My focus, generally, is on the CAF, our international security environment and providing the military with the capabilities it requires in both peacetime and, potentially, wartime.
One of the issues, as I see it and as I alluded to in my remarks, is that having the capacity to produce munitions, arms or whatever at scale is a challenge that not only Canada is facing. If you look to allies like the United States, the United Kingdom, NATO countries and Asian countries, they are very focused on their ability to produce at scale.
One of the areas I somewhat worry about, due to some of the language and thinking behind it, is wanting to completely replicate some of these productive systems or approaches completely within Canada. However, if the intent of this policy is to look at what is required in wartime and the needs of the forces, and to build out a system that is flexible enough to deal with multiple challenges—because the international environment is quite unstable and we don't know where a conflict may be—I think it would really serve us well. As it currently exists in the defence industrial strategy or how it is being foreseen, our approach doesn't make that easy. It's often done through existing.... Let's say you have to procure something—the Canadian patrol submarine project. You do that through ITTs and...what's coming out of that, rather than a more proactive approach that says, “No, these are requirements.”
Maybe we should partner with countries proactively in order to work together. Then, instead of having a domestic-only supply chain, we build one that is flexible and can engender greater demand internationally, because they could utilize the same system through interoperability and whatnot.