National Defence Committee on Feb. 6th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

A short response, please, sir.

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

It's one of the criteria that we try to get something that is already created. We don't want to spend money on development. It's certainly one of the criteria, but it wouldn't be the overwhelming criterion.

And maybe what other governments or other government departments are doing with respect to processes—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

No, we have to move on. We'll have to revisit that. Our time is up.

Ms. Gallant, for five minutes, then Mr. Cannis.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Minister, we've all heard the horror stories about military procurement in this country: a brand-new hundred-million-dollar satellite, stored and never launched; trucks with the screaming brakes, “leaky squeaky vehicle wheel” I believe they're called, which reveal the presence of our troops; modern electronic equipment that could not be turned on because it interfered with commercial broadcasts.

I'd like to ask if a suitable product was already commercially available for some of these but for whatever reason somebody decided to develop a new, possibly redundant, product or to modify existing equipment. I'd like to know about this idea of purchasing so-called “off the shelf” equipment. It has been spoken about for years. I certainly don't think this practice is appropriate everywhere in military procurement. Would you please outline some of the scenarios in which this off-the-shelf purchasing would be appropriate?

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

I think if it's available, off-the-shelf procurement is appropriate for every case. If you can actually get something off the shelf, that means it's fully developed, perhaps with the exception of naval vessels. But if you start talking about aircraft or trucks or guns or whatever for the military, we really want to acquire proven products. When we acquire some vehicle or machine or weapon, we want to know what it will cost to maintain, the breakdown rate. We can project the cost of maintaining this piece of equipment into the future, so we really want it off the shelf. We want to avoid development. We had a history of developing over a period of decades. We used to call it C1. We had to Canadianize everything.

If two or three or four first-class militaries can use a piece of equipment for a certain function and we need it, why can't we use that? Why do we have to take it and fiddle with it? So we're reducing development work on equipment. We're trying to take equipment that is available. There are some exceptions. I mean, I won't get into it, but in software there may be unique things you have to do. But ideally we try to get equipment off the shelf.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Minister, when we talk about military procurement we know we're talking about some very expensive, complex hardware, so obviously the burden of selecting the right hardware is high.

I understand our people within the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence are always anticipating what needs replacing and when, as you described earlier. Yet too often it seems as though we're only alerted to the decrepit state of some military equipment when something tragic happens. I don't think this is a consequence of our military not anticipating what needs replacing. We all know they've been warning us for years about the need to replace equipment such as the Sea Kings or Labrador helicopters. Clearly the political actors throughout the 1990s failed to provide the stable policy and funding environment for our armed forces so they could begin the replacement of crucial hardware in a timely fashion.

Minister, I know that Canada's new government takes issues regarding our armed forces very seriously. In your vision of the Canadian Forces, that the forces desperately need to ensure that all our men are protected properly, what do you think needs to be done?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

One minute.

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

That's like asking how high the sky is.

As I said, we have to basically recapitalize the entire armed forces over the next 20 years. We're now trying to work our way through a bow wave of demands so we can get to the state where equipment has a lot of usable life left. For some time we will have to accelerate...and then we can probably slow down to some more modest rate. But right now, we have a catch-up problem in the air, land, and sea. That's what we're trying to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Moving along, we'll go to Mr. Cannis and then back to Mr. Calkins.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Before I get into my questions and comments, I would like to thank the general and the minister once again for their appearance before committee.

I would ask either of them, if they were broke--just to pick up on my friend Claude's comment on the Camaro--would they go buy that Camaro?

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

That's a theoretical question for somebody who is a car enthusiast.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'll interpret that as being that if someone were broke, they wouldn't buy that Camaro.

But I agree with the parliamentary secretary, my good friend Russ Hiebert, when he said our men and women who are at risk deserve to have the best equipment available to them.

General Hillier, central or first command policy was developed about two and a half years ago. It started to roll out then. Am I correct, sir?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Yes, it was under the Liberals.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

And I believe the minister at that time was Minister Graham.

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

I think so. I'm not sure.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I believe it was.

I read here in one of the articles that the Conservative government has approved $17 billion worth of new.... Is that $17 billion plus the $13 billion and something, for a total of $30 billion that we're going to spend, or is the $17 billion one figure?

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

It's one figure, and it includes the capital costs of all five acquisitions plus support for 20 years.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

So I would assume it's the $13 billion and something that was allocated in the 2005 budget.

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

It's that much plus--way, way plus.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Great.

General Hillier said earlier that we had to plan almost two and a half years ago. First of all, correct me if I'm wrong, but before we go out and purchase.... We have to somehow eliminate the conspiracy theory that says the new Conservative government is trying to skew the process, for all intents and purposes. I think we have to lay that to rest for Canadians or for the people who write the articles, and to show that there's an open and transparent process. In order to do that, we have to ask certain questions. One of the questions that I want to ask is whether, before we go out and spend this money, the military identifies its needs.

Is that what happens, General Hillier?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

We identify the military requirements to be able to do the kinds of missions that we get from the Government of Canada, sir. Then we walk those to the minister and have that discussion to see if we can convince him of our line of logic that this is indeed square peg, square hole.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Can you tell me when that process commenced, General?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

Which specific part do you mean, sir?

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I mean overall. On the heavy airlift, when did you start up?

[Gen R.J. Hillier]

It's been going on for a substantial period of time, during which we have laid out what the requirement is and what we need to do. Before I became CDS, it was partially walked through. After I became CDS, we did much more of the work on it and completed it, once MInister O'Connor had arrived.