Just about the time you think you know EV’s well, another EV study pops up in an unusual place, and using EV’s because of a different one of their strengths. The Canadian Government has commissioned a study of electric and hybrid electric snowmobiles for stealth use in clandestine operations in the Artic. Now I do understand that sound carries much longer distances above ground covered wth ice and frozen snow. The Canadian Department of National Defence (by the way the spelling in Canada, Australia, and Great Britian is “defence,” where we use “defense” in the US) has allocated $620,000 CAD for these studies. You say you remember the Canadian dollar being worth less? At current rates, $620,000 CAD is about $600,367 USD, Worth less . . . not so much. The US $ will buy $1.03 in Canadian dollars and the Royal Canadian Mint is no longer making pennies. They (the Royal Canadian Mint) are actually buying up the pennies in Canada (35 billion of them) and melting them to recycle the metals. So if you want to change your US dollar, you may simply get a Canadian dollar in return.
The Canadian Department of National Defence is vitally interested in sneaking up on outlaws in the wild artic areas. The government issued a preliminary report, but so much information was redacted (blacked out) that the report was quite difficult to read, and hard to see any conclusions.
Some Canadian policy experts have questioned if this is money wisely spent. Michael Byers, who teaches International Law at the University of British Columbia and a former federal NDP candidate said, ”I don’t see a whole lot of evidence that criminals and terrorists are scooting around Canada’s North on snowmobiles and that we have to sneak up on them.” Byers wondered if the defence officials have an obsession wth high technology, and stated the officials might not have an accurate picture of Canada’s actual needs. Byers added, “I can’t help but wonder whether they’ve been watching too many (James) Bond movies.”
Perhaps this is an acknowledgement (Can. sp.) that when we analyse (Can. sp) government behaviour (Can. Sp.) of our neighbour (Can. Sp.) it can be labelled (Can. sp.) with the same humour (Can. sp.) as ours.