In your 2011 report on military equipment repair and maintenance, it was noted that there was a shortage of qualified employees and other challenges in terms of human resources, as well as declining skills and expertise within the Canadian Forces in the area of equipment repair and maintenance, because of the new method of awarding contracts to external suppliers. This was also emphasized in the report by the Union of National Defence Employees.
I would like to hear your comments on my concerns. Is there a risk that, one day, members of the Canadian Forces will no longer be able to carry out these tasks because too many of them will have been entrusted to external suppliers and they will be under the obligation to call upon these people, regardless of the cost?
If there is a lack of competition and we are no longer capable of doing it ourselves, we will have to pay the cost of maintaining our equipment, regardless of how much these people charge. As concerns operational readiness, if our service members are no longer able to maintain and repair equipment that is deployed overseas, is there not a risk that we will not be able to use this deployed equipment and that we will find ourselves in a situation where we will not be able to use a piece of equipment for a month because there is no one to repair it and we are unable to find someone to do so abroad?