National Defence Committee on Feb. 7th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'll go to Madame Moore and then get back to Mr. Norlock.

Mme Moore, s'il vous plaît.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In your 2011 report on military equipment repair and maintenance, it was noted that there was a shortage of qualified employees and other challenges in terms of human resources, as well as declining skills and expertise within the Canadian Forces in the area of equipment repair and maintenance, because of the new method of awarding contracts to external suppliers. This was also emphasized in the report by the Union of National Defence Employees.

I would like to hear your comments on my concerns. Is there a risk that, one day, members of the Canadian Forces will no longer be able to carry out these tasks because too many of them will have been entrusted to external suppliers and they will be under the obligation to call upon these people, regardless of the cost?

If there is a lack of competition and we are no longer capable of doing it ourselves, we will have to pay the cost of maintaining our equipment, regardless of how much these people charge. As concerns operational readiness, if our service members are no longer able to maintain and repair equipment that is deployed overseas, is there not a risk that we will not be able to use this deployed equipment and that we will find ourselves in a situation where we will not be able to use a piece of equipment for a month because there is no one to repair it and we are unable to find someone to do so abroad?

[Jerome Berthelette]

Your question has many elements. If you don't mind, I will begin with the part concerning the risks.

For the record, I refer the committee members to page 28, paragraph 5.63. In that paragraph the department identified a number of risks related directly to the ISSCF framework itself. These include a “loss of work traditionally conducted in Canada if ISSCF contracts are awarded to foreign suppliers”.

This is also mentioned:

“Total dependency on one supplier for each fleet; reduced financial flexibility and ability to change requirements and priorities as needed, because of long-term, fixed-price contracts; loss of skills and expertise required to assess value for money and industry proposals, resulting from the transfer of responsibilities to the private sector; overpayment for services, especially in a directed contract situation; and uncertainty that the required culture change will be successful within federal departments faced with having to adapt to the new contracting approach.”

The department has identified those particular risks.

We should keep in mind that the contracting framework deals with essentially the third and fourth level of service. It doesn't always deal with the first level, which is the mechanics who are on the base, on a day-to-day basis, along with both the civilian and military personnel who are actually working on the equipment, maintaining it on a daily basis.

When it comes to the maintenance of equipment, there should always be either civilian or military personnel available to maintain the equipment at the base. So the equipment in the short term should always be available, but if the third and fourth level work isn't done, what happens is it will be subject to breakdown, it will require more extensive repairs. And if we don't take care of those particular risks, there is a risk that, over the long term, the equipment might not be available.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Norlock, you have the last question.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

That was going right down the lines I was going to go.

What you're saying is there's regularly scheduled maintenance and then there's maintenance due to operational requirements, such as an engagement overseas, or the military are engaged in another function in our country. There are two levels of maintenance.

Please correct me if I'm wrong or right here. The regularly scheduled maintenance appears, from your audit, to be done in a proactive, acceptable manner. Would I be correct so far?

[Jerome Berthelette]

Yes, I think that's a fair observation.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Would your concern be that when the equipment is used in an operational capacity, especially an operational capacity where there may be an emergent situation, there may be some lack of human resources to be able to accomplish maintenance in a field of operation? Is that correct, or have I gone a little too far with that, in interpreting your findings?

[Jerome Berthelette]

I think in terms of operations, National Defence will ensure it has the people in place to maintain the equipment in theatre, and that can be a combination of both the military and civilian and contract services.

I've just been reminded that in fact they take the technicians with them when they go into operations.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

You have to realize that I always speak so that the people at home who are watching or listening or who might read this....

The interpretation is that where there is a need to ensure the safe and proper operation of equipment, whether it be aircraft or ground vehicles, whether it be regularly used or used in a military capacity, the Canadian armed forces have been and continue to be able to ensure that the equipment and material used is in such a condition that it's safe to operate and is operating as it was designed to operate, vis-à-vis the safety and efficiency of the people who are using it. In other words, everything from the tanks to the ships to the aircraft....

[Jerome Berthelette]

As equipment is required for operations or training purposes, there are maintenance and repairs prioritized. They are brought up to the required level and they are then used. National Defence would not put the safety of its personnel at risk by not doing this. If equipment was not ready, they would not use it.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I may have misinterpreted what you said. You talked about the third and fourth levels of service. There appears to be a gap or a lack in there. Could you explain that in an easy-to-understand manner so that the average person out there knows what you mean by third and fourth levels of maintenance?

[Jerome Berthelette]

I would refer committee members to page 6, paragraph 5.6 of our chapter, when you have a chance to look at it. By third- and fourth-level maintenance and repair, what we mean are lengthier and more complex inspections, major repair, or complete equipment overhaul activities. These can take days, weeks, or months to complete. These are managed centrally by headquarters.

I think that answers your question.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

It does. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're going to wrap up here because we're over our time allocated to one o'clock.

I want to thank the Office of the Auditor General for appearing today. We had Jerome Berthelette, Pierre Fréchette, and Mathieu Tremblay. Thank you very much for your insight and participation in our study of readiness of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Mr. Allen, I understand you have a quick question.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Yes, thank you, Chair.

To my colleagues across the way, through no fault of our own, obviously, votes being where they are, with the first set of witnesses we were actually basically limited to 15 minutes. I'm not disputing, and I understand the chair's displeasure with what happened with information that went out before. I share that displeasure, by the way, Mr. Chair, as someone who has been around here for a while.

This side would certainly like the opportunity to question them again. Obviously, I can't make a motion at this moment, and I don't intend to, Mr. Alexander, but I would suggest that perhaps you take it back to the steering committee to see if there's a way to actually work your schedule to bring them back. As someone who sits on the public accounts committee, I can say to you that this work is invaluable. I think you know that at this committee, but you're really doing a great service to us at the public accounts committee as well by exploring these things. It's extremely helpful.

Rather than us duplicate perhaps, if you explored it even further by bringing them back, it would prevent us from doing it at the public accounts committee, because there's nothing worse than two committees doing the same thing.

I leave that in your hands, obviously. I'm the guest today, and I appreciate the opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have one quick intervention from Mr. Alexander, because of time.

Mr. Alexander.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thanks for the point. We will have all relevant discussions in the steering committee, including on that issue. But to be fair, among friends, in this open forum, a lot of their testimony did not relate to the report we are trying to focus on. There are other fora in which the issues they raised, which don't fall into the rubric of readiness, deserve to be followed up, including by the Auditor General's office, potentially. There is a schedule for DCC being reviewed as part of one of their studies. The public accounts committee and other committees have full authority to delve into these matters if they consider them relevant.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Yes, definitely, at the steering committee we will talk about this matter. At the same time, I believe the public accounts committee is probably the best place to deal with the proper use of taxpayers' dollars, rather than here, where we're talking readiness.

With that, I'm going to entertain a motion to adjourn.

The meeting is adjourned.