Government Operations Committee on May 13th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

We'll go to Mr. Johns for two minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Great.

Thanks again, all of you, for being here.

Ms. Sampson, I also want to congratulate you on being the first woman appointed to your role with your local.

Maybe you can speak about the value of unionized workers and what they bring to the national shipbuilding strategy.

[Shannon Sampson]

I find that the value of unionized workers is the ability to have absolute pride in your work and ensure the safety and security of your fellow co-workers. We have lots of committees that are dedicated to health and safety. There is a sense of more security in unionized environments.

You know, when we grow together as a team, we have many events with the company. It's really grown in the last 10 years. When we have these events together with the union and our company, it just shows what kind of a strong bond we have. I find it really generates out on the production floor.

That's how I find it. It's really impactful.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

What would be one of the top recommendations that you would like this committee to hear from labour around the national shipbuilding strategy?

[Shannon Sampson]

One of the biggest things that I would like you guys to know is that each and every day, everybody works really hard. They are very proud shipbuilders. They are proud of what they do. At the end of the day, when we hand it over to our Royal Canadian Navy and they board the ship and sail away, there is that sense of pride. You know that you have given them that product. That is their home. That's something we really pride ourselves on.

We work right next door to the dockyard, to our navy. We work hand in hand with them, a lot of time on the frigates, fully manned ships. We just grow a bond with them. It's something that we really take pride in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I also want to thank all of you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We'll now go to Mr. Lobb for four minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kendrick, I think Mr. McCauley and others mentioned that we know we need an able fleet. I think we will all agree with that in this country. We want to do it right, and we want to do it for the right piece of machinery for the right price. We respect the workers, obviously. I worked in work environments when I was a younger guy. I understand the value of good work. I was actually in a CAW union years ago.

My question to you is this: What is it that we actually need? I know that we've asked questions. I've sat in this committee and we've all asked. What is it that we actually need? It sounds to me like we're 10 years in and we really don't know exactly what we need for our navy.

Am I wrong when I say that?

[Andrew Kendrick]

The navy needs ships. The navy needs ships that are first-class fighting ships. They need to be able to afford enough of them to have a meaningful fleet.

The Type 26, which is the basis for CSC, may be an excellent ship; I'm actually not sure. There are concerns that have been raised about aspects of that ship. All ships have problems, but if it's going to cost that much money, then we're not going to be able to afford them. The British have given up on having to buy their original-sized fleet.

Let's say that we can emulate U.S. yards in our productivity and our quality. I would love to think that we can do better, because we're Canadians, so of course we can do better, except when it comes to hockey teams.

The U.S. equivalent at the moment, the new Constellation-class frigate, is costing about $1.4 billion a copy. You can get 15 of those for $20 billion. Our PBO is saying $80 billion; our navy is saying around $60 billion, maybe. It's three times as much. Why is that? We must delve into this to figure it out. Otherwise, our navy is not going to be a navy. It's going to be six AOPS and a couple of other old ships.

We've got to do better than this. We have to give the navy the tools that they need. We're living in a dangerous world and a dangerous neighbourhood. That's the challenge we have to meet.

How do we get from the $60-billion and the $80-billion fleet to the $20 billion fleet? What are we going to do to achieve that? Can Canada afford a $60-billion fleet?

Think of what $40 billion can do in terms of affordable housing, infrastructure, child care and all of the other things that are important to people, such as pharmacare and dentistry. How far does $40 billion go? It goes a long way.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Obviously, that is a big difference. That's three times the cost.

Where is it that we've gone wrong? Is it a process flow? Is it the people at the top or that everybody's lining their pockets?

I don't really think we have any answers here so far. Everything's either confidential or it's just the way it is or it's inflation or whatever it is. I can't imagine there's $40 billion dollars worth of inflation on these ships. Maybe I'm wrong; it could be, but I don't think it is.

If the U.S. is doing it for the price, where is the discrepancy, or do we know?

[Andrew Kendrick]

It's a really good question. I can point to certain things that I know about, but as I said earlier, part of the real problem to me is lack of transparency. The NSS is supposed to be an open book. Where is this book? Who's allowed to open it? Who's allowed to analyze what's going on?

Currently something I'm doing, wearing another hat, is analyzing ferry procurement for Washington state down in the U.S. We have everything. We have every number we need to get. We can see exactly where the money is, where the money is going and why the money is going that way. Can I do that for NSS? I can't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Chair, I know my time's up.

For the committee, I think it would be worthwhile to talk to some of these Americans and see what their feedback is and where we are. I think we should know, as part of our report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you. It's something we will discuss within the committee as we move forward.

We'll go to Mr. Bains for four minutes, please.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests for joining us.

My question is to Shannon Sampson.

I represent Richmond, British Columbia. My questions are coming from out west. The marine sector's extremely important to us over here.

In your opinion, do you believe that workers in shipyards have a prosperous future in the shipbuilding industry out west?

[Shannon Sampson]

I can't really speak to the shipyards out west. I'm not really well versed on Seaspan and that shipyard, to be honest. However, I'm a firm believer that shipbuilding is a must in Canada, and we should continue to use that to build our sovereignty and the security of our country.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

You did get some questions from one of my colleagues regarding the diversity in shipbuilding and the trades. Along those lines, we have out west here some of the best training institutes, such as the British Columbia Institute of Technology. It's a premier institution that teaches pipefitting and welding. A lot of diversity in the trades has been introduced there already.

Maybe you can speak to our academic institutions like that. Are you and your union engaged with academic institutions in the future of the shipbuilding industry?

[Shannon Sampson]

Thank you for your question.

Absolutely. We partner with Irving shipbuilding on Pathways to Shipbuilding, as well as Women Unlimited. We have lots of groups that come into the shipyard.

I had quickly written down a few numbers. In 2017 we had 11 from Women Unlimited come to our shipyard. In 2019 we had 12 from Women Unlimited. In terms of indigenous people, in 2018 we had nine. As for African Nova Scotians, in 2019 we had 17. We're looking to partner more and more with the under-represented groups. That's something we definitely pride ourselves on. We'll definitely be doing more of that in the future.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you.

I'll move over to Mr. Schmidt.

Canada's defence procurement process is complex. How could the Government of Canada simplify its defence procurement process?

[John Schmidt]

If we're talking just ships, sir, I think what we're saying is that it's the contracting process. If we're talking large ships, we've selected shipyards to build those ships. We've assigned those ships.

The problem is when we get into contracts, or how we get into contracting and how we manage the projects. The requirements drive us to have to put quite a bit of extra overhead into the way we manage. As we like to say, we should be spending the money on steel, not paper. That's not to say anything against the paper industry, but we have to find ways of streamlining the way we're doing the contracting. If we can do that, we can deliver the ships more quickly. A design phase shouldn't take us 24 or 36 months. We should be reducing that to half and finding ways we can bring those costs down.

That's the key message we're trying to bring from the association. If we do that, we're building ships faster. We're also generating more capability within our membership. We're delivering more product, and at the end of the day, the federal fleet is being renewed.

To Shannon's earlier point, we can keep up. We believe we can keep up to the labour requirements both internally.... All our members have internal training programs, and some of them are affiliated with American or European partners. They can bring or help bring those trained people to Canada so that we can build our own capability internally.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

With that, I would like to thank all the witnesses, those who are here with us in person and those who are with us virtually.

Mr. Kendrick, Ms. Sampson, Mr. Slaunwhite and Mr. Schmidt, thank you all for participating today and for providing your testimony to the committee. We look forward to that.

With that said, I'd like to thank our interpreters and our technicians, who have helped us throughout the day to get things done, as well as our analysts and our clerk.

To everyone, have a good weekend.

I declare the meeting adjourned.