National Defence Committee on Oct. 7th, 2010

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Williams, we know you aren't here to explain the value of the planes that have been selected, but to talk to us about the process by which this plane was selected. I also see that you are a man who wants to throw the government a line when you tell it the process was flawed and we have to start over.

Could you give us an outline for that process, or some indications of how to go back and how it would have to be done? Is it still conceivable to do that?

[Alan Williams]

Absolutely.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

So what would have to be done?

[Alan Williams]

Given that there is a statement of requirements out there, and I'm led to believe there is, the process from going from that stage to signing a contract need not take long.

I would point out that we talked about seeking the replacement on December 17, 2003. The minister, David Pratt, said to go ahead and buy. I think it was on November 23, 2004, that the contract was signed. Now, we may have a difference about how well that contract is being managed, but that's another story. So if the statement of requirements is there, the process by which you then start to put that out into the public domain, to do a request for proposal, get the bid back in, do the evaluation, is frankly something that governments have done and the bureaucrats have done for many years. Public Works and National Defence have very capable, competent people who can run with that very quickly. That's why, frankly, when you talked to the bureaucrats up until very recently the whole intent was to compete this.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Williams, we had some questions throughout this about the jobs, and I think the contractors who have appeared before us have talked about getting contracts and providing employment. The other day we had a gentleman from Magellan who did an estimate on jobs in response to Mr. Braid's question, and he used the figures like this. He said if there is $3 billion worth of work, the normal figure would be one-third of that, based on labour costs or employment costs, so $1 billion over 20 years, 9,000 jobs. If you divide that by 20, you get 450 full-time job equivalents for 20 years.

Do those numbers sound realistic to you?

[Alan Williams]

I wouldn't comment on it. I always trusted industry--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

This is coming from industry now, but I mean--

[Alan Williams]

I know, but when I was in charge I always was respectful of their accountability. They are accountable for determining those things, and I wouldn't be in a position to challenge it.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

You are on record as saying this is not about jobs.

[Alan Williams]

What I am on record as saying is that the primary focus is getting the right aircraft. Once you've done that then certainly jobs are important and certainly the cost is important. There are other things. But the paramount in buying anything military has to be is this the best thing for our men and women in the military who are giving their lives? That's it. Anything else is secondary to that clear priority.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And if you're dealing with--

[Alan Williams]

That's why, in any competition, frankly, any bidder has to meet the technical requirements, and then price is a factor. The industrial and regional benefit is a pass-fail thing, right? It's not weighted. It's there. You either can do it or you can't, because you don't want to say you're not getting the best product because of IRBs. And most bidders--all bidders--understand how the game is played and they all come in with very rigorous and appropriate IRB plans.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And if we chose another plane other than the F-35, I'm guessing that the same kinds of job opportunities would be available, given the costs of this type of hardware.

[Alan Williams]

I'm saying there'd be more jobs. But what I can guarantee is the same companies, the same contracts as the F-35, are going to be the ones to benefit. Hence, if you have a contract for the F-35s then you're going to do all you can to make sure that's not challenged or that's not put at risk.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You said again--and I agree totally--that the military sets the requirements. The priority is to get them the best airplane. Does that imply what we call a best-value approach, or does that imply a lowest-cost compliant approach?

[Alan Williams]

There are a lot of different evaluation strategies, and we can go into that, and not just those two. We can talk a lot about different ways of evaluating which bid is best and there are instances when one is appropriate and one is not.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Given that we don't have the technical expertise on the specifics of what makes the difference between communications--fifth generation, fourth generation, and so on--we used the lowest-cost compliant process about ten years ago to buy computers for Public Works, and we wound up buying Lotus 1-2-3. I don't know how many people remember that, but nobody uses it any more except PWGSC. So their systems basically can't talk to other systems. They have to do a whole bunch of things to make their systems talk to other systems.

Now, we've talked about Fords and Chevys being able to talk together. Computers are a little bit more sophisticated than Fords and Chevys. Fighters and communications in the next generation are infinitely more complex than that. So I would suggest to you that if we are going to interoperate with our allies, which you said is important, and our allies are all employing fifth-generation communications capabilities and they will be flying the F-35, then where do we sit?

I go back to Kosovo: we were in Kosovo with F-18s that couldn't speak to other airplanes. F-18s look like an F-15, look like an F-16. You said Fords and Chevys could all talk. They couldn't talk.

[Alan Williams]

That's why you now have different NATO standards in communications.

All I am saying is, if you have certain requirements to be interoperable in whatever dimension--communications and others--put that out in the open and let's see who can respond. I'm not saying buy something that doesn't meet our needs. I'm simply saying put out the interoperability requirements, put the performance requirements out there, put whatever you think is necessary so we can all assure ourselves that we're getting something that stands up to scrutiny and really is necessary.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

And when the military planners who are paid to make those kinds of decisions in Canada, the U.S., Israel, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, England, etc., have all come to the same conclusion....

[Alan Williams]

I would say they are not paid to make the decisions in this country. In this country that is not what they are accountable for.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Well, I would suggest they probably have similar processes.