National Defence Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

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

Some suggest that the F-35 is just too much for Canada's needs. Could we accomplish the same thing with a less advanced aircraft or a more basic variant of the F-35?

[Col Dave Burt]

The answer is no, absolutely not. Our analysis has shown absolutely clearly that measured against the Canadian Forces requirements, the best capability and the longest life at the least cost are available only through the F-35.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Mr. LeBlanc, you have the floor. I believe you will be sharing your time.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have quite a quick question, and I believe that Mr. Wilfert wants to continue after that.

I would like to continue with the same kind of questions that Colonel Burt has been asked. In fact, he appears very convinced that this is the only aircraft that can meet the requirements as determined. In mid-September, the general said that there had been rigorous examination of long-term requirements. I accept all of that.

If you say that this is the only aircraft that can meet these rigorous requirements, you undoubtedly assessed other aircraft in detail before reaching that conclusion. You did not reach that decision without having compared the aircraft to other ones available. You may tell me that it is the only one you are aware of, the only one which could meet the criteria, and you may be right. However, you will agree with me that you undoubtedly took a detailed look at other aircraft.

My question is very specific. If you do not have this information, could you provide it to us later? How many times did you and your staff visit Lockheed Martin in 2009 and 2010? How many times did you visit Boeing or Eurofighter in Europe? Did you ask the American government for the detailed specifications for the Super Hornet being proposed by Boeing? Did you consider the specific information that only the American government could have transferred to your group?

[Col Dave Burt]

Over the years we have looked at a range of different options. Specifically, after the Canada First defence strategy was announced in 2006, the teams were established: the directorate of air requirements team to mature and advance the operational requirements, and the next-generation fighter capability office--my team--to analyze the options against those requirements. We've played our separate roles.

In that process we visited the range of manufacturers and the countries and government agencies involved in those countries for all of the options that we needed to study. We used that analysis, some of it at a classified level and some of it not at a classified level. We received cost information and capability information on a government-to-government basis. From that, we did our analyses. We were very conclusive in those analyses that only the F-35 met the mandatory requirements approved by the Department of National Defence.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chairman, through you to the general or the colonel, not being a pilot, obviously, I want to ask you some questions that I'm sure you can respond to.

I'm quoting from an article from an individual who has been around the U.S. Congress for 30 years, Winslow Wheeler, who is the director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information, with regard to the stealth capabilities. If you would, can you respond to these comments? He says:

...that new “high tech” feature and the long range radar have imposed design penalties that compromised the aircraft with not just high cost but also weight, drag, complexity, and vulnerabilities. The few times this technology has been tried in real air combat in the past decade, it has been successful less than half the time, and that has been against incompetent and/or primitively equipped pilots from Iraq and Serbia.

The other comment I'd like to put on the table, Mr. Chairman, is “The F-35 is, in fact, considerably less manoeuvrable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105”.

Remember the F-105s used to be called the “lead sleds”, which they used, of course, as a fighter, which proved rather defenceless against MiGs over North Vietnam.

Can you respond to those two comments? He makes some others, but I'm putting them on the table because I want to understand this apparent discrepancy between what I've been told and what I've read in this particular report.

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

You know, people are free to speculate, and everyone is entitled to their opinions. Comparing an F-105, which is a “lead sled”, to the F-35 is somewhat facetious. The F-105 would take several counties to turn around, while the F-35 is as good in a manoeuvrability range as the current F-18s and F-16s. So it's a specious argument.

Now, when you have stealth, there is compromise. You do have to compromise. You're not going to have the fastest airplane in the world or the one that can stand on its tail the longest, because to aerodynamically create stealth, you have to give something up. But it doesn't have to be the fastest airplane in the world or the absolute most manoeuvrable. That would be the F-22.

But what it does is multi-role. I can cover the air-to-air mission as well as anything out there, the point being it doesn't have to get into those close-in dogfights because that's the whole point of stealth. You deal with the adversary at long range, and they don't even know they've been taken out. But if it gets into survival and you have to fight the fight, it's still as good as anything that's out there right now. It's not the very most manoeuvrable airplane. That's the F-22. But that airplane is designed strictly for air superiority. This one is doing multi-role. That's the compromise piece that always has to be considered.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you for that, General.

A quick question: he goes on to say that only 17% of the aircraft's characteristics will actually be validated by flight testing before the Americans buy 500 of these F-35s, and that it will be the pilots who will discover the glitches when they're up in the air, obviously, training or in combat. Could you respond to that 17% issue, Colonel, through you, Mr. Chairman?

[Col Dave Burt]

It's called concurrency, and what is happening in this program, because of the validity of the modelling initially and the initial testing that showed the validity of the modelling...there is a rationale for moving ahead and buying production aircraft at the same time that the test process is going on. This is very closely watched by the JSF program office and the program executive officer. On a daily basis he gets reports on the nature of the success of this process.

Because he is watching this so closely, that gives me great confidence that small errors would be found early and corrected before they become problems. While this is unprecedented, the nature of the modelling, the degree of computer design, and the success of the early testing give us great confidence that this process will succeed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachand, you have the floor.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, Canadian Press has just put out a story. It deals with a study obtained under access to information entitled:

“Internal DND audit uncovers more red flags in other aircraft purchases.”

It refers to search and rescue aircraft.

According to the report, the Chief of Review Services conducted an internal audit at the Department of National Defence. He allegedly discovered a lack of oversight and that follow-up on risk assessments was not sufficiently documented.

He added that:

The Forces' own internal auditor warns it was on the same shaky ground as the helicopters. Within each phase of DND risk management methodology, certain risk management practices were not in place in the project office.

That concerns me. The Auditor General just said that about the helicopters. Now we are talking about your own internal audit. Your

chief of review services

says that it is on the same ground as the search and rescue helicopters. I need some reassurance about the F-35 project.

What is the problem at the department? Is the program manager changing too often? Colonel Burt is the program manager and appears to have held the position for some time. That is already reassuring. Explain to us why there are not better safeguards especially for projects of this scope. We are talking about billions of dollars. This afternoon, we learned that the program

search and rescue, fixed wing search and rescue,

is in a situation similar to that of the helicopters. We are talking about a $16 billion project here. You understand that, as those who protect taxpayers, we need to be reassured. What is your opinion of what your chief of

review service

disclosed this afternoon? Give us some reassurances about the F-35 program.

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

Mr. Bachand, clearly, I have not read the article. Therefore I will not comment on allegations made by the press.

I can assure you that we called upon our most experienced and best staff for the F-35 file. We have people who are highly competent in aviation matters and in procurement. We are going to great lengths to ensure that the program will start out on the right foot and operate likewise.

Does that mean that the department is perfect and that we never make mistakes? As I have already said, auditors are responsible for looking, for forcing us to ask ourselves questions, because we can always improve. We are always open to improvement. I have no idea about what you just mentioned. As regards the

fixed wing search and rescue,

For several years now, we have been working as a team to try and move the project forward and to ensure that everyone was heard. So I do not understand why we are being accused of not having been open and transparent. How many years have we been talking about

fixed wing search and rescue?

We are doing our outmost to ensure that everyone was heard and our recommendations are as inclusive as possible. That is the assurance I can give.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

General, I have no doubt about the transparency. I trust you.

But do you have the resources you need to look at the program in its entirety? If developments occur, can you react immediately? Can you assure us that the project manager will not change every two or three years? This is a very large-scale and long-term project. I still believe that there are some problems. You said so yourself. Since we are studying the F-35s today, I am asking you for that assurance. Do you have the teams that you need to

monitoring the risk?

Are you in a position to do that? Can people identify cost overruns and remedy the situation immediately? With a $16 billion project, that can easily turn into additional billions of dollars. We saw the price for the helicopters almost double. At the end of the day, there must not be a $32 billion overrun.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Be brief.

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can assure you of one thing. The project is underway, we have begun training the teams that will look after the materiel aspect. Colonel Burt will be one of the team leaders. I am hopeful that we have started off on the right foot. We will have to make sure that we have enough staff in the various departmental services to ensure that the program continues to go well and is a complete success. We are in the starting blocks and ready to go. We must establish procedures and ensure that they are solid and consistent with Treasury Board rules and accountability standards. We are building the team.

It is clear to us that we must have enough experience and staff to carry out the project.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

When Mr. Dan Ross was here, he told us that within DND you have a very rigorous system of management review of decisions, and there are two or three review boards. He told us in no uncertain terms that these were significant challenges to any decisions that were being made, that they gave everybody a hard time, and that it was a real test of decision-making and a value for—we should have some confidence, I guess, that the decision-making wasn't happening on a less than rigorous basis.

Then we find that, according to the Auditor General, those management review boards were bypassed or ignored in the case of the Chinook purchase, and the chief of review services now says that in terms of the activity to date on the search and rescue project, they weren't followed either. You told us today, and you've made reference to it—I don't want to misquote you—that there has been or there will be a form of this with respect to the F-35. But why aren't these systems being used? And what confidence can we have, frankly, that there is going to be a value with respect to these decisions that have been made with respect to the F-35 to date and in the future?

[LGen J.P.A. Deschamps]

I won't speak for the department, because that's not my purview. I can only speak to what the air force does. I can tell you, working with our colleagues, the ADM Materiel folks work very hard at making sure Canada gets the best procurement process possible.

The Auditor General points to internal processes that should be improved. That's what it is: internal processes. Could we do things better? We have to be careful when we talk about Chinooks and F-35s. They're both procurement programs, absolutely. They're not the same programs. The complexities are different. Therefore, you can't use always a cookie-cutter approach to all these programs. The rules have to be measured and adapted depending on the challenge of each program.

That's what the Auditor General reflects on, the fact that some of these programs, based on your own current internal rule set, may have deviated. Was there a good reason? And so on and so forth. That's what the department looked at and acknowledged the areas that we would improve. But it's an internal process.

The fact is that great scrutiny is applied to all these programs, given the tense resource atmosphere, where we have to make sure everybody gets what they need. Whether or not a meeting was missed or some other internal process wasn't quite followed to a T doesn't detract from the fact that everybody who gets involved in these programs understands the imperative to be accountable and to get the best bang for the buck for Canada. That I can give you confidence on. That's always the optic. That's always the focus of the staff. Whether or not perfection is what we achieve in the process, I'll leave that to others to debate.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

That's your answer. Thank you.

Colonel Burt, in response to Mr. Bachand's question, I believe, you told us that there were mandatory requirements approved by the department in 2006, was it? There was that examination—it wasn't Mr. Bachand, it was an earlier question—that the other airplanes were tested against? What would those mandatory requirements be? Would that be a statement of requirements, as we understand it, in procurement, or is that something else?

[Col Dave Burt]

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my statement. What I said was that in reaction to the Canada First defence strategy, which provided us strategic guidance in 2006, the process was set up, and through the early part of 2010 the statement of operational requirements, including the mandatory requirements, was finalized and approved. It was against those mandatory requirements that we measured all of the options. We found that, measured against those requirements and using the information we had received on a government-to-government basis, the F-35 procured through the JSF program provided the best capability, the longest life, at the least cost.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

When was that statement of requirements finalized?

[Col Dave Burt]

It was finalized in the spring of 2010.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Gentlemen, we got rid of—

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

A short question.