Evidence of meeting #66 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 equipment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Going back to you, Mr. Leslie, what is the top priority for procurement for Canada?
As an Individual
I have a personal view, but I don't believe it would be constructive for me to articulate 100 to 200, which is roughly the number of major Crowns. However, if we were to ask the Prime Minister's Office, which implies then, of course, that it's gone through the various ministers involved currently in defence procurement, to come up with the top 30 projects to be completed, in the sense that the contract is signed, by the end of the year, you'd say, “Gosh, that's too fast.”
Let's go back to the Afghanistan example. There's more than enough time to get projects phased by time. For the top 30, get them done this year. For the second tranche of x, get them done the year after. Then the longer ones, which are further down the stages of maturation, obviously will flow as required. That way, you get buy-in.
LGen (Ret'd) Guy Thibault
I'd say there are short, medium and long term, and you have to think about these priorities in that kind of context. When we have forces in the fight, and right now we have troops on the front line in a place like Latvia, our focus needs to be on making sure the men and women who are serving have what they need.
In the mid term, when we look at taking care of the home game, we need to have the ability to defend Canada in the north and the Arctic and the approaches. We have lots of capability gaps. While NORAD modernization is part of the priorities that have been announced, it's not a fulsome look at everything we would need to do in the subsurface, the surface and in the maritime approaches. I think that taking care of the home game really has to be there.
If I were to pick a third priority, long term, it would be submarines. We need to seriously think about why we're not in the submarine game in a major way. I think that has to be a priority focus in the long term.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. May.
Unfortunately, that has to bring it to an end. I emphasize “unfortunately”, because I agree with Mr. Kelly. The three of you are hugely valuable witnesses to this study.
I'll say to the clerk and to colleagues that we should think about how we re-engage with these witnesses in some manner or another and put that, if you will, on our Tuesday agenda.
With that, I unfortunately have to bring the gavel down. I wish you all a good weekend.
Thank you again on behalf of the committee.
