National Defence committee  Excuse me, sir. I think that clearly fits within Industry Canada's purview.

National Defence committee  I hear your word “guarantee”. I guess from the business community, business is used to earning business and looking for a timeframe within which to be able to properly prepare for opportunities when they come to the market. I think the F-35 model is a model that has afforded Canadian industry that timeframe to prepare.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon everyone. I will be giving my presentation in English, but we will be able, I hope, to answer your questions in both languages. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon and for your interest in hearing CADSI's views on the F-35 program, a subject of keen interest to Canadians and to our 860 member companies.

National Defence committee  I guess the facetious in me would ask where you are trying to go. If the objective is to re-equip the military and the strategy is to buy off-the-shelf, offshore in-production capability, where there is likely marginal benefit in return to the Canadian economy and knowledge-based jobs, our report says that is a missed opportunity and one we wouldn't think to be a huge success.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  I'll mention two things, if I might, in an attempt to answer your question. Our consultation process told us that there is a mounting deficit in private sector R and D related to defence, and that is in part driven by the absence of an industrial strategy that would drive private sector investment.

National Defence committee  As the technology is being co-developed, each has an interest in that. The question is for what use, for what end use? The end user obviously needs access and an understanding of that technology, as Mr. Stapley was commenting earlier, but so too does the private sector in order to be able to maintain its role as the steward of military equipment and in order to continue its technology evolution to support future military requirement and commercial opportunities, both of which make it a more competitive private enterprise.

National Defence committee  The report is somewhat timid on that front only because it would be presumptuous of us as an organization to be suggesting where the government might end up. What we're asking for is a dialogue, a commitment to a defence industrial strategy and then a dialogue to assist in the development of that.

National Defence committee  We haven't yet described a vision of what the country expects from its defence industrial base. We haven't identified, nurtured, and supported champions such as you just identified. We haven't identified a strategy, and strategies that can be used to support them.

National Defence committee  Yes, we heard that. Canada as a first customer is an extremely important asset. When we go abroad and are asked by a foreign buyer why we're not able to sell to our own government, how do we expect them to buy from us? Meggitt, incidentally, is very interested in the unmanned aerial vehicle business, the UAV, which not only has a military application but also a commercial application: pipeline surveillance, northern surveillance....

National Defence committee  We have suggested that the Canada First defence strategy does an excellent job of laying out what the government's intentions are to rebuild the military, and there's an investment plan, which we understand has been adopted by the government, but there is no alignment of those two documents with economic and industrial objectives for the country.

National Defence committee  Totally. Our report asks for as much. We are not going to be competitive on the low-cost scale of the defence industry. We need to be competing in the knowledge-based area, because as a small market we are more likely to be suppliers to the supply chains of large global companies.

National Defence committee  The delayed program today is resulting in companies laying people off at a time when the government is investing in stimulus programs to create jobs in Canada, at a time when the government has committed an awful lot of money over the next 20 years to rebuild the military. We believe, and this is the thesis of our report, that there's a win-win opportunity for Canada to not only re-equip the military but do so in a way that builds both capability and capacity, sustainable capability in this country.

National Defence committee  The issue we were trying to get at in part in the report was the relationship between the government and industry as it relates to our defence environment and around the world. There seems to be a much tighter working relationship between national governments and their national defence industrial base in pursuit of defined military and economic objectives than there would appear to be in Canada.

National Defence committee  It depends on how many the other team had on the ice at the same time.