Mr. Speaker, today as I look at the motion before the House, in particular at the last lines of it, I am amazed by its wording. The motion ends up saying "thus endangering the Canadian aerospace industry located in Montreal".
What is being said there actually is that we cannot compete with other people around the world. That is wrong. We as Canadians have proven in the high tech field that we can compete around the world and in many areas we lead the world. I will not accept for one minute that the aerospace industry in Montreal or Boeing in Canada or any others cannot compete.
As we talk about the Department of National Defence's support for the Canadian defence industry, let us remember that a lot of things have been done jointly between the military and civilian companies to put success stories together. They have worked very co-operatively over the years.
Let us look at some examples from the past several years of Canadian defence company successes. The contracts awarded in the late 1970s and early 1980s to a Quebec firm, Bombardier, for jeeps and medium weight trucks are a good example. As we all know, under able leadership the company established itself as
world class while generating significant revenues and employment in Quebec.
National Defence has continued to contract with Bombardier-Canadair for the CF-18 systems engineering support. Canadair is now endeavouring to market a CF-18 support expertise abroad. The Department of National Defence is supporting these efforts by way of making available technical personnel to brief foreign defence officials on the Department of National Defence's maintenance and support regimes and how Canadair fits in.
People who leave the Canadian forces through retirement quite often go into other companies and take their expertise with them. This is just an extension of defence helping them out during the days of active service of a member of the forces.
More recently, the Department of National Defence provided similar assistance to a Kitchener-Waterloo firm, Diemaco, a manufacturer of small arms. The Department of National Defence was there to assist Diemaco in its marketing efforts with the Dutch. A defence materiel co-operation memorandum of understanding in place with the Netherlands facilitated our efforts and those of Diemaco.
Through our involvement in NATO, specifically in joint NATO projects and through the NATO industrial advisory group, the Department of National Defence in Canada has played a key role in identifying opportunities for Canadian firms and assisting them to participate in NATO projects in the development stage. Quebec aerospace firms in particular are very active. Among them are CAE, Canadian Marconi, Heroux, Oerlikon Aerospace, SNC, and Bell Helicopter.
Examples of important contracts include: CAE simulators for NATO AWACS aircraft which enabled the company to become a major competitor for simulators on AWACS, airborne early warning and control systems type aircraft; Héroux landing gear for NATO AWACS aircraft which positioned it to compete for and win other 707 aircraft business; allied signal actuation systems for military air to air and shipborne missiles known as the NATO Sea Sparrow.
National Defence offered its support along with other defence departments in co-operation with other departments to Canadian defence contractors. The most recent example is of the firm Héroux Québec, which lost its bid for a contract to repair and maintain landing gear for the American air force.
Héroux had been doing the work satisfactorily for many years. However, when the contract came up for renewal, this Canadian firm lost out to a bid made by a USAF depot under rather dubious circumstances. Héroux appealed the awarding of the contract to American authorities. With the help of our officials here in Ottawa and in Washington, the Departments of Foreign Affairs and International Trade put considerable pressure on the American authorities and on the USAF. Héroux and its advisors also made very well supported appeals so that the work on the landing gear could continue.
We realize that if Canadian defence contractors are to survive, they cannot depend on Department of National Defence procurement alone. This is more true as the Canadian forces have been reduced in size. They must export or sell to commercial markets or both. National defence has provided assistance in the form of loans of equipment, material and personnel for demonstration purposes and the use of facilities to test and evaluate product enhancements or to demonstrate products. Generally speaking, this form of assistance has not placed overly significant demands on our resources.
We have however over the past three years devoted significant time and effort in organizing industry promotional events in conjunction with ship visits to foreign ports. Some 25 Canadian companies, including the Quebec firms, Loral Canada, formerly Paramax and UNYSIS Canada; CAE; Bell Helicopter; and Canadian Marconi have participated in ship visits by Canadian patrol frigates to ports in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the United States and South America. CAE, a company which participated in every ship visit has told us that the ship visit to Korea led directly to a major contract in that country.
I have named but a few of the successful Canadian defence and defence related companies. These companies are located in virtually every region of the country. Canadian defence and defence related companies are successful by their own efforts. They build on their strengths and their reputations to produce competitive leading edge technologies. They aggressively market them throughout the world. They diversify into commercial or dual use markets and also aggressively pursue those markets.
Again it is Quebec aerospace and defence electronics companies like Héroux which recently won a major contract for commercial aircraft work. Canadian Marconi and Spar Aerospace are in the forefront of diversifying their operations and are going after increased exports and commercial work. Other progressive firms like Indal Technologies of Mississauga, Ontario are also building on their expertise and aggressively pursuing foreign markets, sonars for the royal navy, helicopter haul down systems for the U.S. and Japanese navies.
If I may go back to one of my original comments, Boeing Incorporated has branch companies in Arnprior, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba. These companies have done well in Canada when they have been given a chance to bid openly on the market. However, during the latter years of the Conservative government they were not even given a chance to bid. They have since revolted against that type of attitude. Companies located here in Canada, whether they are branch companies or original Canadian companies, want a chance to bid on the open market for these contracts. It is a healthy situation for all of them.
I know that Boeing was very disgusted with the bidding process during the Conservative government years. We came to office with the promise that we were going to open up the system for bids. People were going to have an opportunity to play fair, to be able to bid on the open market, to make up their engineering designs and submit them and have them properly perused. A successful bidder would be picked with integrity and honesty. That is the route this government is taking.
As today's motion indicates, we are now opening up bids for helicopters. A lot has been said about the cancellation of the EH-101. Let us remember that particular contract had a bad beginning. That was one company which had been given favouritism and other companies in Canada did not have a chance to openly bid on that contract. Helicopters were built for search and rescue that were also built for on board ship helicopters. Those helicopters do not have to be the same. Because everything was built into both of them, the cost of those helicopters went through the roof. That was one of the key problems with it.
If the best deal is to buy a helicopter off the shelf and put the goods into it here, then that is the way we should go, providing everybody has the opportunity to buy those helicopters and to put the equipment in them. Any subcontracting that would be done would be open to Canadian companies. They would have a chance to put their expertise and their various engineering departments to work. They could sit down, draw their plans and present their best effort. Experts in the defence department along with other personnel would review these contracts and would decide which was the lowest bid and the best bid. We would be getting the best product for our money.
It is very important that these companies understand they have a fair place to bid in the Canadian nation. To come forward and insinuate in a motion to this House that a company located in Montreal or in any other part of Canada is not capable of competing responsibly does not give credit where credit is due to our companies.
Many professionals are retiring from our armed forces. They are going into these aerospace companies with their expertise and years of experience having handled the equipment. They too will have new ideas. They will have an excellent idea as to what must be in that product if it is going to be the best for Canadian aerospace products.
Our Canadian forces will be smaller. Therefore it is very important that they have the best equipment in the years to come. I was rather surprised when a senior person in the forces said to me the other day that the new technologies the Canadian forces have makes it almost possible for a regiment to do today what it took a whole battalion to do a few years ago.
People who have worked over the years on aeroplanes, on shipborne helicopters and on search and rescue helicopters know what is needed in those desolate spots. They know what is needed when there are high windstorms. They know what is needed when facing great difficulties at sea. Those people are important to the companies. They know what is needed and what should be recommended.
The Department of National Defence with its expertise and others it can draw upon put all of that in the bids to begin with. There may be some very good suggestions thereafter on the part of those experts who work for the companies making bids. Suggestions are always welcome in the aerospace business as it is in any other business.
It is good to have a debate in the House today on the subject of the Minister of National Defence having made the announcement that we are now open for bids on search and rescue helicopters. That is not the route which the previous government would have taken.
We have told Canadians through the Minister of National Defence that search and rescue helicopters are now up for bid. Companies can bid on them. May the best company with the best product win. In that way our Canadian forces and those who are going to be flying search and rescue helicopters in the future will be well served. Those for whom the search is made will have a better chance of survival because we have a good aerospace business. Our people are quite capable of producing a good product here.
Finally, I say buy the product off the shelf, put into it what we absolutely need to make a good and reliable product and let us go from there. It is an open system. It is a fair system. It is a bidding system. It adds to the integrity that the government is trying to put back into the minds of the Canadian public so that the taxpayers will know they are getting the best for their dollar because the bidding system is open again. It is not back rooms dealing, it is up front bidding.
