National Defence Committee on March 25th, 2015

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

We have a tradition and a convention that not only do we ask about the qualifications, most of which we don't normally question, especially in the case of someone as experienced as Mr. Forster, but with his experience and knowledge of the relationship between the oversight issue and his experience in CSEC and now in Defence, he's going to have to deal with that issue. I'm just wondering whether he thinks it's something that would be a significant challenge for him and his department or whether it's something that can be done quite easily.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Mr. Forster, I'm sure you're well equipped to answer within the confines of your appearance here today.

[John Forster]

Thank you. I'm humbled and flattered by the comments on my qualifications.

I'll give you the same answer I gave when I was chief of CSE, which was that I felt CSE does have a good review mechanism in the commissioner in the office, and it's not the role of the intelligence agencies to decide review and oversight mechanisms, but to cooperate with whatever review and oversight mechanisms are in place. I believe all of the agencies will do whatever government and Parliament decides.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

You're out of time, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Norlock, please, for five minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To the witness, thank you for being here today, and congratulations on your appointment. I hope you feel as good at the end of it as you feel right now, because I have a deep suspicion that events in the new world, which you in your previous job with CSEC are very much aware of.... It's on that experience I'm going to ask a couple of questions.

Having worked as a public servant for 30 years, I know that the vast majority.... As a matter of fact, when I say “vast”, I mean that the vast majority of public servants know the bounds within which they must operate and at each level of accountability must make sure that those are constant, that superiors to subordinates are constantly....

My question is simple, since we are televised. We hear in the news about CSEC. Now you're going to be dealing with confidential information and those types of things in your cooperation with CSEC. Do you feel that the communication, the flow of information from one silo to another—there are silos, we know that—could be improved on? Do you feel that you can bring in that intimate knowledge of the differences in each of the silos? You have had a very great career with the federal government in senior positions to be able to say that information flows the way it should flow.

Do you feel that there could be improvements to the flow of information, especially in the times we are in, in dealing with terrorism and the interconnectivity of every asset of government and what terrorists like to do? Do you feel there could be improvements? Do you feel that in your capacity you will be able to make those known to your political bosses as well as your confreres in other departments? How do you feel that this could occur?

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

On a point of order, I was anticipating an objection from Mr. Bezan—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I'll let you make your objection, and I'll tell you what—

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

You're delving into a significant policy question here that has nothing to do, of course, with the qualifications of Mr. Forster.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, if you'll listen to the question, I basically said, do you feel that you could speak to your confreres in other departments freely and offer them information as to how we could do that, and then bring it to the attention of your supervisor? I did not ask him to talk about policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

I think there was a bit of tit-for-tat here, but in the interests of time, Mr. Forster, an appropriate answer, please.

[John Forster]

I'm at your call, Mr. Chair.

I think the quick answer is that there's been a dramatic improvement I think in the exchange and coordination between the security intelligence defence agencies since 9/11. Certainly my experience is that.

Can we do it better? Absolutely. I think that's one of those things you never stop trying to improve, because you might have a piece of information over here that's of value to somebody over there.

The main thing is to make sure you're protecting and safeguarding that information even within organizations. One of the things that I did at CSE quite a bit was to try to get the organization to break down its silos and work more horizontally across. I think that would be an experience that I hope to also bring within defence and across the defence intelligence communities.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So far with DND you've had some challenges, obviously, I think you intimated that in your introduction. I wonder if you could address the challenges and how you feel you can overcome those challenges.

[John Forster]

Well, coming into it, it's a very large, complex department. It's one of the largest in government. It's a very unique department in that you have both the civilian and the military personnel. Coordinating that and giving clear leadership direction at the top is going to be key. As I mentioned in my remarks, working closely with the military leadership, with General Lawson and with General Thibault, really is important, because I think it sets the tone for the organization.

For our priorities, I think obviously they're going to continue to be making sure we provide the support to the military operations around the globe, including in Iraq and the Ukraine, and ensuring good support and readiness for the forces. Procurement, we mentioned, is a big challenge for all of the department, particularly for me and John Turner. I think those will be key priorities for us in the year ahead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time.

Ms. Murray, the final five minutes are yours.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for coming in front of our committee, Mr. Forster.

You talked about some of the challenges. I want to go back to procurement for a moment.

There was a discussion about lack of trust, but also in the report by David Perry was a concern that the funding provided in the Canada First defence strategy was fixed at the outset. It wasn't flexible, so when things dragged on and on, costs were increased and the ministry had to go back and reapply, as it were. What background do you have in your career that would help you fix that problem? Or do you not see it as a problem that needs to be fixed?

[John Forster]

No, I think it is definitely one of the challenges in procurement. The longer the delays are in some of these major projects, the cost escalation we see can be quite significant, particularly in defence. So when you are budgeting and getting approval of a project at a certain amount of money, if your procurement is delayed, by the time you get around to getting through that process, your costs are quite high. That's certainly going to put pressure on the long-term funding envelope we have for procurement.

First and foremost, it's going to be critical for us to do really good budgeting up front and make sure our costs are sound before we embark on a project. As I mentioned earlier with Mr. Harris and others, I have experience, at least in the federal government, in accelerating programs. Infrastructure projects used to take us forever—forever. They took a long time to get through. One of the things I'm proud about is how fast we were able to streamline that process when we needed to.

I will certainly be trying to do that. To do that, I need to really work closely with Public Works and Industry in particular. I have a biweekly meeting with the deputy and the associate at Public Works, with John, and we just go through it and crunch any issue and every issue that might be blocking us and try to move it off the plate.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

Another failure, as we know from Elinor Sloan's report, is that 15 out of the 16 priority procurements over $100 million are still stuck in the pipeline somewhere or have been cancelled. Only one has been delivered.

Another one of the challenges, according to Mr. Perry, is that while the appetite for more procurement appeared to be real, at the same time this government cut the capacity in terms of something like 400 procurement staff.

What experience of yours with budget cuts would help you to figure out how to do a task when there isn't the capacity to really deliver on that task? That appears to be the case by the results we're seeing so far.

[John Forster]

I'm not familiar with the procurement cuts and levels, but it's certainly something I will be getting into and looking at as we go through our budget and our priority-setting for this coming year.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Excuse me. That's procurement in National Defence.

[John Forster]

Yes, I understood that.

I think another one of our challenges will be the defence renewal process, which is how we streamline processes so we can reinvest those savings in other areas where we need resources. Certainly, procurement is going to be one of them. We'll be looking for that.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you for mentioning the streamlining. I understand there was a transformation project a few years ago that was intended to do just that, to find streamlining for reinvestment in a department. In fact, I'm told that the project was essentially sidelined and instead the moneys were clawed back by the government, as opposed to having them reinvested somewhere else.

Do you have experience in that kind of re-engineering project? How would you handle it, given the budget cuts and clawbacks in this ministry that you're in charge of?

[John Forster]

When I was at Infrastructure and Transport, I led that department's efficiency review to find savings there. It was a large department as well, and a regulatory department. We found areas where we could cut and then put money into more important areas, particularly on the regulatory side.

I've seen a lot of good work done to date. I think it will be a signal to our folks. With Generals Lawson and Thibault, I think we need to re-energize our efforts on the defence renewal to try to find greater savings that we can focus on important areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time with us today, Mr. Forster.

There is the formality of the question, colleagues.

Shall the chair report to the House that the committee has examined the competence and qualifications of John Forster to the position of deputy minister of National Defence and finds him competent to perform the duties of his respective position?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.