National Defence Committee on Feb. 8th, 2007

[Dan Ross]

You mean as a personal preference?

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

Correct.

[Dan Ross]

That would be pretty tough.

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

Are there policies in place?

[Dan Ross]

Certainly, yes.

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

Who sets those policies? DND or Parliament?

[Dan Ross]

If it's largely a requirement, if someone wants to fly a particular plane, the vice-chief runs that process with General Hincke and General Ward. As we discussed with the challenge function, it would be very unlikely that an individual would have an easy ride achieving that objective unless they could absolutely defend why, in operational performance terms, that was appropriate.

Even at that point, though, there still has to be an open competitive process in which we would invite industry to offer what they felt they could provide. So the chances of an individual actually taking that from beginning to end are fairly low.

[A voice]

Certainly contracting officers watch out for that sort of thing.

[Dan Ross]

Yes. I challenge that every day. When I see someone writing things to buy that thing.... I will be very honest. I had a challenge with the army recently on their overspecifying of trucks. I said, “Come back to me and tell me what you want it to do. Don't tell me how many mirrors and how big the mirror has to be.”

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

Off the shelf doesn't really mean off the shelf. It is not an entirely accurate phrase. Our aircraft and choppers, for example, are not a true clone of that of another country.

Would you explain why it is necessary to Canadianize some of our aircraft?

[Dan Ross]

Often it is the communications equipment, for which, in some cases, Transport Canada safety regulations may be different from European or American ones. In some cases we may want a multi-mission aircraft so that we can do search and rescue with it and put a winch in a door, which the U.S. army wouldn't do.

My colleagues and I look very carefully at that degree of customization and Canadianization. I know we have some meetings next week at which we are going to have a hard look at some of those questions.

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

So we are not Canadianizing purely for the reason of getting regional benefits out of it. It is not just a matter of putting an order in the production line. There is still more fitting to be done. So anything really that can be done to minimize the procurement time, such as acquiring so-called off the shelf, does put our soldiers in a better position, a safer position.

[Dan Ross]

Absolutely, and you have to be very vigilant to the degree of what you'd call customization, because if that has never been done before, that company passes on a non-recurring engineering design cost to you. If you haven't accommodated that in your policy approval and your submission to cabinet, you have funding issues. So you really have to be very rigorous in keeping the scope creep from occurring, because it drives up costs and it drives delivery schedule and time.

[MGen J.D.A. Hincke]

The other reason we want to be very careful about any kind of unique capabilities that we would decide on is that there are operational issues. Operational commanders will come, or regulations or compliance will come, and say, “We need to do it this way.” We want to minimize that, because you want as common a system as you can have for life cycle and for training.

We would prefer that training issues across the Canadian Forces require the same kind of training and that there not be specific kinds of platforms, so common training could take place. We want common maintenance if we can or common equipment. So as much as possible you try to force that into the final...but sometimes there are unique things that we need to do, and they are operationally driven, by and large.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. McGuire, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have been concentrating on the equipment required in our overseas operations, and rightly so. Our soldiers are in the field and so on, but the government has announced a major domestic initiative in the north to exercise our sovereignty in that area.

I am just wondering what procurements are required for that initiative. The minister has made some commitments to Goose Bay and other areas that he has in mind for exercising that sovereignty. What kind of equipment--ships, planes, ports, whatever--is going to be required, and how far along is that process? Has it got to the Public Works level? Exactly where is the planning for our northern initiative?

[MGen M.J. Ward]

In response to government direction, we've been in the process of developing a “Canada first” defence strategy, which really characterizes the defence policy initiatives that are key to the government's desires. In keeping with that, in the capability development realm, we've been following up with analysis of specific scenarios, including the Arctic, that allow us to understand what types of roles the Canadian Forces can provide in that region, and also against the types of gaps or deficiencies we may have in, for instance, the ability to survey our Arctic, to know what's going on up there, to potentially to respond or to maintain more presence.

So we're going through a number of analyses to look at what our options might be, and that's tied up in the defence strategy that's going through the cabinet process at this time. The government will have us look at a number of initiatives to see how we can do a better job in that particular part of our domestic land space, air space, and approaches.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Are there any first steps being implemented on the Goose Bay commitment, in Bagotville, and so on, on the initial announcement the minister was making on Goose, and the role Goose was going to play in the north? Is there anything imminent there as far as the equipment purchases or instructions to Public Works to proceed with some equipment purchases?

[MGen M.J. Ward]

We really can't say because of what's in the plan, but there really hasn't been specific action taken on the Goose Bay initiative.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

So the whole northern initiative, the arctic initiative, is at a very elementary stage?

[MGen M.J. Ward]

Part of it is at the highest levels of government in terms of specifying a lead department to review an arctic strategy. The Privy Council Office certainly has a keen interest in making sure there's a balance of effort and an understanding of who the lead department would be. INAC has been determined to be the lead department.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

They're still trying to identify the department that will lead the initiative? Is that it?

[MGen M.J. Ward]

No, my understanding is that INAC has been determined to be the lead department for the development of the strategy, but several government departments also have roles to play in that. Foreign Affairs certainly has a significant role to play, as it affects our offshore or issues beyond our territorial boundary. So it will take some time I think for each of the government departments to get together and discuss those issues. We'll be having discussions in coming weeks with INAC officials just to make sure we each know what each other is doing with regard to the Arctic. So it's at a fairly preliminary stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

That finishes our second round.

One comment. When we were in Afghanistan, we talked about airplanes and Nyalas and ships and the big ticket items, but boots and vests and everyday items are pretty important too. One thing that was brought to our attention was gloves. I understand that somebody had been injured through a flash and burned their hands. I think it was very quickly that the rest of the folks who were exposed to that were able to get the protective equipment needed. So for things like that, is there a special process for combat-related requirements?