National Defence Committee on Feb. 6th, 2007

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'm glad you mentioned that, General, because when you became CDS, you came before the committee. If I recall your words--maybe not verbatim, but quite accurately--now that the funds were there, our plan was going to roll out and we were in the process of moving positively forward to secure the equipment that our men and women.... And this is even before we formerly rolled out the three-D policy for Afghanistan. Do you recall that, General?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

No, I don't, sir, but I don't recall many things these days.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

We'll help you to refresh your memory.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

It's a sure sign of my increasing age, sir. I apologize.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

No, not at all.

My closing question is based on an accurate or inaccurate statement I read here, Minister. I think it's probably inaccurate. It states here that back in opposition, and I quote, Mr. Minister, “O'Connor labelled a plan to buy similar aircraft 'outrageous' and an attempt to spend billions without public scrutiny.” If I recall, Mr. Minister, you were in favour, some years ago, of buying the equipment, unless this paper is quoting you incorrectly.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Sorry, which one do you mean? You're switching back and forth. Which one are you saying?

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'm talking about purchasing equipment only because today we're trying to identify--and the general was kind enough to put a firm date on it--when the process for the acquisition of new equipment commenced. If I may repeat it, I think he indicated it was well over two years ago.

I'm only going into this line of questioning--I really didn't want to--because of some comments made by the members of the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

A short response, please.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

The Martin government started down the road toward improving the armed forces. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far. They didn't prosecute any of the large projects. When we came in.... As I said during the campaign, there are elements of the Liberal defence policy that I absolutely support. I blend both my policy and the Liberal policy. Just because it's Liberal doesn't mean it's bad.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I thank the minister for his honesty.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Minister, I think that's where they want you to stop.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

That's for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

We're moving over to Mr. Calkins for five and then back to the official opposition to wrap up.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank everybody for coming to the committee today.

I would like to continue in that vein, because it's one thing to have a plan and for the military to continually re-evaluate the current state of its assets and to predict what the changeover is going to be. I want to clarify the difference between having a plan to do something and actually allocating the funding and getting it done. I was wondering whether either you, Minister, or maybe the Chief of the Defence Staff can elaborate on how many of those plans in the past two or three years that started under the Martin government never did have any funding identified for them, or never had any plan to have funding allocated to them.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Since we're following this train of thought, as I said, some Liberal ideas are good. One of the problems of the previous government was dithering. They just went on and on, they talked and talked, and they never got anything done. The difference is that once we have a sound way ahead and once the military clearly identifies what they require, then we move on it and we will get what the military needs. But the previous government wandered around and around. They had a plan, but they never implemented it.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I think anybody who is paying attention clearly recognizes that.

I'm going to change the line of questioning a little bit. Something that's come to my mind is, if we acquire these C-17s--it's a matter of when now, not if--it would seem to me that other nations or allies would look at the resource or assets that we have as something of potential interest to them to be able to use. I'm wondering if you could elaborate for this committee the advantage to the Government of Canada or the Canadian armed forces in terms of negotiating, entering into collaborative missions such as Afghanistan in the future, should the United Nations decide to go into another international arrangement. How does having these assets benefit our ability to negotiate what the Canadian Forces can and can't do?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

From two points of view: one is that it means that when we intend to lift something that is ours we can actually lift it on the times we say we're going to lift it; the other one is that we can offer assistance to other countries that don't have the lift. We can help lift their resources in, in Africa or Asia or wherever else. We can also use strategic lift as one of our contributions to various missions.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thanks.

When it comes to these aircraft, if you've got the plan in place we have to have the pilots ready to go. I know this is a big change, a fairly significant change. Maybe it's going to be a big change to update the Hercules fleet as well. When are they going to start their training? When are they going to be ready? We're going to take delivery of this aircraft fairly soon. Has that process already started?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

It's already started, sir. We also benefit from the fact that throughout the years we've had crew members on exchange in the United States Air Force, which is part of our normal program with allies that we do that with. Therefore, we have pilots who are qualified on the C-17, so that's a real plus. The program is now in place. As a result, folks are getting their initial training from the United States Air Force. Our aim is that when we get that first aircraft, within a short period of time after its arrival in Canada we'll marry it up with qualified crews and maintainers and we will have it operational within weeks. We've already started that process to get the most out of the fleet when it starts to arrive.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Good. That's good to know.

Just a quick question. From a fiscal perspective, I like the sound of reducing the amount of time and effort going into technical specifications from a project perspective, analyzing what your needs are and handing them off to Public Works, or whoever else it needs to go to. It seems like a common sense approach. I'm wondering, there've been some recent media comments about reorganizing the Canadian Forces. I know the government's put out the position of getting some of the people out of the bureaucratic end of the Canadian Forces and putting them back into front-line positions. I'm wondering if any of the people who are doing this are coming from the procurement area. Is this going to affect the number of people working in procurement by simplifying this process, or are we just simply reducing the amount of time?

[Ward Elcock]

Mr. Chairman, as a result of a resource tightness over the years, the number of people in the procurement area has gone down, as in other areas of the department and the military.

At the current point, we are in the process of having to rebuild not only the Canadian Forces, but also our procurement ability. That means not only bringing in new people, but it means training them and getting their skills up to the point where they can do it effectively.

The ADM for materiel, who will be testifying before the committee, can explain in detail some of the things we've done. We've done some very innovative things in the last while, I think, compared to the past in terms of making the system within DND--our part ship, if you will--work faster, things such as not doing 17,000 pages of specifications, but doing it on the basis of high-level requirements--a major projects procurement initiative within the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

To wrap up, Mr. McGuire, for five minutes.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would just like to remind Mr. Blaney that the armoured vehicle he felt so secure in while he was in Kandahar airfield was purchased by the government of Paul Martin. So if you felt secure there, you can thank Paul for that.

My question, Mr. Chairman, is in relation to the industrial regional benefits. I'd like to know if the military is basically supportive of this process that has been in place for some time, even though it might slow down the delivery of the equipment.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

I'll have to ask General Hillier to answer that.

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Actually, sir, I've avoided even thinking about whether I support it or not.

I have two hats here. One is as a CDS, and I'm a greedy CDS and I want my soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen to have the equipment as soon as possible. Second, as a Canadian, obviously I'd like to see the best possible economic benefits for Canada.

We just want the equipment in the Canadian Forces, and the men and women who do the job for us need it.