Evidence of meeting #128 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
This is an important question. She has left you 15 seconds to answer it.
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Very briefly, we have a great national shipbuilding strategy, a defence industry strategy, which we are connecting to this morning, and an aerospace strategy, which is so important for a lot of businesses and workers in your riding, Emmanuella.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Madame Lambropoulos.
Madame Normandin, you have six minutes.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Minister, we're delighted to have you here today, and to see you after the wonderful announcement you made in Saint‑Jean-sur‑Richelieu.
I have a long preamble to my first question.
Whenever procurement comes up for discussion, the industry complains that, on the one hand, too many ministers are involved and that, on the other, defence doesn't seem to be a priority for government.
In that context, the committee made the following recommendation:
“That the Government of Canada convene a Secretariat within the Privy Council Office to bring together all relevant public servants.”
That might be one way to reduce the number of ministers or, at least, to centralize decisions and ensure it's a priority.
You personally responded to that recommendation as follows: “The government acknowledges that an organization that brings together all relevant public servants is key.”
You were referring to the defence procurement strategy, which dates back to 2014.
I'd like to know what's been done since then. In your response, other than the fact that you agreed with the need for such an organization, it doesn't seem like anything's been done to convene a committee within the Privy Council Office, for example.
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Thank you for that excellent question. I'll say two quick things. First, that procurement reform strategy is too old, it's from 2014. That's why we're putting one in place now and why the committee's contribution is extremely important in that regard.
Secondly, I have with me Siobhan Harty, who is very familiar with the Privy Council and how the departments are involved. Yes, there are several: PSPC, National Defence, obviously, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. All these people already work well together. There may be something else on top of that in the coming months.
On that note, I'll turn it over to Ms. Harty.
Siobhan Harty Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence Procurement Review, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That's exactly right.
We have three departments working together. We have a governance system that dates back to 2014, as you said. We find that it works, but that processes can always be improved. That's why we're studying the governance system in the review I'm conducting.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
Philippe Lagassé appeared as a witness a few weeks ago. He mentioned that there was a tendency to lowball procurement requests to push them through Treasury Board.
Then we end up with projections that are four times higher in some cases. We were given the example of warships, which started out at $26 billion and ended up costing $100 billion. Mr. Lagassé said that this approach was often used to obtain approvals. Then, either the contracts are divided up so that only a portion can be carried out, or they go underfunded.
I had asked Ms. Beck for her opinion on that. She told me that it was hard to assess defence spending from the start.
Do you agree with Ms. Beck, or is there really a chronic lowballing issue in defence requests?
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
I will tell you that what we're hearing from the expert officials—we have some here with us today, but there are many others—is that, yes, it's hard to predict the exact amount of funding needed to move what are often very complex procurement processes forward.
They're doing what they can at the front end. Additional needs often crop up that were not noted at the outset. We know that once the work begins, equipment that's been produced at one point for other countries may not quite meet Canada's needs. Canada is a huge country with a geography and surface area that may differ greatly from what's found elsewhere on the planet.
So it does happen regularly, but thankfully not always, that the initial estimates differ from what's needed in the end due to the Canadian context, which is a little more complex than what we sometimes see in other countries.
Bloc
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
It obviously depends on the specific context.
As you so aptly put it, we need to act quickly but also be thorough from a budgetary standpoint and adapt to the Canadian Armed Forces' needs. That's an essential condition. We must ensure that we respect and recognize Canadian taxpayers' interests, but also that the federal government understands what the Canadian Armed Forces need.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you.
One of the priorities in the defence policy update is to acquire ground-based air defences. However, we've seen that it took nearly two years to deliver a single air defence unit of this type that we had promised the Ukrainians in January 2023.
What's being done to ensure that we can actually meet that priority in the defence policy update and acquire anti-aircraft equipment in a reasonable time frame?
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
That's another great question. This speaks to our current overreliance on equipment suppliers that are very often located outside Canada.
Canada can't produce all types of equipment, but we can produce some and we need to produce more. As I said quickly a few minutes ago, our allies are also facing challenges in terms of producing the goods and equipment their armed forces need. Sometimes, like in the case you mentioned, these countries are not able to respond quickly enough to the Canadian government's needs for its armed forces.
That's why we need to invest more so the Canadian defence industry can produce more and become more resilient. We got the opportunity to do that just a few weeks ago in your riding.
Liberal
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Minister and department officials.
I just want to clarify something, because a few things have been spoken about. I'm certainly very committed to ensuring that we use taxpayers' dollars within Canada for the procurement we are seeking so that it has the best possible outcomes and we have good, Canadian unionized jobs. There are great examples of what we've done, even in my own riding, with the light armoured vehicles, but there are also examples that do not go along that path.
First of all, I'd like to ask for clarification. The machinists union in Quebec was demanding, for the future maintenance of the F-35s, that they be considered for or awarded the contract to continue to do the work. You mentioned the L3Harris regional depot. Can you expand on that given the ask from the IAMAW regarding the jobs for those maintenance workers specifically?
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Thank you for the great question.
Indeed, what we announced on Monday meets many of these objectives.
The L3Harris national depot has an opportunity to transform itself into a regional depot for the airframe maintenance of the 88 F-35s we are procuring, which we will start receiving in 2026. It's an excellent example of a strategic relationship that, as you said, supports good, strong, middle-class jobs—many of them unionized—while developing a resilience and capability in Canada that will be important for the United States, which needs our help maintaining the F-35s on their side as well, according to what we hear from them.
We are a big continent. We are allies, and we need to support each other. That collective support also takes the form, as you suggested, of supporting middle-class jobs in Canada.
NDP
Liberal
Jean-Yves Duclos Liberal Québec, QC
Yes. There are tons of others too, because L3Harris is connected to loads of other sectors across Canada that are not exclusively supportive of the defence sector. They are supportive of other industrial sectors of our economy.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
One of the concerns we've had, as we've heard, is that while Canada makes incredible water bombers, we haven't procured the ones made on the west coast for a lot of the firefighting emergencies we have in Canada. Can you talk about that?
Simon Page Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes.
The water bombers are not a PSPC defence and marine procurement. We're very aware of the company involved in the fabrication of water bombers, but we don't manage that requirement in PSPC.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services
It's not defence and marine.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
You won't answer that here, but it's still a Canadian requirement for emergency services, a lot of which our Canadian Armed Forces are a huge part.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services
That has no direct link with the defence and marine procurement branch of the department.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
In February 2022, Minister, you received a response from the Canadian-made option for the replacement of the CP-140 Aurora aircraft under the Canadian multi-mission aircraft project. The bidder appeared at this committee during our study on procurement and told us that communications with your office went silent after that date.
If it was always assumed there would be a sole-source American option for the plane, why was that not stated from the get-go?