Government Operations Committee on June 3rd, 2022

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wasn't aware that it was my turn, but I'm glad to have a chance to speak to Mr. Mueller because I had the pleasure of meeting him on Monday when we were together at Mirabel for a great Canadian success story, namely, Bell.

Mr. Mueller, could you talk to me a little bit about the investments that we're making, not only with that helicopter announcement on Monday, but also elsewhere in the industry? If the government keeps business and keeps the construction and the maintenance of our aeronautics sector in Canada, how many jobs does that create for the country on an annual basis? Can you give me some estimate, with spinoffs and everything?

[Mike Mueller]

That's an excellent question, Mr. Housefather.

It's really good seeing you again. It was good to see you at the great announcement earlier this week with respect to the extension of the Griffon helicopters. I want to thank you in particular for your planned engagement with the industry. It has been greatly appreciated. I've talked about that collaboration and making sure that we're keeping in touch and talking, and you in particular have been very good at that. Thank you.

The announcement on Monday was great. As I said in my opening remarks, during the pandemic, we saw some pretty high job losses on the civil side. We talked quite a bit with government to make sure that government procurement on the defence side kept moving forward. We were pretty pleased with some of those measures that were put in place there.

Again, timeliness is a huge issue that we need to see improved. That's a long-standing issue that's out there.

These announcements are very positive signals, that are creating jobs, keeping jobs and also building capacity and capability. It's incredibly important to see these procurements moving forward and these announcements. We hope to see more of them in very short order.

Again, it goes back to the need for that overarching aerospace strategy. I think that's the one area we could really improve upon, making more certainty and more predictability.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Mueller. Two minutes goes by very fast.

We will now go to Mrs. Vignola for two minutes.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Mueller, I have been hearing for several months about the red tape and the cumbersome processes, but also the costs. In general, or on average, if you can tell me, how much does it cost for a company to be successful in getting a government contract?

I'm hearing numbers that can be quite large, but I'd like to get your take on it.

[Mike Mueller]

Thank you for your question.

It's a very good one.

I hesitate to give a specific number, because it's so different, and a lot of times there are commercial sensitivities with some of those numbers.

The assessment level and the amount of work that goes into these procurements, from an industry level, are very significant. When we look at the comparisons between what's happening in Canada and some other countries in the world, for similar-type procurements, the complexity is very high. I think that is adding to a lot the timeline issues we are seeing.

I think there's room for improvement on that. Again, not to sound like a broken record, but that's why we need that strategy in place, to determine exactly what the benefits are, what is required, instead of a piecemeal approach, with every procurement going through a different assessment, different analysis, etc.

I think the development of an aerospace and a defence industrial strategy would take out a lot of that complexity, because government and industry would both have a central point they could look at and then guide a lot of the discussions and the decision-making process there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mrs. Vignola.

Now we will go to Mr. Johns.

This will be our last two minutes of questioning.

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

Thanks very much, again, for your important testimony and work.

We talked about labour market shortages. I really appreciate your talking about the opportunity for Ukrainians, who are obviously facing an unbearable crisis right now with Russia's war on Ukraine.

On the opportunity for skilled trades workers from abroad and within Canada supporting the labour market shortage, can you speak about some of the challenges, such as the social challenges? For example, housing we know is a huge crisis right across the country.

Is that something you see as impacting your workforce and your ability to attract workers, the need for non-market housing, for example, and seeing the skyrocketing cost of housing in markets where a lot of the aerospace sector is doing business?

[Mike Mueller]

Thank you for the question.

Labour market challenges, as I said before, are across the board. I would be remiss not to say that we have a parliamentary aerospace caucus, with representation from the different parties. I know Mr. Boulerice is on that. We're working through some of these questions. It's absolutely a challenge.

The cost of living question keeps coming up. I think it would have an impact. We haven't done a lot of analysis specifically on housing costs and things like that. It's something we're keeping top of mind with respect to the labour market. We're looking at different strategies for attracting highly skilled folks and folks who want to be in the industry. We're especially taking a look at some of the under-represented groups out there, in order to attract them to the industry.

You talked about the affordability piece and the high cost of housing. Aerospace has great family-supporting wages and jobs—up to 30% higher than the average manufacturer's. There are some very good jobs out there. We need to keep promoting the industry and working with government to implement strategies to ensure we have that pipeline of labour supply into the industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Mueller and Mr. Johns.

With that, I would like to thank you, Mr. Mueller, for being a witness today and providing us with information. If there's any further information you feel may have been missed in answering questions, by all means please put it in writing, provide it to the clerk, and we will distribute it to the committee members. Thank you very much again.

With that said, the public portion of our meeting is now complete. We're going to proceed quickly into an in camera portion of the meeting.

When I suspend the meeting, you will have to leave where you are now. You are to come back in on Zoom with a new passcode, which was sent to you by the clerk.

With that, I'm going to temporarily suspend.

[Proceedings continue in camera]