Evidence of meeting #98 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 work.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Jody Thomas  Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
Claude Rochette  Assistant Deputy Minister (Finance) and Chief Financial Officer, Department of National Defence
D.C. Hawco  Acting Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff, Department of National Defence
Patrick Finn  Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel, Department of National Defence
Geneviève Bernatchez  Judge Advocate General, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence
Elizabeth Van Allen  Assistant Deputy Minister, Infrastructure and Environment, Department of National Defence

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr

Thank you.

Is there any other discussion?

10:05 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

It's the same for me, short notice, but I'm going out of the way to make sure I have lunch with him at another time.

I approve it.

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr

If there's no more discussion, we'll have a vote.

(Motion agreed to)

Let's get back to some questioning. We're going to run through the format we had before in terms of timing, so I'm going to yield the floor to Mrs. Romanado. You have the floor for seven minutes.

10:05 a.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

I'd like to thank the members here today for, first of all, your service, for those who are serving and have served, and for being here today.

I wanted to talk a bit about something that's near and dear to me, obviously. In terms of the recruitment of a Canadian Armed Forces member, throughout their career in the military, and then post-career, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, my concern is always to make sure that from the time we recruit you to the time that you're no longer with us, your experience with the Canadian Armed Forces and your service are recognized.

Pease elaborate on some of the work that's being done in conjunction with DND and Veterans Affairs Canada to make sure that our brave men and women in uniform and the families who support them are being supported throughout that career.

10:05 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Jody Thomas

I'll begin, and then I'll ask Admiral Hawco to continue.

The Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces, and Veterans Affairs Canada are working very closely together to ensure that from enrolment to post-retirement—because of injury or illness or at the end of a long career—the individual soldier, sailor, or air person, and his or her family are taken care of and have access to services and support. That transition from military to civilian life can be traumatic for some people because they have been in uniform and surrounded by the Canadian Armed Forces since the age of 17.

In one initiative, the suicide prevention strategy, we're working jointly with Veterans Affairs Canada, the Department of National Defence, and the Canadian Armed Forces to ensure that no matter where you are in your career, there's a continuation of mental health care.

The next initiative we've been working on is what we're calling “convergence”, which is not bringing the two departments together physically but ensuring seamless access to service, pensions, support, and medical care from the eyes of the veteran. It doesn't mean combining everything into one. It means you have been injured on duty or not on duty. You need access to veterans' services. You fill out one form. You have one client experience. In the background we make sure that everything is taken care of.

One of the things we hear most is that the veteran experience is confusing, complicating, and frustrating. Convergence between the two departments is hopefully a client service experience for the veterans where they don't care where the money or support is coming from; they're just getting it. We hope to be able to talk about that more in the near future.

I'll ask Admiral Hawco to talk about “the journey”, as the CDS calls it, which is the experience of somebody who enrolls in the armed forces.

10:05 a.m.

RAdm D.C. Hawco

Thank you, Deputy.

I guess it's not a surprise, particularly for this table, that the “Strong, Secure, Engaged” focus on people from the Prime Minister and the minister is animating, informing, and shaping our approach.

The deputy referred to “the journey”. That's a broader expression of those transition points that the deputy spoke to in the context of someone who is moving toward retirement. Think about postings. Think about someone who is ill but they're going to return to work, because that's the objective. You talk about the career courses, and all those areas have policy points, so investment of a policy division and increasing the capability there, understanding that we have about 37 primary care clinics across the CAF, 31 of which have dedicated mental health practitioners.

As we move the ill and injured, we recognize they need to have dedicated and specific focused care. That's the establishment of joint personnel support units, that concept of providing dedicated oversight with a proper career case management number so you can get personalized care, awareness of individuals, and the specifics of the files. It's recognizing the $198 million over the course of the government's investment in total health and wellness.

When we think of this as long-standing tracking or suicide prevention, and understanding the factors and the causalities that lead to people making desperate choices at times, we have for many years now been tracking suicide rates and understanding and featuring that in our approach to mental health.

Of course, we have also seen an increase in the number of mental health positions, approximately 455 across those 37 clinics, within 31 that have dedicated mental health professionals.

It's also important that in our civilian system 4,000 mental health care providers have registered to provide care to military members in their own practices. That's a great enabler for an individual to get timely access and a variety of access, because sometimes geography doesn't naturally lend itself or make it easy for a person to access care, because of a posting to a recruiting centre in a town that's not immediately proximate to a major base, as an example.

10:10 a.m.

Liberal

Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC

One of my colleagues, Mr. Gerretsen, brought up something that's near and dear to me—military families. I am one, myself, as the mother of two serving members. I had the great pleasure of visiting 12 bases and wings over the past year and talking to a lot of military family members.

One thing that struck me is the supports for families after service. I know that we recently announced increased funding to MFRCs through “Strong, Secure, Engaged” of an additional $6 million, but we also announced last year that going forward, all 32 MFRCs across Canada will now have access to veteran families who are medically released. From now on, veteran families can continue to go to their local MFRCs, an initiative of $147 million over the next six years, with additional funding of $15 million going forward to support veteran families to continue to use these services.

As a military family member, as you said, the transition can sometimes be traumatic for the member, but it can also be traumatic for the families who have always known that support centre of the MFRC.

Could you elaborate on the importance of supporting families in the Canadian Armed Forces? I know “Strong, Secure, Engaged” was the first time we've seen military families showcased and recognized so prominently. Could you talk a little bit about that?

10:10 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr

I'm going to have to put that on hold. That was a lengthy question. We might have time to circle back on that, but I'm going to have to yield the floor to MP Bezan.

May 29th, 2018 / 10:10 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again, I'm glad to be able to ask questions.

I want to welcome Rear-Admiral Hawco to the firing line. I know you've been on the job as vice-chief for not even 24 hours, so it's good to see you here. We're looking forward to seeing you here many times, as we go forward.

I want to get down to last year's budget. From what was promised to what was actually spent, it was about $2 billion short of what was in the departmental plan, what was able to go forward. The minister talked a bit about that in his opening comments. We see what's in the estimates today. We see what the departmental plan was for national defence down the road. In 2021, there's a $4-billion shortfall that is different than what is in “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. If the defence policy is saying one thing and departmental plans are saying something completely different, which document is correct?

10:10 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Jody Thomas

The defence budget is, of course, a subject of great interest and discussion.

I'm going to ask both the CFO and the ADM, Mat to weigh in on this, so we are going to take a bit of time on this question.

10:10 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Don't take up all my time. I only have seven minutes.

10:10 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Jody Thomas

“Strong, Secure, Engaged” did lay out a spending plan. When we dove into each project, we realized that some of the spending plans may not be completely aligned with “Strong, Secure, Engaged”. What we are trying to do is preserve space and funding for the projects going forward. Therefore, we are only bringing into the main estimates the money we know we need. We'll use supplementaries (A) and (B) to bring in more if projects advance or if we require more money.

We are also looking really hard at why money isn't spent, and the minister outlined some of that. Ten per cent of why we did not bring in some of the $2 billion last year was that we were more effective and more efficient. We spent less money on a project that was finished—

10:15 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

I'm glad to hear that.

10:15 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Jody Thomas

It's good news. We don't really talk about that good news very often.

10:15 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

What of the other 90%?

10:15 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Jody Thomas

Of the other 90%, 25% of it was set aside for intellectual property. That money wasn't required because we didn't have to spend it to buy intellectual property in that year. It's still there and available. We may never need it, but we always have it fenced and available.

Some of it, as we said, is that industry was not quite ready. Industry couldn't deliver—

10:15 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

That's where the real problem is. If we're falling behind on the procurement, on the capital expenditures.... We were $2 billion short last year. In 2021, based upon the departmental plan itself, it's looking like it's going to be $4 billion short.

David Perry analyzed the numbers and looked at it. I know that there's an announcement coming out in the next day or two from the minister about how we actually resource this, but just to catch up from what was originally in SSE to where we need to go and re-equip our Canadian Armed Forces is going to require an increase of 315% in capital expenditures. That's spending that we haven't seen since the Korean War. A lot of people are saying that procurement is broken. How can you spend the money in that volume, when already, through our short two and a half years of Liberal government, they are showing that they lapse funding every year?

10:15 a.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence

Jody Thomas

I'm going to ask the CFO and the ADM Materiel to answer so I don't take up time.

10:15 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel, Department of National Defence

Patrick Finn

Very quickly, sir, knowing what your time is, I think there are a few projects there that are massive. We have seen this in the past when we built the Canadian patrol frigates. We're about to enter an era where we're starting to build the Canadian surface combatants, as we talked about here, which is a project of $56 billion to $60 billion, and again, there are the fighters, which are the better part of another $20 billion.

What is going to happen in a few years as we enter implementation on a number of very large projects, without investing a lot more people, is that our spend will ramp up quite significantly. The deputy talked about, in this past year, the $2 billion in intellectual property, and the non-performance of vendors around equipment, which they stepped forward and addressed and now is in delivery: our standard military pattern vehicles, our recce versions of the LAVs. We're not going to accept equipment into the military that's not fully combat-capable and ready and have people deployed with it. We make that point to industry, and they step up, sir.

10:15 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

Admiral Finn, if you start looking the replacement of our CF-18s, we're going with this interim purchase, which is roughly estimated at $500 million, to buy 18 rusted-out Australian jets that have been flown hard and fast and over the ocean. They're replacing theirs with brand new F-35s. They're not going to give us their best used aircraft at the beginning of this process until they have all their new fleet in service.

10:15 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel, Department of National Defence

Patrick Finn

Sir, they, like us, have put a lot of investment into those aircraft. I sailed on 40-year-old ships that had brand new modern missiles. I think we have to be careful about the age of an aircraft and saying that reflects its capability. They haven't—

10:15 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

But I think on average these aircraft have more hours than our own Hornets.

10:15 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel, Department of National Defence

Patrick Finn

They have in a number of cases more than ours, but hours in a fighter are not necessarily the best measure of the stress on the structure. How much has been low-flying? How much was combat air support? We're quite comfortable, as the minister said, with the work done at L3 in Montreal to actually compare the two.

They're quite capable. They will be in transition. I think we have a good dialogue going. It is an interim capability. We do want to have the request for proposal on the street for the replacement of our fighters next spring, sir, such that we're moving out in the replacement.

10:15 a.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB

I want to change gears here a bit. I'll come back to you, Admiral Finn, as the ADM on materiel and defence equipment. We have a situation where we're looking at production gaps both at Seaspan and at Irving. Where are we at in how we fill those gaps between the AOPS finishing off and when we go to CSC? Also, what the heck is happening out in Vancouver on where we're at with the joint supply ships?

10:15 a.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Materiel, Department of National Defence

Patrick Finn

On the east coast, we're in discussion with the yard. It's not the government's to entirely solve...but we are looking at the six AOPS from a military requirement capability. On some of the other things, as we move to the selection of the surface combatant design this fall, that will really tell us what we call the “right-hand edge of the gap”. Do we have a mature enough design that we can move out quicker and close it further?

On the east coast, because there are two large runs of ships, it's a bit less of an issue. On the west coast, a lot of the detail on the Coast Guard projects I can't speak to, but in the context of the joint support ship, we are in discussion now about commencing construction very shortly to move out on construction, advancing potentially some of that work.