Government Operations Committee on March 29th, 2022

[Alan Williams]

Frankly, you can look at the two programs we're going to be talking about today and be disgusted. Here we are, talking about 12 years before we get our planes. Christian mentioned that.

There was no reason 12 years ago, on July 16, 2010, to bypass all proper process and announce sole-sourcing for a jet. One does not spend billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on the say-so of someone. The way to make sure the military knows what it needs is to run a competition. In 2010, nobody had any idea what this thing would finally cost or even what it could do. To suggest that we should sole-source at the time was an abomination. Those things should not happen.

If they did not happen, then at the appropriate time—because these were going to be replaced by 2018-19—you go ahead and run the competition in advance and you get what you need in an appropriate time frame.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, sir.

[Alan Williams]

I just want to make one comment.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I don't have a lot of time.

Go ahead.

[Alan Williams]

I was going to comment on time frame.

In the year 2000, I did a study that showed that it was taking nearly 16 years to do a procurement. Myself and the vice-chief at the time, George Macdonald, agreed that this was unacceptable. We sent a directive to the men and women in DND who worked on procurements to say that from now on the military has two years from the beginning of the time when it needs something to the time it finalizes the statement of requirements. It has two years, and I, on the civilian side, have two years to get it into contract.

In fact, according to the department's own information, in 2011, they reported that we were successful in doing that. Unfortunately—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

I'm sorry for interrupting. If there is something further that you would like to add in answering that question, you could submit that in writing to the clerk and we would make sure we share it with the committee.

We now go to Mr. Jowhari for six minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all our witnesses today. I thank you for your testimony.

I'm going to start with Mr. Perry.

Acknowledging that your opening remarks were focused on procurement, I'd like to focus on another aspect, which is investment. That's an area you've also been vocal on, specifically on NORAD and NORAD modernization. I'm hoping that you're comfortable answering some questions on that front.

Acknowledging that NORAD is a system of systems, and the fact that for its modernization there are two schools of thought or multiple venues for modernization, would you be comfortable making comments about these venues? Which one would you recommend?

[David Perry]

I think there are a lot of different options being considered as part of that modernization, both for NORAD and for a wider set of efforts around continental defence. I hope we're going to see something quite soon.

What was laid out in a letter between the Minister of National Defence at the time and the Secretary of Defence from the United States—the day before our last federal election, I think—covered the waterfront, both literally and figuratively, in terms of what kinds of options Canada can contribute toward, along with the United States. There was a range of things: enhancing our Arctic infrastructure; improving the functionality of our forward operating locations, potentially putting one further north, for example; and replacing the north warning system with a range of modern systems to, with today's technology, provide the same function that the north warning system provided before, which is to be able to detect the key threats coming towards North America. I think there are a number of other investments we should look at in terms of command and control and various things like aerial refuelling tankers.

Hopefully that gets us—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

If I could be a bit more specific, I know we have an option of modernizing with the focus of upgrading and defence, as well as modernizing and expanding, which gets us not only to the defence side but also to the offence side.

What are your thoughts on that? Where would you suggest we focus?

[David Perry]

I think we need to look at doing both. We need a better understanding of what's coming towards North America, and we need better abilities to actually respond in the circumstances in which we want to respond, and that would be across all the different domains of warfare.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

If you're saying it has to be a model that's focusing on offence as well as defence, where do you see the recent acquisition, or at least the announcement around the 88 F-35s, fitting into NORAD, both in upgrading our defence side and in enhancing our offence ability?

[David Perry]

I think that's a significant investment that will make a really meaningful increase in our ability to contribute to the defence of the continent. I hope that project is prioritized as much as can be done. Hopefully we can look at some options for potentially getting early delivery.

That airframe, in particular, will significantly enhance our quantitative ability to respond, as well as make several step changes in terms of the attributes of that aircraft and how much of an advancement it is over the existing fighter aircraft we fly today.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Given that F-35s are already being used as part of NATO with the U.S. and the fact that we may be in a position, as you said, with the hope of expediting the process, to benefit from that, how will that further strengthen NORAD?

[David Perry]

It will strengthen NORAD by providing us with a significant increase in the surveillance capacity of our fighter aircraft, as well as a much-improved ability to work with other airplanes, as well as other assets, either on the ground, potentially, or at sea, and to share information and pass it back and forth among different platforms to get a better sense of what's happening overall. It also provides a significant increase in our ability to potentially intercept either an aircraft or a missile coming towards North America and shoot it down.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I have a minute and a half left.

I want to go back to the defence, as well as the offence. We know that traditionally NORAD, as it is in the U.S., is focusing on higher-altitude planes or missiles. There are some new developments around hypersonics by other states. Where do you think NORAD has to enhance, from an offence and defence...? Should it look at increasing the scope of including land or sea into this consideration?

[David Perry]

To talk about the last part of that first, I think the enhancement of our continental defence should definitely look at those aspects, particularly at sea. I'm a bit less clear about what the driving imperative is on land, but certainly in the maritime environment, I think we should be working as closely as we can with our American allies to make sure that the coastal approaches to North America are well secured. There's a discussion to have about who's best placed to do that, but I think the important part is that we make sure we have the means to do that, which would require moving quickly on our shipbuilding procurements.

In terms of the hypersonic issue, I think there are two parts: one, we have to have enough surveillance to be able to accurately track those particular missiles, which means we need a much more sophisticated and comprehensive ability to pick up that fast-moving and manoeuvrable potential threat; and two, we then have to look at ways of being able to at least intercept those weapons if we think they're armed with conventional warheads. There's a bit of a deterrence issue that comes into play if they're nuclear-armed, but they aren't always, at least as they're envisioned to be employed by some of the people who are fielding them. We need a better ability to intercept them if we think we need to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Perry.

We'll now go to Mrs. Vignola for six minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Williams, I hope you can hear me well and are not hearing an echo. Let me know if everything is going okay.

[Alan Williams]

I am still hearing both channels, the English and the French.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay. I will speak slowly if that is the case.

Mr. Williams, you talked about red tape. In your notes, you say that Public Services and Procurement Canada needs to have specialized employees, in particular in aircraft procurement, to conduct verifications and controls.

To your knowledge, does the federal public service have such employees?

[Alan Williams]

I can definitely tell you that, when I was with the Department of National Defence, I had no difficulty finding people who could carry out the required tasks at the department.

I never found a shortage of competence, whether it be in the army, navy or air force, to help us work with industry and with our colleague departments to get the job done. I have a lot of admiration for the people who were in the ADM(Mat) organization and in their respective environmental organizations, and together—

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I apologize for cutting you off. I will clarify my question.

I would basically like to know whether there are public servants who have the depth of knowledge required to determine whether the prices proposed to them in part of a contract or in the whole contract are too high, considering market trends and so on.

Lockheed Martin was initially a sole source. Then the government changed its mind and finally came back with a contract concluded with both competitors, but one that still resembles a sole-source contract. That is exposing us to a danger of seeing the prices skyrocket.

Are there public servants at the department who are especially skilled in ensuring that the prices will not skyrocket, as we are seeing in other departments or in other projects?

[Alan Williams]

I have no problem with the same company being successful in different competitions. Good for them, if they can beat the competition openly, fairly and transparently, but I would argue that this is not the case that I think we're talking about. It appears to me that they did that on the F-35, but as we get to talk about the Canadian surface combatants, we might have a vigorous discussion or debate over that. I would argue that, in that case, the government abdicated its accountability for the program, off-loaded it to the private sector and let the private sector choose the companies with which it wanted to work.

Frankly, in this particular case, I don't think anybody in this room or anybody in the industry was shocked and surprised to see Irving pick Lockheed Martin. They were doing business with them for many years. They had a good relationship, and frankly, if I were in charge, I probably would have done the same thing. However, from my perspective, that is a totally different case about how Lockheed Martin got to be chosen. Others might differ on that.

In principle, every competition is separate, and I have no trouble with a good company winning more than its share.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

Still on the topic of the F-35 aircraft, I don't know who will be able to provide me with the best information. Perhaps Mr. Perry will.

According to an article published in July 2021 in the American publication Defence News, there were still seven critical technical flaws to correct on the F-35. However, the builder is refusing to specify what those flaws are. I think it would be important to know that, since the Government of Canada is a potential buyer.

Could you share your impressions on those seven flaws and on how they could impact the aircraft's airworthiness and durability?

[David Perry]

I think we should have a good understanding. From what I understand, that would be one of the things that could potentially come up as part of this finalization process, which will take some time, some additional months, before we get to the point where we're potentially actually buying the aircraft.

I think it is important to keep in mind that a lot of these airplanes are in continuous upgrades, basically, because they're effectively flying super computers. Because of that, there's software that's continuously being updated, and as that happens, you have to add additional features to make sure all of that works on an ongoing basis.

This aircraft has only been in production for a little over a decade. Actually, one of the benefits of buying it now—which we wouldn't have realized had we bought it earlier, the last time we decided to buy the airplane—is that currently more of these issues have been resolved and worked out than were 12 years ago.