National Defence committee  It's not within my terms of reference to be looking at those issues. You're the committee for defence. You have to ask others about those. I wanted to say that I'm from B.C., too, though.

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Well, the new procurement process will attempt to develop that consensus better. The conversation has started. We have a lot of pieces in motion, but the intention is to get a better consensus. I have a different view of the French procurement system. I don't think it's that gre

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  It comes back to a point that I was trying to make before, and maybe not well enough. Confidence and trust are really important here. This is being set up under the accountability of the Minister of National Defence, but the way I'm approaching it is to have a lot of conversation

National Defence committee  Thank you.

National Defence committee  There are three components of it. The first thrust is to deliver the right equipment in a timely manner to the Canadian Forces. That's where this piece fits in, because getting the front end of a procurement “genetically correct”—somebody said that to me, and I really liked it—at

National Defence committee  It's a conversation that I've had with a lot of people around town. I'm comfortable that if we do this right, we're going to be good, and I'm determined to do my part right. The idea is that with the requirements set, the high-level mandatory requirements for a project should se

National Defence committee  It is being set up under the accountability of the minister, but it will be providing independent third party advice to the minister. It will not be part of the normal DND governance process. They will continue to define requirements, work on requirements. But before they go to t

National Defence committee  No. I am part-time, but I have a small team assisting me that is full-time. I'm kind of the quarterback calling the plays and they're running them full-time. I am doing a lot more days up front than I will as we move along. In fact, I'm starting to do fewer now that some pieces a

National Defence committee  I can give you some short comments.

National Defence committee  We're looking at it. Every country has a different machinery of government around this. Every country has a different history. All the western countries we're looking at have their issues. They're all dealing with serious issues around defence procurement. But at the end of the d

National Defence committee  No. I mean, those considerations are part of the broader defence procurement strategy. There's a DM committee that's looking at a lot of broader issues. My piece is around the statement of requirement: what the capability gap is that we're trying to address; how the requirement i

National Defence committee  I have to address the premise of your question—

National Defence committee  The request for proposal is downstream in the procurement process. The piece I'm working on is at the front end of the procurement process where requirements are initially defined. This drives the subsequent process. I wanted to make that clear. In terms of unique qualifications