National Defence Committee on Nov. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

A budget was distributed on Thursday, February 21, in the amount of $16,650.

Would someone like to move the adoption of the study budget?

[An hon. member]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I have one final thing. Mr. Collins has tabled a motion. I think it's a good motion—let me put it that way—but there's an argument to be put that it's not within the mandate of the committee. I will just put it out there that although the motion is not being moved at this point, if that motion is to move forward, we move it forward within the mandate of the committee.

Thank you, colleagues, for your co-operation.

I'm anticipating bells. I don't know when they'll start and how that will impact our time. We've usually had an understanding that we go through bells for a number of minutes.

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

I have a point of order. When the bells start, which will be sometime after 10 o'clock, it's a half-hour bell, to my understanding. I think we could at the very least go until 10:15.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes. I think we should be able to make it through.

I assume we have no opening statement.

Mr. Allison, you have six minutes.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

My colleague Ms. Normandin asked a question of the minister on procurement and other departments. We hear all the time about the issue of silos and departments. It's a real issue. I've been here 20 years, and it's still an issue 20 years after I arrived.

There are probably no easy answers to fix this, but do you have any suggestions or recommendations, based on your experiences, for how we could streamline the process? Remember that a lot of the concern here is that when we do finally decide to move forward with things, either they take a longer time or we have to go through a process that takes many years because we find that some of our allies are able to procure things in a quicker fashion. That's not a system that you guys set up, but you're now part of it. You see it. You probably witness it every day. You're probably frustrated like we are as well.

Do you have any solutions for us or any thought processes for how we could do a better job as a government to procure defence—or procure anything, really—in a timely fashion? We're here talking about defence, so we'll leave it at that.

[Simon Page]

It's a fantastic question. It's really at the heart of the matter, I find, for this committee.

I personally chair the ADM-level defence procurement strategy committee. My DM, Deputy Minister Reza, chairs it at the deputy minister level. I've been in this system now for a few years, and I can go back to years when the three departments that needed to be at the table to execute procurement were barely at the table. It was difficult to get them together. We now have a very sound governance system based on the 2014 defence procurement strategy. It has matured to a pretty good point at this time from a functionality point of view and an effectiveness point of view.

I think if I were going to identify one area where this governance could be improved, it's after things get to the deputy minister level. We sit down on a regular basis according to a specific agenda, and we review projects that need specific decisions according to procurement dates, but how do we bring the procurement home from the final decision point of view? The access to the minister layer needs to be improved. Hopefully, with the work we're doing now, we'll be able to work that out.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have another question related to that. We've had some issues with the timeliness of being able to get things. Is that because we've taken too much time to figure out what we want?

It seems like our allies are able to get things like kit in Latvia, and we have a hard time procuring things like that. What are some of the challenges we have in delivering those things? Is it because we've committed money that we're going to get 20 or 30 years from now or maybe 10 years from now? Is it maybe a question of how we move this thing through the system?

Once again, there are the checks and balances we talked about with regard to being able to do that. I look at the immediate needs we have right now in Latvia. Where are the bottlenecks in making that happen?

[Simon Page]

That's another great question.

The engineer in me splits this procurement system into three portions. The pre-solicitation portion, the solicitation portion, which leads to a contract award, and the contract award and delivery of goods and equipment, in most cases, for us.

With regard to your question, the pre-solicitation is often underestimated because if you want to buy a plane or build a ship, you need the appropriate lead time. You cannot just turn around and expect a ship to be delivered in two or three years. You need the lead time. That lead time is sometimes misappreciated in the pre-solicitation activities.

Within the solicitation activities, sometimes we also underestimate the complexity of the procurement. For instance, in a shipbuilding project, the design phase is significant. It does pay off to take a bit more time in the design phase ahead of signing the big contract to build a ship.

After the contract award, where the strong, rigid accountability should really start, then it's a partnership with industry, and we need to work better with industry. However, that planning phase is also a phase where industry needs to be involved, and to me, we could do that better.

With regard to your exact point, sometimes, yes, projects will sit in a phase where we ask, “What are we doing? Which requirement do we really want?” and we underestimate the time that's going to be required to deliver.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

John, do I still have a minute?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You still have a minute.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Okay, that's good.

What's the process for being able to address the critical gaps? We can look at sleeping bags, for example. How do you deal with the gaps between what we ended up with and what was required? Where does that fall down?

[Simon Page]

The capability planning and the requirements come from the client department. This would be a great question for the client department. It has a process to plan capabilities and to identify requirements. It has a specific panel, the independent review panel for defence acquisition, that reviews all the requirements. Then the projects eventually come to us at PSPC purely for the execution of the solicitation process.

Let's take the submarines, for instance. If we want a submarine in year x, then procurement should get to us in x minus y. These two, x and y, need to be tackled properly and well. You would almost think that for the big stuff the Canadian Armed Forces needs—the big fleet, fighter jets, combatants at sea, submarines, maritime helicopters—we would have a continuous capability planning cycle, because as soon as you get new aircraft, a few years later it's time to think about the next one, especially in today's world.

It's a fantastic question, and I don't want to say that it's a pet peeve of mine, but if there's an area where we could all collectively do better as a nation, it's the planning phase ahead of things entering what I call the pure solicitation process box.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Allison. Your point is well taken.

Mr. Powlowski, you have six minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I want to ask you about the national shipbuilding strategy. Is that something you're currently involved with?

[Simon Page]

Yes. It's—

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm sorry. I do have a question, but before launching into the question, I thought I'd make sure that you don't come back with the response that, well, it's not your department.

Irving, Davie and Seaspan are part of the strategy to build bigger vessels. I know that Ontario Shipyards, previously known as Heddle Marine, wanted to be part of the strategy to build smaller vessels, which I gather the big three are not part of. I know it has had discussions with our government about that possibility.

Can you update me as to where we are with making it a partner in this strategy?

[Simon Page]

It's a great question.

I'll start with a very precise, concise answer. Ontario Shipyards is part of the national shipbuilding strategy. They actively contribute currently to pillar three of the strategy, which is the repair, maintenance and refit layer. There are certainly things coming—

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Sorry, did you say repairing rather than building new ships?

[Simon Page]

That's where I'm going. There are opportunities coming up with specific projects in pillar two, which is about the construction of medium-sized ships.

We have our large ship construction, which is pillar one. We have our smaller ship construction, which is pillar two. There are a couple of projects coming down that will be pillar two projects, for which Ontario Shipyards will be able to compete.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Can you give me a timeline for when that's going to happen?

[Simon Page]

Yes, I can absolutely do that.

The most attractive project right now in pillar two is the midshore multi-mission vessel for the Canadian Coast Guard. It's for up to six of these vessels. The request for information for this project has recently been published, so it's starting.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

We've heard a lot in this committee about the prolonged length of time it takes for CAF procurement. My understanding is that to procure any particular item, it has to be signed off on by five different departments. Why is that?

When I looked at which departments they were, one of them was Justice. I was scratching my head on that one. Why does Justice have to be involved in procuring for the Canadian Armed Forces?

[Simon Page]

From a pure signature point of view, for a good portion of the procurements currently in play, three signatures are usually required, but many departments, including Justice, are involved in the process.

In the governance that I described earlier, the defence procurement strategy governance, Justice has a seat. Every time we execute a procurement strategy, whatever the procurement is, it is assessed from a legal risk point of view. That legal risk is part of our Treasury Board submission and the greater assessment of the file.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I know part of our party's platform in the 2019 election was to streamline the process. I know Minister Blair talked about streamlining the process.

What have we done in the last year or two in order to streamline it?