National Defence committee  I wanted to draw your attention to three points, the first three you see on your screen, and then if time permits we can touch on comparable countries. I don't know what the committee expected, but the first point is that currently we're spending about 1% of GDP on national defe

National Defence committee  The first point was that there are three examples to that kind of view. Currently we're spending around 1%, down from 1.4% maybe seven or eight years ago. The first example is General Hillier's famous statement—everybody knows it—about the dark ages in the 1990s, but we were cut

National Defence committee  Right, but we are doing the same thing. It costs our taxpayer in the region of an estimated 20% extra on every major procurement.

National Defence committee  Now, there is no hard-core study on this. The Parliamentary Budget Office had some numbers concerning the ships. Historian Granatstein had some estimates; I don't know how he obtained them. As for the way we work in terms of economic benefits, and this is a very advanced econom

National Defence committee  One minute? In that case, my last point will be on the F-35 project. As opposed to all other economic benefit programs, the F-35 is incomparably better. I cannot say the same thing for other dimensions of the F-35 in terms of the strategic value, etc., but economically, all the

National Defence committee  I am disputing that. Similarly, if somebody tells us that Australia is spending 2% and we're spending 1%, is it another dark age? The argument is that the amount of money we have to spend on defence is determined by various factors, two of which, the most important, are the threa

National Defence committee  But as soon as we went in, then we realized—I think there was a sort of flagship signal—that we'd sent them in with those Iltis jeeps, and then we figured out that we were at war and we started spending. In fact, we were unprepared for that—that is true—but everybody was unprepar

National Defence committee  Is it the same question?

National Defence committee  The secretariat, which will have to look after procurement, will certainly improve things slightly because we are talking about a new coordinating institution that was not there before. In that sense, there will be an improvement, but the fundamental issue remains the same. If yo

National Defence committee  We were just talking about that before the meeting. The major defence projects—as was mentioned, there were 10 or 12—are very important projects. We are not talking about buying computers or soap, we are buying major things. If Public Works and Government Services Canada staff ar

National Defence committee  The first batch of acquisitions was bought during the Afghanistan war. We used the national security exception. That means we removed the checks and balances provided by Industry Canada. Are there possibilities we can do it in the country? We just bypass. In fact, in the case of

National Defence committee  What I've referred to is not quite wish lists, but the structure of the procurement.

National Defence committee  My picture has four boxes. There are other bodies, of course, but the main bodies are Treasury Board, Defence, Industry, and PWGSC. You are coordinating, and that's an improvement, but the fundamental problem is there. Some of our allies removed the dividing boxes and said, “Ok

National Defence committee  With somebody; one body is responsible.

National Defence committee  We can at least have a discussion. We're not having the discussion. It's the first time in a major forum that I'm able to say we have to have a discussion. The Brits, the Australians, and many other Europeans moved in that direction. The Americans pretty much do it, but they have