National Defence Committee on Dec. 8th, 2022

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure that I know what money you're talking about, so it's really difficult for me to answer that question.

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

All right.

Apparently, we decided not to engage with renewing the contract for the “green hangar” up there. Did you have anything to do with the hangarage for the aircraft to be there in the Arctic at the only Arctic refuelling station?

[Karen Hogan]

On the few infrastructure projects we looked at, I mentioned earlier the Nanisivik naval facility. I'm not sure you're referring to the same facility, so I don't have any information on that.

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

It's the one at Inuvik.

[Karen Hogan]

Yes. I'm sorry. I do not have any information on that.

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

Okay.

Let's go back to Nanisivik then. It was supposed to be a full-blown naval facility. It was reduced after 2015 to be a basic refuelling station, and now in your report you mention that it has barely any significance at all, that it won't be of that much help. Is that because it's been hollowed out, or is it the positioning of the naval facility that makes it of no importance to our navy?

[Karen Hogan]

According to our work, it was because the budget was reduced after it was initially scoped and set up, which meant the heating of the fuel tanks could no longer be covered in the current budget. Hence, the facility is operational only four weeks out of the year.

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

We know from your report that the interdepartmental marine security working group has repeatedly identified gaps in maritime surveillance. It's clear that the government knows what the gaps are, so why haven't they been addressed yet and why does it seem that the government is just ignoring them?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to ask Mr. Swales to talk a little bit about that.

[Nicholas Swales]

I would say we didn't really look at the motivation for those actions. What we did notice was that in 2015 a work plan was identified to take action on it, but there was no follow-up on that. Again, it's a circumstance in which action needs to be taken and there needs to be a process for ensuring that occurs.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay. Your time has expired.

Ms. O'Connell, you have the last round of questions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here. Just to follow up on that last point about the Nanisivik naval facility, that was originally announced in 2007 and then descoped in 2012 or 2013. It was a decision of a previous government to descope it. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

I believe the original cost was set in 2010 and it was reduced in 2012.

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

Thank you. I just wanted to clarify, on the record, where the descoping happened.

I'd like to follow up on Mr. Kelly's point that successive governments have struggled in terms of moving forward in this space. There was, for example, the polar icebreaker, the construction of which, the Harper government announced in 2010, would begin in 2013 for delivery in 2017. Obviously that didn't happen. After 2013 the Conservative government had no plan for when it would complete the polar icebreaker, and not a single vessel for the NSS was delivered under the Harper government

You've identified your recommendations, and the government has accepted them. There seems to be a real challenge when it comes to perhaps not identifying the gaps or the scope that's needed but then moving forward with evergreen planning and procurement.

Based on the work you've done—and this is perhaps opinion—would you say that the blockage or what stops that is a logistical issue, actually being able to procure these vessels on a regular basis as needed versus doing new construction and ongoing maintenance, or is it a matter of possibly having too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, when you have so many departments responsible for the overall monitoring in the Arctic and not having a singular planning body?

Is that the issue or is it just the logistics of procuring these vessels and having them built and delivered? Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Karen Hogan]

Again, my opinion on the whole situation is that many gaps are identified and then there's just no comprehensive plan to address them. Just identifying the need to purchase a piece of equipment is not sufficient. A whole comprehensive plan is required to ensure that you have increased satellite capacity, vessel presence, aircraft and individuals who support on the ground to address all of the gaps. That even extends to sharing information and making that more effective and timely. It's about not having a plan to address all the identified gaps that have been repeatedly identified over the years.

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

Do you think, to avoid repeating the same mistakes of the past, it would be helpful or useful if there were some sort of restructuring to have one department or one.... I get that the procurement department might be in charge, but what if there were one group responsible for that specific planning instead of every department looking at their individual needs and maybe not being able to come up with that overall comprehensive plan?

[Karen Hogan]

I think our audit did demonstrate—and you've probably heard it from many other witnesses—that there are so many parties involved in the Arctic that siloing it probably doesn't make sense. It's about doing it together and leveraging the expertise and the knowledge of all involved. That would be the approach that I would encourage, but again, it's not based on a lot of the evidence. I think having diverse use is always the best way to go about tackling an issue.

Here it's more about knowing the gaps and not having the plan to deal with the gaps, so having the plan is really the best place to start.

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

Right, but understanding those gaps and then understanding that plan.... Having one department or one oversight, whether it's a team made up of all of those different departments that are responsible for ensuring that the plan is created and then implemented....

That's what I'm worried about with the current set-up.

[Karen Hogan]

I am absolutely in agreement with you.

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

Okay.

[Karen Hogan]

I think it's an issue that we see across so many horizontal initiatives in the government. If you don't have one accountable party who can compel others to carry out what's needed in order to meet the objective, you will likely not meet it. Yes, having one accountable party is definitely a best practice when you're going to have multiple parties involved.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time is expired, and our meeting time has expired.

I want, first of all, to thank Auditor General Karen Hogan and all of the staff from the Office of the Auditor General for joining us today and for providing that insight. We really do appreciate all of the work you do on behalf of parliamentarians and on behalf of Canadians.

I just want to remind all committee members that today we have an informal meeting at 3:30 in room 315 with Yehor Cherniev, who is the deputy chairman of the defence committee in the Ukrainian Parliament, Verkhovna Rada. He is going to be joined by Ambassador Yuliia Kovaliv, our Ukrainian ambassador to Canada. We'll have that meeting, and I hope you can all attend.

On Tuesday, we have a meeting with Justice Louise Arbour to talk about the Arbour report. She will be joining us. An invitation has been extended to the minister as well, so I'm hopeful that she'll be able attend.

Can you confirm that, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary?

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Yes, I can confirm.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay. That's perfect. That's our Tuesday meeting.

Is there any other business?

Seeing none, we are adjourned.