National Defence Committee on March 25th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Colleagues, we have a very full agenda before us this afternoon.

Before we begin, I would ask that because of the half-hour witness segments we adopt five-minute question segments so that all parties can ask questions. Do I have agreement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you very much.

Our first witness this afternoon, from the Department of National Defence, is John Forster, deputy minister.

Mr. Forster, thank you very much for joining us today.

We will have your opening comments, please.

[John Forster, Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee.

lt is very much a pleasure to be here again before you, albeit in a different role as the deputy minister of National Defence. lt has been a little over seven weeks since I took up my new duties, and I will confess that it has been an extremely busy introduction.

It is a role that I am honoured to have been asked to assume at such a very interesting and demanding time. I have devoted over 35 years of my career to public service and this is a job which will allow me to continue to contribute to the safety and well-being of Canada and Canadians.

Both my father and my grandfather served in the armed forces in the two World Wars, so it is indeed a great privilege for me to work in partnership and in support of the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces.

I thought I'd take a few moments to tell you briefly about my background. I have worked in areas of policy, programs, and regulation in a number of areas in the federal government: environment, transportation, infrastructure, national security, and now defence. I have a bachelor's degree in science and a master's in business administration. I did start my career early on in the federal government, in the field of natural resources and forestry.

I was involved in implementing policies and programs to improve forestry practices in Canada that supported an important part of our economy.

I then worked in the broader field of environmental policy, including mining and energy, and later as Director General of Environmental Affairs at Transport Canada where we led efforts to reduce pollution from all modes of transportation.

After I was asked to roll out a new highway infrastructure program at Transport and oversee the agencies that manage our international bridges, it gave me a good understanding of the challenges that Canada faces in managing its border with its largest trading partner.

In 2004, I became the associate assistant deputy minister of safety and security at Transport, with a particular focus on transportation security. It was a very challenging time, a couple of years after 9/11, as I led the development of a transportation security strategy for the department. I was was very much involved in managing responses to threats to our transportation system, including, quite literally, the overnight banning of liquids and gels on flights as a result of the threats to international aircraft, and our response in Canada to the subway bombings in London.

I was asked to move to Infrastructure Canada where first, as assistant and then associate deputy minister, I helped launch the first Building Canada Plan.

Then, when the recession hit in 2007, we were tasked with managing billions of dollars in infrastructure funding under the government's economic stimulus programs. That was a tremendous experience in working with provinces, municipal governments, and non-government partners to fund thousands of extremely worthwhile infrastructure projects contributing to Canada's economic recovery and helping to create jobs for Canadians.

More recently, and as this committee knows, I moved back into the field of national security, serving three years as the chief of the Communications Security Establishment, which was part of the National Defence portfolio.

This agency plays a vital role in gathering foreign intelligence and protecting Canada from cyber threats. I worked in close partnership with the Canadian armed forces, as well as federal law enforcement and security agencies, Foreign Affairs and our international allies.

Throughout my public service career, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of different agencies in a number of different fields, and I think this experience will help me in my role as deputy minister of National Defence, certainly in experiencing the managing of very large budgets and large programs. I think when I was at Infrastructure we actually had about the third-largest budget in the government at the time. Also of help will be my knowledge of evolving international security and defence matters, an ability to work in partnership with a variety of organizations and international allies, and certainly, based on my time at CSE, a very sincere respect and appreciation for the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces and the professionalism and dedication of the men and women who serve Canada.

I'm certainly impressed so far with the dedication, experience, and knowledge of the team at National Defence. It will be critical in my role to continue to work to build a strong partnership between the civilian and military members of the defence team. I will work closely with the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Lawson, with Vice Chief General Thibault, and with the leadership of the forces. I am supported by two excellent associate deputy ministers, Bill Jones, whom you've already met, and John Turner, who is here today to speak to you.

I'm both pleased and honoured to have been asked to take on the role of deputy minister of National Defence in a very interesting and very challenging time.

Mr. Chair, I'd be pleased to take any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you very much, Mr. Forster.

We'll begin our rounds of questioning in five-minute lengths with Mr. Chisu, please.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Forster, for your presentation, and congratulations on your appointment.

Throughout your extensive career in the public service, which we've witnessed in the various government departments you have worked for, what are the major accomplishments and successes that you have presided over?

[John Forster]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

I look back very fondly on a number of interesting jobs that I've had in the public service, and certainly on my time at Transport Canada, where I led the department in doing a first kind of multimodal security strategy: after 9/11, where would we spend our time and priorities in protecting the various modes of transportation from terrorist threats? At Infrastructure, I'm extremely proud of the work we did in rolling out the stimulus program. It was a huge challenge to roll out billions of dollars and do it in a way that built great projects and took good care of taxpayers' money. Finally, at CSE, I enjoyed my time there in helping that organization by increasing our cyber-defences across the government and moving CSE into a new building.

I think those would be things that I'm very proud of in my career.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much.

How has your experience as head of the Communications Security Establishment, which you've just mentioned, prepared you for your role as deputy minister of National Defence? Can you elaborate?

[John Forster]

Thank you.

First and foremost, I think, my time at CSE in collecting foreign intelligence—certainly the armed forces are a very important partner with CSE, particularly in Afghanistan and since in providing intelligence and working with the forces—gave me a very good overview and exposure to the threats that we face globally from terrorism, that Canada faces in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and of how to work with our allies and international partners. In the intelligence world, that relationship is very important.

Obviously I think there are some big differences between CSE and National Defence in terms of both size and complexity. As the chief of CSE, I was also a member of the National Defence management committee, so I spent the last three years as a member of the management committee at Defence, which gave me some understanding of and exposure to some of the issues and challenges there and allowed me to have a good knowledge of the folks in the forces and in the department.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

As you alluded to, in your position as associate deputy minister at Infrastructure from 2009 to 2012, you oversaw the design and delivery of many of the government infrastructure stimulus programs and the economic action plan. In your opinion, how has this experience helped prepare you for your role at National Defence, specifically in terms of improving procurement policies and processes?

[John Forster]

Thank you for the question.

Our time in Infrastructure was fascinating and very challenging. The role of the department was how to get money through and into infrastructure projects quickly, because time was of the essence. We were starting in the recession after 2007, and the programs were designed to get Canadians back to work.

We worked with Treasury Board and with other partners to streamline the delivery of those programs. We had effective partnerships with other governments and agencies to get the money out the door quickly, all the while making sure that we were funding good projects and getting the work done quickly in a sound manner and a good management fashion.

Clearly, I think one of my challenges as deputy will be on procurement. How do we build those partnerships with the other agencies, with Public Works, Industry Canada, and the Treasury Board? John Turner has been appointed the new associate deputy minister and will be helping me in that regard. I think my experience there I will certainly put to good use to try to get our major procurement projects through in a timely manner, as fast as we can get them done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time, Mr. Chisu. Thank you.

Mr. Harris, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you and welcome, sir, to our committee again, in a different capacity, and congratulations on your new post. I don't doubt your experience, sir, and I'm not going to quiz you on your qualifications, but I do want to know how you are going to put it to use to solve some of the major problems that I think we all are aware exist at DND.

Most recently, of course, on procurement, which you just mentioned, a report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, the so-called Vimy Paper from the CDA Institute, lists some of the problems with procurement as being “the manner in which military requirements are generated...and an overwhelming lack of trust directed towards National Defence”. It's fairly scathing, I would say, from an august body like this that knows the system pretty well. How do you hope to change that?

First of all, we had an announcement in 2013 that there was going to be a reset on the Canada First defence strategy, which is basically a procurement list. That was in October 2013. Do you think that we'll hear in the next month or two what that reset amounts to? That might go some way in restoring the faith that people might or might not have in DND under your new leadership.

[John Forster]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.

Coming into the job, I've also heard the same thing that was indicated in the report. I think that one of the really new features we're going to build into the procurement process within National Defence will be an independent third party review on the requirements up front. I think you've interviewed Keith Coulter, a former air force general who will be leading that work.

Keith and I have had several discussions about that process. I think that will really help us to provide that challenge function up front and make sure the requirements are good, so that everybody will be able to believe and trust in this and we're not second-guessing those as they work their way through the system and other partners.

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

Is there a worry from the Defence point of view, and perhaps the military point of view, that this lack of trust has taken the pace of work out of your hands? Is that a problem, do you think, or is it actually going to be faster with the kind of cooperation we're getting now?

[John Forster]

My hope and my belief is that it will end up being faster. We'll spend a bit more time at the front end to make sure of the requirements and then will be able to demonstrate, and help the military demonstrate, that those requirements are sound, valid, and justified. That will prevent us later on, as we go through the process, from having any kind of challenging second-guessing by other partners in the process. I think that overall it will help us streamline and improve the speed of the process. I've spent a lot of time with Keith, and I'm pretty confident that this is going to be a good addition to the procurement process.

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

I hope so, sir, because there have been some very quick turnarounds in the past. I know that the Cormorants were commissioned in 1998 and delivered in 2003, which is a pretty fast period of time. I hope you can get back to that kind of set-up.

I have one final question, and it has to do with something that you know about from your role at CSEC. We'll hear from the new chief shortly, but I know there's a plan for greater cooperation among CSEC, CSIS, the RCMP, and CJOC to share information and work together.

One of the things that always comes up when we're dealing with CSEC or anybody is the notion of parliamentary oversight. We see it in other countries. Is there an institutional fear of that in these agencies? If they can do it in the U.S., they can do it in Britain, and they can do it in Australia.... Is that fear what's holding this up? Or is this simply a political decision? If there were a change in government, there might well be a government that says it wants this. Do you think our public service is ready to handle that and cooperate with such a system?

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, under—

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Mr. Bezan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

—Standing Order 111—

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

Oh come on. He's been around.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

I understand that, but it's just that Standing Order 111 states:

The committee, if it should call an appointee or nominee to appear pursuant to section (1) of this Standing Order, shall examine the qualifications and competence of the appointee or nominee to perform the duties of the post to which he or she has been appointed or nominated.

I would ask for your guidance here. Keep in mind as well that on I believe page 1068 in chapter 20 of O'Brien and Bosc, it is stated that when we do have public servants at committee, things such as policy or political decisions are not forced upon them. To give those answers might compromise their relationship with their minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

You were approaching close to the line, Mr. Harris.

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

I know exactly where the line is, sir.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!