[Technical difficulty—Editor] to get these issues talked about.
It should be a natural matter of discussion, as our previous government regularly undertook with the F-35.
While the debate was heated at times, it was always open, with regular committee meetings, unanimous emergency studies in various committees, and regular debate in the House on the issue. Rather than taking on a statutory review of legislation as requested by Minister Brison, something we could do at any point in the coming session, we should be focusing on matters of immediate concern.
I have four concrete concerns that underpin the tabling of the motion today, and I hope to garner support from all members of the committee on these.
Issue number one is the sole-source contract. We're all here on the OGGO committee—by choice, it is hoped—because we feel a duty to watch over the disbursement of public funds, to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being allocated fairly and responsibly, and to make sure that the procurement projects are receiving the proper oversight and scrutiny for the sake of public servants, Canadian industry, and in our case, the Canadian Forces.
It's difficult to justify a sole-source contract worth billions of dollars as being fiscally responsible. In response to an Order Paper question we submitted to the Minister of Public Works questioning the rationale for a sole-source contract, the minister responded that while we wait for new planes to be procured through a lengthy competition process, the government is exploring an interim option to fill the capability gap in the Canadian Armed Forces requirements for defence supplies or services.
On that point I want to comment on Minister Foote's new mandate letter, which says, “I will expect Cabinet committees and individual ministers to: track and report on the progress of our commitments”. It goes on:
We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government. It is time to shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it serves. Government and its information should be open by default. If we want Canadians to trust their government, we need a government that trusts Canadians.... Our platform guides our government. Over the course of our four-year mandate, I expect us to deliver on all of our commitments.
One of the commitments is to “Work with the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development to launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft, focusing on options that match Canada’s defence needs.”
Obviously, we've been calling for an open and transparent competition, and the response from the government is that there will be one in five years from now. This contradicts the minister's own mandate letter, which says, “Over the course of our four-year mandate”.
We have a mandate letter demanding openness and transparency. We have a mandate letter saying that over the course of a four-year mandate, of which only two and a half years are left, they expect to deliver on the commitments, one of which is an open and transparent competition that will not be for five years. Therefore, the mandate letter that was issued, I think, just two weeks ago already contradicts the government's policies and workings.
Continuing on the capability gap, which we call the credibility gap, the government's justification for allocating billions of dollars on a sole-source contracted basis has been questioned by members of the military, the media, and military and procurement experts inside and outside the government.
As then Liberal House leader, Dominic LeBlanc, said in 2010, in response to an earlier procurement of jets, there is a “commitment to ensuring that the men and women of the air force have the aircraft they need, but also to do the missions that this Parliament and that the government asks of them, and not simply pursue a particular aircraft for some ideological reason.”
Again, we have the government course contradicting what their own House leader said back in 2010.
I can go further with a quote from Minister Garneau, then Liberal defence critic, who said:
Once the bidders on a contract are evaluated, both in terms of performance requirements and the offsets they are prepared to offer, we are then in a position to select the best aircraft for Canada.... Why are they the best? Why is this the best way of going about it? In one word, it is because it is a competition. By definition, when a competition is held, the best deal is found. Everybody knows that.
I have a couple of other quotes. This is from Minister Garneau again, from March, 2012:
...the government has bungled the CF-18 replacement right from the beginning. Will it now do the right thing, which is: first, define a statement of requirements based on our objectives from a defence and foreign policy point of view; second, hold an open and transparent competition; and third, choose the best aircraft based on performance, cost, industrial benefits and, I need to add, availability? In other words, do what the Liberals did 30 years ago when we chose the CF-18.
This one is from May 2012 by Kevin Lamoureux—odd, I know. It's hard to find him speaking in the House, but here's a comment:
Mr. Speaker, there are many aspects of the budget I could talk about, and many other aspects I could talk about with regard to the 70-plus pieces of legislation.... There is one issue that kind of eats at a lot of Canadians, and that is the issue of credibility. The Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence have a talked a great deal about the need to replace the F-18, something the Liberal Party agrees with. There a need to replace the F-18. Where we disagree is with the manner in which that has been done. There has been a great deal of deception from the government to Canadians. At some point, it said $9 billion was going to be the cost, and we are finding out that the cost is going to be more than double that.
At least that government had discussed costs, as opposed to hiding them, as we have seen with the Super Hornets.
Mr. Lamoureux continued:
My question to the member is this. How can Canadians believe the numbers the government is purporting to talk about on issues like the deficit, when it has really made a whole mess, and there is evidence to show it misled Canadians on the pricing of the F-35 contract? Why should Canadians believe the budget document is a legitimate document...?
It goes back to our concerns that the Super Hornets haven't been priced and that we've chosen an aircraft before we've even negotiated a price.
This last one is from Honourable John McCallum, recently retired, from May 2012:
The government could have put the F-35 out to tender. In a book coming out today, the former ADM for materiel, Alan Williams, makes a strong case that this F-35 business has been mishandled from day one. He has also indicated that a competitive bidding process would save the taxpayer some billions of dollars.
I'm going to go on about the Super Hornets. It's not a small deal, as we know. These are 18 jets that are going to be flown by our forces, and dismissing this as a matter of “it's only something we're going to do until we get something better” is the wrong course of action. We owe it to Canadians to fully and transparently examine the necessity of the current government's ignoring of the key fairness clause in government contracts regulations.
Issue number two is ministerial responsibility. Earlier, we discussed her mandate letter. One of the main reasons that we, as members, send letters to ministers and move motions calling for emergency meetings on particular topics is that we need answers to questions that only ministers can provide. They are the elected and accountable faces of the departments they lead and the final sign-off for all projects and decisions. For example, we've had six press conferences on the Phoenix pay fiasco, the most recent one just the other day. Minister Foote has been present at exactly zero of them. She's appeared before this committee twice, with only one appearance before a regular meeting; and even then we cannot commit to making any decisions, because she's put her deputy minister in front of the issues.
To date we haven't heard anything from Minister Foote on the sole-source contract. When the previous government was pursuing the F-35 program, our current leader was the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. She regularly appeared before various committees, including this one, to discuss the program.
These jets are going to cost billions of dollars and take years to procure. They're an incredibly complex system, with millions of decisions to be made between two of the largest departments within the Canadian public service. Should anything derail in these discussions, it's up to the same minister who has been silent on shipbuilding, on Phoenix, and now the Super Hornets to take responsibility and explain what went wrong. We're wondering how we can possibly prevent these molehills from becoming mountains if we are not prepared to commit to an adequate oversight and study.
Issue number three is the lack of military experience involved in the manufactured capability gap. Our colleagues on the National Defence portfolio have repeatedly asked who is deciding the capability requirements for the military. Is it the defence staff or the PMO? There's been no response. Then in a November 2016 National Post article we found out that the government has ordered 235 military personnel and public servants to take the details of the fighter jet program to the grave. There are 39 civil servants in Public Works who are forced to sign this agreement, which would permanently bind them to secrecy on the fighter jet capability project.
The former assistant deputy minister of materiel, Alan Williams—the very same Alan Williams whom the Liberals relied heavily on during their calls for a competition for the F-35—has said he's never heard of such agreements. He said, “I've never heard of this type of thing before.... I never required it of my staff. I think if I had, I would have been laughed out of the building.”
The article went on to note that the capability gap—which the defence minister blamed on the previous government—has been questioned by a large number of defence sources. In fact, the article notes that earlier in the year, RCAF commander Lieutenant-General Mike Hood said that the CF-18s could fly until 2025 and potentially beyond. Moreover, as the article noted, “In his appearance before the Commons defence committee, Hood didn’t mention anything about a capability gap.”
Past statements from both CDS Vance and the chief of air staff have confirmed that the RCAF has sufficient numbers to meet its domestic and international obligations until 2025. This is the result of the previous government's investments in the CF-18 life extension program.
Given that the current government has deemed it appropriate to circumvent contract regulations on a questionable capability gap, it would be irresponsible for this committee to take the claim at face value, especially with the impact this would have on precedents. It is our duty to ensure that public dollars are being spent appropriately, efficiently, and in the best interests of Canadians. It's difficult to verify that this is the best deal for Canadians if the core tenet of the deal is being questioned and if government workers are under a lifetime ban on speaking about the deal.
We've also discovered that there was a 2014 memo posted on the DND website for over a year about the excess expense of managing two fleets and saying that the capability gap was non-existent. After being told to remove the memo from the website, DND confirmed that the government officials had decided to keep the memo secret. I didn't see how this could possibly be seen as anything but a naked attempt to hide the facts that contradict what the government has been saying.
Rather than openly addressing the concerns expressed by the public and the opposition when confronted by these facts, the government decided to simply declare the memo secret and have it removed from the DND website, something that no previous government, whether ours or Liberal, has ever done before.
Issue number four is the cost to taxpayers. The fact that the RCAF will already be running 18 Super Hornets is seen by many as putting Boeing at a competitive advantage in any future competition. The RCAF will already be set up to train its pilots on the Super Hornet and be geared toward its supply chain in operational requirements. Running a mixed fleet calls for countless unnecessary costs, making it a considerable factor for officials in upcoming competitions.
The government often tells of—