Government Operations Committee on Oct. 17th, 2023

[Nancy Tremblay, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel, Department of National Defence]

It's surveillance, definitely. Maybe I can add intelligence. The aircraft needs to be able to capture intelligence information and information from reconnaissance missions as well. In addition to that, the CP-140, or the maritime multi-mission aircraft, needs to be able to do command and control missions so that the assets that are available to commanders can be dispatched and used against the threat that is present.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You have 25 seconds.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Great.

I talked about risks, and obviously if the current aircraft, the Aurora, continues post-2030, that elevates certain risks as well. Can you speak a little bit about that?

[Bill Matthews]

Certainly. There have been actions taken to extend the airframe itself. That's things like the wings and the structure, but it's also to upgrade the systems. Those upgrades include things like basic communication and navigation to respect changing aviation regulations. However, the risk is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Mr. Matthews. I know you're very used to my cutting you off in committee.

[Bill Matthews]

It won't be the last time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I apologize for doing it again.

Ms. Vignola, please, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Page, in your opening remarks, you mentioned that Public Services and Procurement Canada had reached out to industry. When you say “industry”, are you talking about specific companies, people, or lobbies in general? Is it more specific? When and how was this contact made?

[Simon Page]

Thank you for the question.

There are several ways to contact the industry to request information. In the case of the aircraft we're talking about today, we took a very broad, unrestricted approach. All companies interested in the aircraft contract, whether for the aircraft itself or for a mission system that might be installed in the aircraft, had the opportunity to respond. We sent out a relatively comprehensive document, which included all the high-level requirements communicated to us by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.

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

I see.

[Bill Matthews]

It might be worth giving an overview of the companies that responded.

[Simon Page]

These companies covered a wide spectrum, including major aircraft manufacturers, such as Bombardier, Boeing, Airbus and De Havilland, but also companies specializing in mission systems, such as General Dynamics.

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

If I understand correctly, you could receive information about a system, the airplane or both. So you could have received extremely good answers about both the aircraft and a mission system, which would have been something even more cutting-edge for Canada, but that didn't happen.

[Simon Page]

The notion of integrating the two within a single company was not included in the request for information, nor in any response. On the other hand, some major suppliers did express to us how they could manage to satisfy the needs set out in the appendix to the request for information.

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

After receiving answers to your request for information, did you meet with partners to ask more questions and get more details? Did these partners meet with specialists from the department to ask more questions, go into greater detail and gain a better understanding of the project as a whole? I imagine that building an aircraft isn't done on a letter-sized sheet of paper, front and back. Have there been any meetings with the most interesting potential candidates?

[Simon Page]

Yes, there have been meetings. All I can say is that Canada has never said no to a company that wanted such a meeting. In fact, we have met with representatives of certain companies on numerous occasions.

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

Ms. Gregory, between a company whose operations are abroad and a company that would come to Canada or is already here, which has the greater direct, indirect and induced impact on the socio-economic level?

[Mary Gregory]

Having a Canadian company undertake that work in Canada directly is good for that Canadian company. There's no doubt about that. The policy that we apply to military procurement requires economic activity in Canada, whether the provider is foreign or Canadian, so it's about, as you say, whether the activity is directly related—

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

My question was: which of the two is going to have the biggest impact in Canada?

[Mary Gregory]

According to our policy, they should have the same type of economic activity in Canada, because it goes by the contract value, so it really depends on the contract value that goes to the provider. There's no doubt that Canada's defence industry and Canada's aerospace industry would like to be a provider, in many circumstances, to the Government of Canada and to the Department of National Defence, but the economic activity from a foreign provider that does work in Canada can be valuable to those providers and those suppliers.

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

Mr. Page, regarding the CP‑140 Aurora, which company does the updating or modernization of the systems?

[Simon Page]

Thank you for the question.

I think the representatives from the Department of National Defence will be able to answer it better than I can.

[Nancy Tremblay]

Systems maintenance is done by IMP Aerospace & Defence, but General Dynamics Mission Systems-Canada handles mission systems.

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

Is this the same system you're looking for for the next multi-mission aircraft Canada is going to buy?