National Defence Committee on Feb. 1st, 2018

[Patrick Finn]

Thank you very much for the question.

We are in a growth phase in materiel procurement and support. Our resources are sufficient for the contracts we have right now. Since various projects are coming to an end, however, some of the staff assigned to them will be assigned to projects related to the new defence policy. As indicated, the group at National Defence that I direct is growing.

As to the second part of your question, I have to say that we are in particular assessing the effectiveness of the entire process, and not just at National Defence. We are assessing needs and preparing requests for proposals and so forth. We can, however, rely on assistance from our colleagues at other departments, Privy Council and Treasury Board in particular.

To continue to implement the defence policy, we have to continue to grow, and that is our intention. About 100 people join our group every year. We are in discussions with other departments and agencies to make sure that we can continue to move forward on these projects as they are ready.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you.

What role does Canada play in NATO procurement? Can you give us some examples of our participation?

[Patrick Finn]

Once again, thank you for the question.

As a NATO member, Canada participates in various ways. First, NATO itself is made up of 29 countries. There are also various committees. As I said earlier, I serve on a procurement committee. There are also agencies that are somewhat independent. So there are different ways of participating.

Some projects are jointly funded. For example, the money that Canada provides to NATO is used to move forward on and implement these projects. There are certain other projects that we decide not to participate in. In many cases, it is up to the countries to decide whether they want to participate or not.

Let me give you an example. For 50 years, we have been working on the Sea Sparrow missiles used by the navy. We have continued to play a role in this regard over the years and even decades, whereas the participation of other countries has fluctuated.

So we are involved in various ways and in various aspects.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

According to some defence experts, there is a gap in military technology between the United States and the other NATO countries in several regards, including defence research, development and innovation.

Do you share that view? If so, what can countries like Canada do to bridge that gap?

[Patrick Finn]

I have to say that my experience in that regard is limited. I can answer, however, based on my military career and in particular my involvement with the U.S. navy. The U.S defence budget and their level of investment in equipment inevitably creates a certain gap. We do, however, make bilateral and multilateral efforts to work with them, and that opens doors, creates opportunities to engage and work together, and share information, capabilities, and approaches.

I would also add that, at the operational and tactical levels, these days my American counterparts are saying themselves that they cannot do everything. In their view, NATO and NORAD offer other opportunities to work jointly. That is very important to them. I think being part of these organizations is becoming very important.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Chair, I will share my time with MP Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

How much time is left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

There is a little less than two minutes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Can you touch on the changes that are occurring in technology and the rapidity with which technology is advancing, even while our procurement cycles move at a much slower pace? For instance, defence procurement in Canada often involves four departments, namely Treasury Board, National Defence, PSPC, and ISED. I'm curious what the NATO standards are in addressing the fact that technology is changing so rapidly, yet the procurement process can take quite a while.

[Patrick Finn]

Thank you, sir, for the question.

I think the way you describe the procurement process is absolutely correct. It applies to our largest and most complex projects. I have about 350 projects under management, with probably between 10,000 and 12,000 contracts, and what you just described applies to less than 10% and probably less than a couple of per cent of the contracts. In other words, when we're getting into the most complex projects and the billions of dollars, it involves multiple departments, offsets, and Treasury Board, among other things, but for a lot of the things we do, particularly updates and technological-level things, the authorities are much lower. In “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, my organization's contracting authority, which has already been advancing, will shift to about $5 million. This means that inside of defence, for procurements up to $5 million—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I'm really low on time. My question is more specifically about the NATO standards. How does NATO look at that?

[Patrick Finn]

In a similar fashion, again particularly in the context of technology, a lot of it is the NCIA, but the NSPA, where we work, has a fair bit of agility as an agency. It depends on what the members want to do. In a lot of the support areas they are actually quite agile.

I don't know if there are actual standards. Jennifer, you can speak to those.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

We're out of time now. We might be able to circle back on that. We will have time later.

I'm going to have to give the floor to Mr. Spengemann, and we're going to move to five-minute questions.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here.

I have four questions and five minutes, so I'd appreciate it if you could be as quick as you can in answering them.

The first one is with respect to the environment. There are movements under way in many countries to “green” their armed forces—not green in the sense of camouflage, but green in the sense of environmental footprint. Is something under way along those lines within NATO, or is this entirely driven by the initiatives of member states?

[Patrick Finn]

In the context of greening armed forces' aircraft, ships, and other things, such as by using alternate fuels, etc., the member states provide the greatest influence as the providers of all the equipment that would consume fuel. There are other initiatives—for example, smart defence initiatives—that are looking at it.

We use NATO as a means to come together and establish best practices. There are, for example, standard NATO agreements, which are procedures that we use. Rather than each nation writing up their own procedure for improving exhaust for diesel engines, we do it together as NATO and then apply it to all our procurements. There are definitely some things like that in NATO.

The majority of the consumption and footprint is probably derived through the nations by virtue of equipment.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

My second question is on gender equity and equality, and I'd like to put it to both of you.

The defence sector is one that's traditionally very male-dominated. The defence procurement sector, I would imagine, is no less so, and perhaps there's an additional layer within the NATO part of that procurement sector.

Can you give us your perspective, each of you, on where we are with respect to the promotion of women serving in civilian and military capacities within NATO, and specifically within procurement?

[Patrick Finn]

It's something again that Canada is a leader on and continues to press. We have a long way to go, but in that context we have of course adopted the GBA+ approach to all our procurements in the things we do. We bring that into NATO as well.

I will ask Jennifer for her experience at the agency and to what extent we're seeing a greater influence.

[Jennifer Hubbard]

I would tell you that one of my priorities in my role as the director general of international industry programs, to support what we do, was to promote implementation that supports inclusiveness and diversity. Overarching that is the Security Council's resolution 1325, which is a key document that recognizes the importance of enhancing the role of women in global peace and security. That's why I put my name forward a couple of years ago to be considered for the chairmanship of the NSPA.

We already play and can continue to play a leadership role. There are areas where there are gaps. From a recruiting perspective at NATO, there's definitely a recognition that there are areas where we can improve.

As the chairman of the NATO support and procurement organizations, one of my functions is to represent the nations on the boards where we recruit the senior leaders in the organization, including the head of the NATO body of that agency. I have the opportunity to take part in that. I attest to nations that people be considered fairly and that gender diversity is to be included.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

That's very helpful. Thank you very much for that.

What are we not doing, or what could we do better with respect to not just granting access by Canadian business to the NATO procurement system, but to actually promote Canadian business? Some countries do this very well and very actively.

[Patrick Finn]

We are doing more work, of course, with the Canadian delegation. Increasingly what we have done through the attaché network in recent years is we have bolstered—and again it's Jennifer's organization that does that—the training of military attachés who are going abroad and getting a much greater understanding of their role in this respect. Some of our allies have been much better at it. We've probably come through a long period, through the Cold War and beyond, when we were there purely for military reasons.

In the context of particularly the defence industry and a lot of the companies, part of our motivation for moving the NATEX to NSPA was to make sure they could help large Canadian defence suppliers, or even small and medium defence suppliers for that matter, to understand how to navigate the processes at NSPA and those areas. Certainly I've talked about this with our ambassador there, and she has, I'll say, a greater interest and understanding to do more of this.

Having Jennifer at the advisory board, the attaché, and what we're doing with the NATEX are all things we're doing. We haven't talked about the NIAG, which is the NATO industrial advisory group—and, again, Janet Thorsteinson at CADSI sits on that for Canada. We're trying to be much more joined up in how we pull all that together so that we can inform and help people navigate and understand the process.

It's often viewed as protectionist. My view is probably more that it is another bureaucracy and that understanding how to navigate it is critical.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Finn.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

That's time. Mr. O'Toole is next.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's nice to see you. You're a hard guy to get a hold of at times.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Not really.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you both very much for your appearance here today, and thank you very much for your naval career, Mr. Finn. I'm going to speak specifically about a few naval questions.

Within the context of NATO, the Royal Canadian Navy has commitments to two standing forces. Could you outline those quickly?