National Defence Committee on March 23rd, 2022

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Yes, I mean from the annual budget.

[LGen Frances J. Allen]

I would probably have to ask our chief financial officer for the allocation of funding for our public affairs branch, if that would be a satisfactory answer to you. We may need to get back to you on that.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Given the situation, are we giving anything extra? Even if you don't tell me how much we're actually giving, is it going to be more as a consequence of the situation that has arisen in Ukraine?

[Bill Matthews]

I think that maybe what we can do, Mr. Chair, if it's agreeable, is come back with a written response in terms of budget, current year versus budget past year—

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

On Operation Unifier, has any additional money been allocated to Op Unifier should we be able to re-engage in that way, given the situation?

[Bill Matthews]

Maybe I'll start on that.

Unifier was pretty much focused on training, but there was a donation piece. The donation piece has actually been accelerated, while the training piece, for obvious reasons, has been put on hold. I'm not sure there's more I can add at this stage, but as events unfold, the government can always look at its posture and decisions can be taken at a—

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Motz can finish up.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

What I'll do is make a statement, then, Mr. Matthews. This may be directed to you, based on my question before on procurement.

We know that to date we haven't even been able to procure a sidearm, a new sidearm for the Canadian army, yet we are still.... I think we look a little foolish, quite honestly, in that we can't procure a pistol, yet we're still fighting about how we need new fighter jets, new surface warships, new submarines and new icebreakers and drones.

Where's the breakdown? What's going on that the procurement is struggling so dramatically that it's affecting our readiness for our armed forces?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

The statement turned into a question and you ran through your time, so I'm sure that Mr. Matthews will—

[Bill Matthews]

Can I respond to that, Mr. Chair, or is it...?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You may, in response to Ms. O'Connell's final two minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, but my question is actually around the Middle East strategy and supplementary estimates and CSE's contribution.

I'm wondering if you can elaborate on what this specific investment in the supplementary estimates looks like. It's an additional $4 million, but what is that additional $4 million for?

[Shelly Bruce, Chief, Communications Security Establishment]

CSE has a mandate to collect foreign intelligence and also a long track record of supporting military operations with CAF, so that money has been dedicated to analytic resources to produce intelligence that can help Government of Canada decision-makers use foreign intelligence to inform their policies, but also to help CAF with the Operation Impact objectives and to provide force protection for the forces that are deployed.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Without going into operational details and, again, without getting into the obvious protected information around that, is some of that additional money for additional personnel, or is it equipment-based or a mixture of both?

I'm just curious. Are we hiring more analysts, or is it equipment upgrades, etc.?

[Shelly Bruce]

It is predominantly based on analytic resources that are required to do that work, so people.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. O'Connell.

I shouldn't do this, but I'm going to ask Deputy Minister Matthews to respond to Mr. Motz's question, only because of my great appreciation of Mr. Motz and his contribution to this committee.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On pistols, I wanted to flag for the committee that this is a great example of the requirements that were initially laid out by National Defence through PSPC being so specific that a competitor said this was not a fair and open competition because they had effectively made them so narrow that the competitor couldn't compete.

They appropriately challenged it at the CITT and went back to the drawing board. We were able to turn the request for proposal around very quickly and get it back out, but it's an example of how, if one is too specific with the requirements, they actually limit competition and effectively maybe limit the solution. I think there are valuable lessons in that for all of us.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Minister Matthews and General Allen.

I appreciate your contribution here to the study of the supplementary estimates.

Colleagues, there is no vote required, because it was deemed reported on Monday, so we won't have to go through the usual votes for vote 1c, 5c, 10c and 15c.

Our friends from Latvia have just arrived.

With this hybrid form of Parliament, we're required to adjourn and then to come back in.

With that, this meeting is adjourned, and we will re-empanel as soon as we are back online.

Thank you, again.