Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #36 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #36 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I think the navy has put a lot of time and effort into what it wants. That said, I think the navy is understaffed in terms of its technical staff that can provide the expertise to say this is what the warship needs and so forth. The navy is operating under severe constraints.
Politically, I think the armed forces have been cannibalized endlessly, and this is the result—the high cost of saving money.
Then administratively, we've created a culture which is dinosaurian. It's so slow, so multi-layered. Public Works couldn't build a bus shelter without help, and we're looking at a decade-long construction project of the most complex sort. We need to streamline that process.
So I think there are three levels—naval, political, and administrative—and collectively this is one of the reasons why the process is slow.
February 7th, 2017 / 5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you very much.
Oh, my gosh, you guys: incredible. I come from a defence procurement background, and I think we can all agree on the challenges facing defence procurement, but please, tell us how we fix it. What are the top three things we need to focus on immediately to fix it?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I think, number one, there's a need to treat defence procurement, or the procurement of any large, complex activity in government, like it's something that important and it's something that's unique. We tend to treat it in a number of different ways. We hire procurement officials to run multi-billion dollar projects the same way we hire an administrator to run a line department on something that's relatively straightforward. We need to recognize that it's a different type of activity. You need a specialized skill set for it. You don't just wing it.
With regard to the companies you had in last week, when you were holding your hearing, I would commend you for doing that. I would strongly encourage you to do it again, on a much more regular basis than has happened in the past. The companies that are building that activity have gone to the open market to hire people, because they didn't have the right capacity in-house to actually deliver on these big files. The Government of Canada, to the best of my knowledge, still hasn't done that. We've tried to bring in some expertise from outside of government episodically instead of actually hiring it into government. There are different parts of the procurement world they've been trying to staff up. The process has been taking multiple years, which I think is just absurd. We should do what the private sector does, which is to go out and bring in and pay people with the right skill set so that they know what they're doing.
There's also a need to align the overall financial piece. We've been trying to cram 15 ships of a high level of capability into a $26.2-billion project budget for the surface combatants, and that's not going to work. I think there's a recognition now that this is the case, but there's been an awareness, effectively everywhere but officially from government positions, for years, that this was simply an untenable position.
If you can't make the math work, then you need to reassess that. We need to quickly bring skill sets and the people with the right kind of expertise into government.
5:05 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I think the navy has to make a firm decision: this is what we want—point final.
The problem with defence technology is that it's moving so fast. We're on the brink of Star Wars, literally, with a whole world of drones in the sky, in the sea, on the surface, and so forth fast coming up over the horizon. I can understand why navies succumb to the seduction of one more widget or one more whatever. In some cases, it's visited upon them when they suddenly discover that the enemy has a certain type of weapon system that they have to counteract.
Then, I think, so far as possible, you have to have someone in charge.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Someone has to hang by their thumbs if they don't deliver. Now when the thing goes down the tubes, everyone looks around for who's responsible. No one's responsible; it's “he said, they did”. We have to have much clearer lines of responsibility, in my assessment, in terms of delivering the product.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
I would get Public Works out of defence procurement, put all the responsibility on the defence minister, perhaps have a subcommittee of this committee to specialize on oversight of defence procurement, and then insist that the minister is responsible for questioning every single statement of operational requirements. That's where the generals will try to Canadianize, and that's where the discipline needs to be exercised. If you do that, you streamline it and you move forward.
The other point, and I've already made it, is do not make these things too complicated. Buy proven off-the-shelf designs or equipment.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
I want to ask you about that. Ultimately we're talking defence procurement, and ultimately there's a certain element of sovereignty that must also be incorporated into any kind of equipment purchase, so command-and-control systems and the military industrial base looking after our own capability in that sovereignty. Do you not feel that this plays a role at all?
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
There is some room for Canadian industrial involvement, absolutely, but sometimes we make it too complicated. The clearest example I can give you is the maritime helicopter procurement. For some reason, the Sikorsky Seahawk was deemed to be too small for Canada's purposes, even though there are hundreds of these helicopters operating off of U.S. naval vessels. Again, someone had to ask the question early on: sorry, if it's good enough for the U.S. Navy, why isn't it good enough for us? Instead, we go down the whole process of having Sikorsky build a brand new, larger helicopter for Canada. Those are the sorts of tough questions to be asked.
Absolutely there should be Canadian industrial activity, but we have to keep it rational.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all you gentlemen for joining us today and sharing your expertise.
To follow up on Leona's comments and the comments you've made as well, that we need to centralize where the decision-making process is happening, the Australian model is that there is a defence procurement minister and an agency that takes care of it. There's one reporting and communications line that works with the industrial base, making sure that the defence needs are met, ultimately taking the partisanship out of it, and making sure there is that accountability in both cabinet and Parliament. It all comes through one minister. I think that's something we really need to look at. I'm more than happy to champion that cause to see whether or not we can get down that path here in Canada as well.
Professor Byers, you mentioned the destroyers, and I've raised this question with multiple people who have come to committee. The new surface combatant is supposed to become some sort of hybrid between a frigate and a destroyer, and maybe have the capabilities we need. Do you believe we should still have destroyers to deal with aerial threats to our navy?
5:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, As an Individual
The point of the Canadian surface combatant is to have a single hull design for all of our large combat vessels. Within that single hull design, you can put different capabilities. The area air defence capability enables us to operate without allies providing that capability for us, so going into a dangerous area where there might be hostile aircraft wanting to attack our ships.
Yes, I think that should be a component. It involves a fairly advanced radar, and it involves more capable longer-range missiles than exist on the Halifax class frigates, but the answer is yes.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you.
Dr. Perry, you were at all the hearings last week. I know you watched with interest. You are the procurement expert out there today. It was interesting to listen to both Seaspan and Irving to some degree slagging Davie, who had appeared earlier and had slagged them earlier in the week.
Do you see any opportunities for Davie to advance the build of the ships we need or to augment some of the other challenges that the navy is facing? We have right now a dozen Kingston class coastal vessels, but Seaspan will only be building five. What are we going to do with the rest? And when does Seaspan even get to the five they have? I don't even see that in their allotment, going down the pipe.
5:15 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
I totally think there's room for three shipyards, given the potential work that would exist right now just to simply replace things in the federal inventory that need to be replaced. The national shipbuilding procurement strategy, when it was called that, only covered certain types of fleets. It didn't cover everything. There's been other work announced that would provide different types of interim or potentially permanent increases to the Coast Guard down the road.
I would agree with Michael that we should look at building another interim auxiliary oiler capability. I'm thinking—
5:15 p.m.
Senior Analyst, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, As an Individual
Exactly. We could debate the timing, but I think the original project and the original requirement for that particular capability was for three or four ships. I would still build the joint support ships, though, because they'll do different things than the interim AOR can.
Beyond that, I would agree with Jim's assessment about the overall future in sea-power. I'm a big sea-power proponent. I think Canada should also acquire some kind of vessel that can provide humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, call it whatever you want—a big little honking ship of some kind.
The thing that the government needs to balance, though, is that there was a logic behind the national shipbuilding strategy about apportioning work over a long period of time to eliminate boom-and-bust cycles. When they did the assessment looking at the packages of work for the two yards, I don't believe that encompassed all the potential fleet replacement. I don't know if long term there's enough work for three yards or not. I think that's really the fundamental question. There is a logic in going with two, to eliminate that, but you also have to weigh that against....
If you're not going to get something for 20 years, then you have to take into account the capability deficiency you'll have if you don't buy it quickly.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay.
My final question is for both Dr. Boutilier and Dr. Sokolsky.
Each of you has expertise, one on Asia-Pacific and one on the North Atlantic. We've talked a little bit about emerging threats and China and their growing geopolitical influence in the region. We haven't talked in this session at all about Russia. How do we see them, especially from the standpoint of our own coastal defence and defending Arctic sovereignty?
5:15 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, Pacific Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
Joel, do you want to go with that?
5:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
Yes.
I think Russia still certainly remains a threat. It's an emerging threat. It's a particular threat in the waters around Europe, where we've been traditionally...looking for. It may well be a new threat in terms of North American defence. NATO is looking toward NORAD...looking toward maritime threat or maritime domain awareness. If that in fact emerges, what I'm saying, not that the Asia-Pacific area isn't important, is that we're not going to have the navy to do everything, and that may well be the focus.
Charlie Foxtrot, a recent book by my colleague Kim Nossal, looks at problems with defence procurement. I think you've all seen it. There's no political cost for not getting defence procurement right. As well, we measure procurement against what seem to be unrealistic projections of what we should have rather than what we are likely to have. It may mean adjusting the expectations and focusing in.
I too like the navy, because it can fulfill North American roles, it can fulfill those humanitarian roles, and it can fulfill our commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The navy is particularly flexible in that way, and that can be our important contribution in a number of different areas.
In North America, remember, we've also taken on commitments in the Caribbean, under USSOUTHCOM, in counter-narcotics. We have our plate full.
