National Defence Committee on Feb. 15th, 2007

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

You talked to us about the Defence Capability Plan and fixed wing aircraft. We have all been looking forward to this. I spoke to the minister about it when he appeared before us.

We've been told that $20 billion worth of military equipment will be purchased but we still haven't seen the famous Defence Capability Plan. Why? What are you waiting for?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

My understanding is that this document is now engaged in cabinet-level discussions. We await with interest the results of those discussions as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Mr. Hiebert, and then Mr. Coderre.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

My questions now have to do with the in-service support of the C-17.

The question was put earlier to Mr. Williston about why it is that we have a 20-year contract for service. I think there's a lot of misinformation out there, and I was hoping that everybody here today could provide some explanation as to the nature of that in-service support; perhaps an explanation as to why we decided not to incorporate all the in-service support domestically; and elaboration on the benefits to Canadian companies to participate in Boeing contracts or in the Boeing market worldwide as a result of the agreement we have with Boeing on the C-17s.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

I can probably only speak to the part that I'm most familiar with. In respect of what contracts go to Boeing, it's mostly other people who are involved in that.

From my perspective, on the C-17 side, we're dealing with only four aircraft. There is going to be a fair bit of specialized work done on this. If you only own four of them, essentially you could end up with a situation wherein technicians are highly trained to work on something they only work on part time, because you don't have enough aircraft in the system to be able to make that work. The concept that some of this heavy maintenance would go elsewhere seems to make sense simply because we have so few aircraft.

In the C-130J and the Chinook, with a larger number of aircraft there, it will make a lot more sense for us to have that capability in Canada. From my perspective, that's why it makes some sense with a very small number of aircraft. A portion of that work--that portion that involves things you only do very irregularly--you can probably do an awful lot cheaper by doing it somewhere else when you take those four inside that system of 200, as opposed to a stand-alone capability in Canada created for something that would only happen occasionally.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

Is it not the case that a vast majority of the maintenance on the C-17 will be done in Trenton by technologists on the ground, and that only periodically will we have to send it out for inspection?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

That's my understanding.

[Terry Williston]

That's my understanding as well. The metric that I have is that every 120 days there will be an aircraft maintenance routine conducted on the C-17s in Trenton. It's only every five years that the planes will have to go to one of Boeing's facilities in either San Antonio or Georgia for this major overhaul. The Globemaster III sustainment partnership allows us to be part of a group of countries—there are certainly two other countries that are involved, Britain and Australia—that have determined that this is actually the lowest-cost option for providing the routine maintenance and major overhaul requirements for the Boeing C-17. So at the end of the day, it offers the best-value option for Canada.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

So it's a bit of a misstatement to suggest that 20 years' worth of maintenance will done outside the country when it's only being sent once every five years for an overhaul. That's pretty obvious. Is that not the case?

[Terry Williston]

That's correct.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

As well as the benefits to Canadian corporations, I understand that by participating in this Globemaster contract, not just the government, but Canadian corporations are now eligible to provide maintenance on other Boeing aircraft, like the 777 and other commercial aircraft. Therefore, there are additional spinoffs to Canadian corporations as a result of that. Is that not the case?

[Terry Williston]

That's correct, and while I can't speak specifically to the IRBs—as I indicated, that's for another department to do—because the IRBs for this particular purchase are mainly indirect, it does offer that opportunity to Canadian industry to participate on those potentially larger fleets of commercial aircraft that Boeing may be involved in.

[Russ Hiebert, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, BC]

All right.

We were talking a moment ago about the state of the Hercules fleet and how basically less than half of them are currently flying. When do you anticipate retiring the last E model Hercules?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

Actually, only four of them are not flying at this point in time. Four of them are grounded at this point in time, and by 2010 an additional 10 will be, for a total of 14 that will be grounded. Within probably a year or two after that, the last of the E models will be grounded. There are 19 E models, and 13 in a rather odd collection of H models that came along after them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Coderre, and then back to the government.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I'm very pleased to have you here, Mr. Williston. I hope we'll be seeing you on February 20^th because Minister Fortier will be here. We'll be talking about the ISS

and we'll talk about ITAR, because there's a difference between the first-, second-, or third-line maintenance under ITAR. Of course, at Trenton we can maybe do the first-line maintenance, change the oil, put some gas in the tanks, and some windshield washer, but that's another issue, and ITAR is a major issue.

We will have a debate on that, but I want to come back to Colonel Burt

and to General Lucas.

It is true because I myself have been a minister. One is accountable before Cabinet and one wants to know how things work. One therefore asks questions and becomes more interested. I was not minister of Defence but if I had been, I would certainly have wanted to know how the process works. I would set directions and I would make sure that the experts were doing their work in terms of the criteria that apply to the equipment that we need. Of course we have to help and support the Canadian Forces. I might also have an electoral platform and I would want to make sure that we have these aircraft.

You stated that ministers are particularly involved in their party's and their government's priorities, and that is true. General O'Connor is most certainly interested in strategic airlifter.

Colonel Burt, you've mentioned there was a refinement process. It was done and concluded on June 14. You sent e-mails to the chain of command, but there was a meeting on May 1 with the Minister of Defence. And when you look at no matter what refinement we're talking about, for the last six years, every time we talked about specific requirements regarding the weight lift at the platform, it was 43,000 pounds. So somebody said something to somebody.

I want to know if it would have been better, for the sake of perception, to have had a meeting with the minister after the refinement process had been done, because if he had been there on May 1 and he had asked the expert, because of what you mentioned, and you're the one, and that your recommendation was to keep the 43,000 pounds, what happened? Why did it change in due course?

And finally, Mr. Williston, please let's talk about the C-130Js. We spoke about the C-17s, but let's talk about the C-130Js and the $888 million per plane.

General.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

We met with the minister a number of times during that period of time. For reasons, as you've noted, he met with us on a series of things, but certainly the strategic and tactical lift were included among those.

Certainly at the meetings, to the best of my recollection, the minister's focus was on the number of aircraft, on the affordability, and he did not get engaged in issues of how many vehicles could or could not be carried in the back of this aircraft. That's certainly my recollection of the meetings I was at with him. His focus was predominantly on whether this was an affordable program--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Who was there that day? Was Colonel Burt there too? Was it General Hillier and you?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

It would have been probably a group of people, the CDS, the vice-chief, me, perhaps the chief of the army--that sort of a group with the minister.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Who were giving a status of the refinement at that time, right?

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

We were talking about how we could in fact have a viable program and what that viable program would look like in terms of numbers. He was interested from the perspective of whether this was going to be a viable fleet. The question was mentioned earlier whether four was a viable number. I believe four C-17s and 17 C-130Js give us a very capable airlift fleet, and it is very viable.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

That I know.

Colonel Burt, who told you to change the requirement from 43,000 pounds, because that was your recommendation? Somebody told you to change it. Who did it?

[Col D. C. Burt]

As I've already stated twice this morning, nobody told me to change that. I found a discrepancy between two components of the SOR and I looked at options on what we would do to rationalize that discrepancy to ensure when I advanced this SOR that it would be complete and would provide the best value for Canadians. The recommended option was the one I advanced to the Chief of the Air Staff, and since that point it has not changed, sir.

[LGen J. S. Lucas]

From my perspective, when it did arrive at my desk, we essentially had a very solid requirement. Really, to be able to--

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

First, I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you because the SOR is pretty clear.