Evidence of meeting #22 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal John McKay
We're already 35 seconds over.
Colleagues, 10 seconds? I'm fine with that. I'm a much more flexible chair.
Mr. Chisu.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Thank you.
Admiral, I also would like to take this opportunity to convey my best wishes to all members of the Canadian Forces, especially my colleagues in the military engineering branch, for the upcoming holidays.
As a former combat and construction engineer, my question is related to infrastructure. We talked a lot about personnel and about equipment, but infrastructure is playing a fundamental role in assuring that the readiness of the troops is complete.
So what can you tell me about the infrastructure, as far as us needing to house the planes and the helicopters, and to prepare facilities for training our troops to get them up to speed for operations, and so on?
Also, I'm asking this question because—
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
I'm asking this question because it's related to when you are doing cuts, and infrastructure is very much on the chopping block.
Can you tell us how we are maintaining infrastructure to be a viable part of our readiness?
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
December 15th, 2011 / 10:10 a.m.
VAdm Bruce Donaldson
First of all, infrastructure is an equal pillar in our business. We take it seriously. It's very important, and as I said in my remarks, without infrastructure we cannot conduct our operations.
Secondly, we have a lot of infrastructure: we have a lot of buildings, and we have a lot of land. We're the biggest landholder in government. We have thousands and thousands of buildings to maintain. It's a real challenge, but we're committed to maintaining the infrastructure we have and recapitalizing the infrastructure through the Canada First defence strategy.
We set money aside for maintenance and repair, as well as for new construction and demolition. We have had problems with spending all of that money for maintenance and repair, and we are adjusting how we allocate and manage it, so as to be able to spend more and meet our expectations and the goals we have set for ourselves, which are industry standards for recapitalization.
In terms of new construction, we've had challenges with the length of time it has taken for projects to get approvals, and we're changing the process we go through for that. We're trying to change levels of approvals, and we're trying to lump new infrastructure into more of a program view, where we approve a program as opposed to a whole bunch of individual projects. This way, we can speed up the processing and get construction under way, in order to more closely mirror industry standards in delivery as opposed to standards we've achieved in the past that we find unacceptable.
Does that answer your question?
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Chisu.
I have learned my lesson. One never asks a politician to ask a brief question.
Personally, and on behalf of the committee, I want to wish you and yours and the forces you represent a merry Christmas and a happy new year. It would be nice if 2012 was an exception and it was a peaceful year, but the threat assessment doesn't seem to be indicating that.
To colleagues as well, merry Christmas and a happy new year.
With that, thank you very much.