National Defence Committee on Dec. 1st, 2016

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

Because of that—making the Super Hornet sole-source, which breaks the promise for an open and fair competition—you're now essentially biassing and prejudicing the next selection. Because of the infrastructure needs for the Super Hornets, it's going to be the Super Hornet that's chosen in the next round.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

No, it's not going to pre-judge that decision. The open competition is going to be just that: a proper competition at the end of it. We've been part of a joint strike fighter program for a very long time, and the same argument could be made there. What we have committed to is a proper open competition that we are not going to be cutting corners on to make sure that the right aircraft is selected. However, the interim fleet that we are purchasing is absolutely necessary to fill the gap and make sure that we have the right—

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

The final question I wish to ask is related to the replacement program for the CF-18s and to all the staff who are tied to that program who have been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Why would you take this unprecedented move—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We are still driving down the road that we just talked about. This does not have to do with the supplementary estimates, and you have—

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

You know the supplementary estimates' purpose is to provide money for defence procurement. The defence procurement strategy includes the CF-18 replacement secretariat, and that secretariat—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

James, there was a point of order on the table. We talked about this. You said you'd get it back on track, and you're not.

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

I'm coming back to non-disclosure agreements. You can try to censor the questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm not trying to censor. James, these are the rules. On page 1008 in O'Brien and Bosc, it clearly tells you what we need to do here. I gave you some latitude, and you've been asked to stay on topic. Now we're going down a different road.

You have 15 seconds left. Would you like your time, or would you like me to move on to the next person who has a question?

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

I would leave it up to the minister if he wishes to answer on the non-disclosure agreements.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm not going to get involved with how you operate the committee, so I'll leave that to the chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Garrison, you have the floor.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I'm always open to discussions, by the way.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have to say at the outset that we're discussing supplementary estimates for 2016-17. That's the current fiscal year. The question is whether these are adequate amounts to support the needs of the military, so I think your ruling is in fact mistaken and I'm going to go ahead with the questions that I intended to ask.

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister, for the commitment on infrastructure, and particularly the cleanup of contaminated sites. It's very important in my riding. At CFB Esquimalt, for many years the navy did things that perhaps they regret having done and now there are some big cleanup costs, so I do appreciate that.

I also appreciate the attention to the facilities on land, because many people who work in the Canadian Forces are working in substandard facilities and we have lots of problems, certainly locally, with asbestos in some of those buildings and things that need to be done. We have a backlog of that maintenance that needs to be done, so I welcome that commitment here.

One of the things in the recent Auditor General's report talks about planning. On page 2 of the summary of that report, it says that National Defence must plan above minimum needs so that it has sufficient equipment available to respond to changing circumstances.

One of my concerns, when you're talking about the navy, is that the shipbuilding strategy started out as a minimum, what we needed at minimum to meet our commitments. Now it tends to be talked about as a ceiling, that it is the maximum that we can get for the navy.

Given those comments by the Auditor General, it reinforces my concern that we not see the shipbuilding strategy as the total of what the navy needs, but as the minimum of what we need to keep the navy current.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Actually, I couldn't agree with you more. We cannot be planning the Canadian Armed Forces always at a minimum. Our men and women deserve that we make sure they have the right capability, the right infrastructure, and the right environment for them to do their work.

That's why the defence policy review was extremely important. We've gone through some very detailed discussions with experts, with Canadians, and I appreciate all the input that all of you have provided and it has been taken into account.

Whether it's for the navy or even the air force, we are not looking at planning for a minimum.

Getting back to the fighter replacement, that's why we're purchasing 18 Super Hornets. We are not going to plan for the minimum, including the navy.

However, we need to go through a very thorough assessment to make sure that we can look at not only creating the military for what's needed today, but also for the future. Until the defence policy review is released, I can't speak too much to that.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

One of the things I don't find in the supplementary estimates that I want to ask you about is additional money for recruiting. Again, what the Auditor General just found is that there is a significant shortfall and the Canadian Forces remain under strength. The Auditor General concluded that by 2018-19 the Canadian Forces were unlikely to meet the number of people necessary in the forces.

Since 2008, there has been a reduction of about 20% of recruiting positions. Thirteen recruiting locations were actually closed, and I know there has been a reduction in the travelling centres that often went to first nations communities.

My question on the recruiting is that I don't see anything in the supplementary estimates, but it seems to me there is a great need to provide some more resources to recruiting to meet those targets.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Absolutely, there is a need, and what you just stated is the challenge I had coming in. Once resources are taken away, it is actually even more complex to ramp up.

One thing is that we will be investing in recruiting more from the attraction side, from the training side as well, and retention is also critically important. That is one part of the defence policy review that we have looked at. Certain changes have already been made, especially when it comes to the reserves and how we're bringing people in. We need to become much more efficient, but it does take resources to do so. We're going to make sure that the right resources are put into recruiting to meet our numbers and targets, with the focus on retention.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Again, it's not just the overall numbers, but there have been some concerns. I mentioned first nations, and in rural areas of Quebec and places where we've traditionally gone, a large number of people in the forces have seen reduced recruiting hours available to do that work.

In particular, the Auditor General pointed out that while the military has a goal of 25% women, there are no specifically funded programs, or directed or targeted programs, to actually achieve that target of an increase of 1% per year of women. The Auditor General's report was very clear that he didn't find any funding and any specific programs to meet those targets for women in the military.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

A lot of your questions have been looked at with the defence policy review to making sure that we, our government, are committed to increasing more women in the Canadian Armed Forces. We're committed to having more diversity as well, as we look at retention and taking care of our troops while they serve. There's been a significant emphasis put on this at the defence policy review. It's going to require resources as well, and we're going to be investing in this.

I look forward to presenting a lot of this because this is a critical piece to the success of the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

We don't have it in the supplementary estimates this year. If it's in the defence review, then it's probably not in the budget next year. That gives us a two-year delay when we're already falling short of these numbers, so—

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

No, there's a significant emphasis that has been made towards attracting and recruiting.

Do you want to talk to this?

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

Yes. There was $26 million this fiscal year just for recruitment. It was in the main estimates, so it was in the budget of the department. That's why there's no supplemental ask for it. Certainly, the chief has put down a very firm target about the 1% increase per year over the next 10 years to get to 25% female representation in the forces. I'm sure, and the vice-admiral can speak to this, that the armed forces are going to have to put in place mechanisms and programs to achieve his target.

[VAdm Mark Norman]

Yes, to the essence of your question, we have sufficient resources in the current plan for the remainder of this fiscal year. What the minister is describing is a number of internal machinery recruiting changes that are under way and that are going to be implemented in the next couple of fiscal years in order to achieve the very targets that the Auditor General is referring to. It will be a more comprehensive plan.

We are well aware of the issues surrounding the mechanisms by which we actually attract targeted demographic groups, so this is an area of future investment, but to the specifics of your question, that's why it's not reflected in the supplementary estimates.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Chair, I'll try to stick to supplementary estimates (B).

I see there's funding in the supplementary estimates (B) for federal contaminated sites. I remember when I was a municipal councillor, one of the biggest struggles we had was brownfield sites that sat there vacant and unused for years because people wouldn't put in the investment to clean them up. Can you provide some details on this funding, and maybe the government's policy towards these sites? I'm thinking specifically of the roles and responsibilities of DND when it comes to the assessment and remediation of these contaminated sites.

[John Forster]

Contaminated sites is a government-wide program, so the Treasury Board Secretariat manages a large reserve to fund contaminated sites. They assess priorities according to criteria across all departments. In the supplementary estimates we are looking for money to continue to do that work.

We're going to be spending about $240 million over the next three years. The key projects we're going to be doing this year are Esquimalt harbour, which is a big project, at about $40 million; 5 Wing Goose Bay remediation, which is about $19 million; and then some other smaller ones.

The way the program works is we, the Department of National Defence, are responsible for our contaminated sites. We will go in and do an assessment to see exactly what contamination is there and what the best measures are to clean it up. Then Treasury Board will provide us funding to tackle the most contaminated sites first, and we work our way through that. It's a strong commitment to try to clean up a lot, but there's no question National Defence has a fair number of those sites to work on.