.
But Sikorsky failed to meet those new delivery deadlines as well.
The government is now re-negotiating another deal with the firm but it is unclear when the helicopters might arrive.

Damn there they go punishing Sikorsky yet again, who knew being punished could be so profitable.