General Dynamics Canada wins Canadian bio-sensor contract
After six years of succesful naval deployments, government will buy CAN$30 million worth of GDC’s VP Bio Sentry systems
A round of applause please for General Dynamics Canada (GDC) and its VP Bio Sentry biological weapons detection and sampling system. A hulking beast of a device, the Bio Sentry has been deployed on Canadian naval vessels for six years (although it also has static and mobile applications.) That was enough time for the Canadian government to decide it liked the home-grown system — one selling point may be its ability to operate in both frigid and humid climes — and this week it announced that it had awarded GDC with a C$30 million contract for six full and twenty-three partial VP Bio Sentry machines. (A full system includes multiple detectors and an alarming, sampling and identification capability. A partial system provides sampling, alarming and identification capability — using one detector — for ships and for training purposes.) Final delivery is expected in 2010. “This announcement is a win-win-win: a win for the Canadian Forces in getting the equipment they need, a win for General Dynamics Canada, and a win for the entire Canadian defence industry, which will gain new opportunities as a result of the industrial benefits,” said Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier.
