Evidence of meeting #25 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Alan Williams seems to me to be a guy who has a lot of experience here, and to put him into a panel with two others might not be adequate. I want to hear more from him and at least have a full hour or even a two-hour session with him.
We have to remember that we're not going to do very much today in terms of committee business. There is a fair bit of it that we have to schedule for the fall. So what I would suggest is that on Thursday we do perhaps an hour and a half with Alan Williams and have a half hour for scheduling. We have to talk about the SAR and the budget for SAR and we have to talk about other plans. We'd like to know when we might be dealing with legislation.
You might have some ideas about that by next Thursday.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
I think we do need half an hour sometime next week to talk about committee business, so if we could have Alan Williams for an hour-and-a-half panel by himself, I'd be happy.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I want to address that point, Cheryl, unless you're going to address that one.
Conservative
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I'd really like to see both the current and the former ADM at the same time. It's just that we'd be able to verify the questions back and forth at the same time.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
No, and I can't pick an argument with that, but I think we would need balance, so if we're going to have.... Whether we do it next week or not--and I think we should, in fact--if we're going to have Alan Williams, then he should be followed immediately by Angus Watt and Paul Manson, with an hour for each meeting.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
If Williams is going to be an hour and a half, then Watt and Manson need an hour and a half.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Well, I don't know if we're.... We're not setting this up in that way, I don't think, Laurie.
Alan Williams has written a book on government procurement. He's a former ADM. He has opinions. You might not like them, but he does have a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience on the whole issue of procurement.
Now, Angus Watt was dealing with a program--
Conservative
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Yes, he was dealing...but he was air force procurement and one particular aspect of it.
Conservative
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
I understand CAS, but we're not point and counterpoint here. One of the issues we're talking about is government procurement.
We can't throw all of this into the mix and say who got the best quote of the day. This is not about that. Last time we had a whole bunch of people all in one day, industry people. In my books, aside from the last panel of the day, it was always a chorus of people from industry cheerleading for a project. That's all very well. I don't have a problem with that; it's just part of the PR strategy of the government.
I want to hear from somebody who actually knows and has knowledge of the procurement system and can talk about it. To throw him into a one-hour session in the middle of all the rest of the stuff, I'm not happy with that, for one.
I want a full hour and a half with Alan Williams. I think we have to have time to discuss committee business. I think we should do that soon.
We have another suggestion that we have more industry people come in. We have a pretty good idea of what the aerospace industry thinks of this program in its various formats, and I don't mind hearing from its representatives.
I want to get down to the issue of what this government is choosing to do in terms of this particular procurement project and talk about that from a committee perspective. That's our job.
It's nice to hear what industry people think and that there are opportunities. And we understand that. What we're looking at is the government expenditure of $16 billion--
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
--that's going to be taken out of the public purse. The commitments that are being made now are going to cost $16 billion plus.
We need to be able to look at that process in some detail and compare it with what others, who know about the procurement process, have to say about it that may be contrary to what the government is doing now.
I'm pretty firm on this. I don't know if I've got any support on this side of the table--I hope I do--but we just can't set it up so that you've got a choice of quotes for the day. I think we should let Mr. Williams tell his story.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Claude Bachand
I'll give the floor to Laurie. I thought it was going to be a short meeting here today and it doesn't look like it. We can stay here until 5:30 p.m., I don't really care, but as a matter of fact, we should listen to everybody on the list here.
In what order we're going to listen to them and how we're going to form the panels is another thing. If you want to have a long discussion on this, it can take the whole afternoon. Personally, I don't really care. I'm here, and I'm not even being paid as vice-chair for this afternoon. It's in my function as usual.
Go ahead, Laurie.