National Defence Committee on June 16th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call the meeting back to order.

We appreciate the attendance. It looks like a retired generals panel. Apparently, they are now free from the shackles of previous confinements and are willing to speak their minds.

With that, we have the honourable retired Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, who is known to everyone here on this panel. We have retired Brigadier-General Gaston Côté by video conference and retired Lieutenant-General Guy Thibault, former vice chief of the defence staff.

We don't need to give any explanation on how to speak to a committee.

With that, and in no particular order, Lieutenant-General Leslie, you have five minutes, sir.

[Andrew Leslie, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for for inviting me to comment on the impact of Canada's procurement process on the forces.

Put simply, the cumulative effect on the productive output of the Canadian Armed Forces ranges between “needs dramatic improvement” to “awful”.

For the small stuff and relatively simple items, the procurement process is slow, complicated and hugely bureaucratic, but it works—if there's sufficient money and people to get it done. For the major capabilities, the heart of the armed forces, in terms of equipment, such as ships, aircraft, tanks, army weapons, the current procurement process is broken and in a state of crisis.

The productive output of the armed forces can be measured by how ready they are to do the hard and dangerous stuff we ask of them—from war fighting, to peacekeeping, to deterrence, to domestic response. To be ready, the forces need to have an appropriate policy from government. They need suitable funding. They need the appropriate people, infrastructure, equipment and training. That, in turn, is essentially based on, in this case, the 2017 “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, which, by the way, reads really well, but almost none of its many promises and goals have been met, and none of its detailed and rigorously developed financial models have been realized.

We recently heard from Dr. Perry and Mr. Williams. We all now know there is a dramatic and enormous difference between what was actually promised and what has been delivered to the forces in terms of billions of dollars that should have been spent on equipment and capability, which has not.

Even if DND gets the promised money, they can't seem to spend it on the big things that really matter. Process, process, process and more process is choking the ability to get things done. Delays are expensive, by the way. They impact increased costs due to inflation or supply chain fragility. Here we are: The price of delay is the cost of failure. DND can never keep up with the failures in the defence procurement process. What does this mean?

In terms of defence in Canada, NORAD is essentially underfunded. A variety of big promises have been made for years into the future, but there's this huge gap to which we should have been contributing for the last decade. Our Arctic is undefended. There is no permanently established major equipment types that we can find in our Arctic that are Canadian.

Domestic response to fires and floods is increasing, yet the troops don't have the equipment or even the capacity in terms of numbers to respond adequately.

In the UN, we used to have thousands deployed on peacekeeping missions, which, by the way, Canada co-invented. As of now, checking the UN's stats, we have 27 military personnel deployed on UN missions, one-half of a school bus.

With NATO, we were supposed to send a battle group on short notice should there be cause to do so, which there is, by the way—let's not forget what Russia is doing, those atrocities in Ukraine. It took us months to send a couple of hundred. We're supposed to send a brigade group and command it. It still hasn't left.

In terms of international peace and security, good work should be done in the Indo-Pacific region with China wrestling its might. We have yet to do so. We are sending more ships, so we'll temporarily have three there, which is a huge accomplishment, but those ships are incredibly old.

There are billions of dollars that should have been spent on infrastructure and training facilities which have not been spent. It's been allowed to lapse or disappear.

In terms of the equipment, the navy still doesn't have its new warship contract signed. It's been decades in the making. Our submarines were built in the 1980s. Our maritime patrol aircraft are far older than the average crew. New weapons, such as torpedoes and missiles, are lacking.

In the army, new rocket or missile launchers, which are being used to such good effect by Ukraine, are coming from elsewhere, trying to stop the Russians. New artillery guns, air defence systems, low-level, medium and high, supply vehicles in the air force, new fighters.... There are contracts announced, but I don't see any fighters on the ramp.

I guess this gets to the idea that making the announcement is not enough. You actually have to get it done.

What's the result? What does it mean? Our procurement system, in my opinion, for the major capital Crown is failed.

I would be delighted to give ideas on how to address these issues during the question period.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, General Leslie.

I will go to General Thibault next, because General Côté has disappeared.

General Thibault.

[Lieutenant-General, Retired) Guy Thibault (Former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Conference of Defence Associations]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee. On behalf of the Conference of Defence Associations, I'm very pleased to actually contribute to your discussions today on defence procurement and the state of readiness of the Canadian Armed Forces. As the chair has mentioned, I'm a former vice chief of the defence staff. I'd be happy to also talk about some of those experiences during the Qs and As.

This committee is studying an important subject, given the troubling trends and threats we're seeing internationally. We hope your work will help inform the government's thought process on the defence policy review announced in last year's budget. We look forward to the results.

Given the committee's focus, the first point I would like to register is somewhat obvious: When it comes to military readiness, this is obviously a “come as you are” fight. We have what we have. The Canadian Armed Forces are living today with the organizational and readiness consequences of past Government of Canada policies and the related political, military and bureaucratic judgments, decisions and processes, including the procurement processes, that have left our armed forces today poorly adapted for the world we live in. This includes critical vulnerabilities. It includes capability gaps that are measured against traditional threats as well as emerging threats and levels of personnel and material readiness in the armed forces that are well below what's necessary for carrying out and sustaining the military missions and meeting the strategic objectives that successive governments have set out for us in our defence policies.

If we collectively as Canadians are surprised by the state of our armed forces, we shouldn't be. As members of the standing committee may know, on April 16, in fact two months ago today, our organization, the Conference of Defence Associations, with the CDA Institute sponsored and released an open letter signed by over 60 prominent former deputy prime ministers, foreign ministers, defence ministers from both sides of the aisle, national security advisers, deputy ministers, all the former chiefs of the defence staff, diplomats and business leaders. The signatories all highlighted the fact that issues of national security and defence are rarely treated seriously or as a priority in this country other than in times of great peril. The letter was a call for urgent government action, given that we are surely in such a moment of peril now.

With years of restraint, cost-cutting, downsizing and deferred investments, it's no wonder that Canada's defence capabilities have atrophied. While there have been some very positive announcements about NORAD modernization, the CF-18 replacement and some excellent capabilities that have been added to our inventories over the past few years, the truth is that many of our military systems are outdated and are technologically outmatched. Further, our forces are woefully inadequate in terms of the size, modern equipment, sustainment and the infrastructure to protect our own territory and our maritime approaches. We're also falling short in making meaningful contributions and sharing the burden of collective defence and security with our NORAD and NATO allies and partners.

The poor state of our military readiness, however, cannot all be squarely placed on Canada's approach to defence procurement. Given the rapid changes we're seeing in our societies, with incredible and disruptive technological advances, and given the rise of authoritarian revisionist powers, Canada isn't alone in needing to adapt our forces to the volatile, uncertain and unpredictable world we live in. However, we seem to have dug ourselves into a much deeper hole than many of our allies.

These are questions for the Government of Canada: Should they be treating the problems of military readiness as a crisis and urgent? Is this a government and personal priority for the Prime Minister, the Minister of National Defence and her cabinet colleagues? Is there recognition that we can't afford to carry on with business as usual?

The unfortunate fact is that business as usual, when it comes to defence procurement, means that the military requirement is often not the most important or relevant factor, and sometimes can be of secondary or even tertiary concern when it's measured against other policy objectives associated with economic, regional or societal benefits. Business as usual means that most acquisitions, especially major capabilities, will most certainly be late to need, will more often than not fail to meet the military requirements originally set out by military planners and will inevitably cost more than they should. Few would argue that we're getting the best value for money. Ultimately, when we spend more than we need to on capabilities, this leaves a lot less money for other important military requirements.

It's doubtful there's been any other defence topic in Canada that's been more thoroughly scrutinized, studied and debated than military procurement. Despite commitments by governments over the years to make our system more effective and efficient, it would seem that incrementalism is the best we can expect with our current approach.

Fundamental change, if that's what the Government of Canada wants, is unlikely to happen without three conditions being set.

First, it's a willingness to revise policies and the applicable regulations and procedures to clearly differentiate defence procurement, military procurement, including having the dedicated staff capacity, from the rest of the procurement of government services.

Second is a reframing of the calculation of risk dealing with the bureaucratic and political aversion to risk associated with many defence procurements. All procurements carry financial, political, process, program and technological risks but defence procurements are fundamentally about the risk to life, national security, life, health, potentially even mission success. They don't always seem to get the right weight they deserve.

Finally, as has already been described, procurement is complex by design and there's nobody in charge and that has to be fixed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, sir.

I see General Côté is back with us.

You have five minutes, sir.

[Brigadier-General, Retired) Gaston Côté (As an Individual]

Thank you, I'm [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I think, colleagues, everybody has a Pavlovian reaction at 10:45 on Fridays.

Instead of a six-minute round, we're going to start with a five-minute round, and then see where we're at with five minutes.

Is he back? Will we give this one more go?

General Côté.

[BGen (Ret'd) Gaston Côté]

It's just like Canadian football, you [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You need a Hail Mary pass here.

I think we're having an illustration of government procurement.

Okay, let's go to the question round and we'll work in General Côté after the first round, if in fact we're able to re-establish connection.

With that, it's five minutes for Mr. Kelly.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have to say just for a very brief moment, I'm extraordinarily disappointed that we would have these five witnesses try to be crammed into a two-hour panel and then split into two where we wasted six minutes in transition. We need to do better than that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for your testimony so far.

My first question is for General Leslie.

You have said that history has shown that only two people really matter, the Prime Minister and the finance minister. Are the current Prime Minister and current finance minister focused on national security and fixing procurement?

[Andrew Leslie]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I'd like to respond based on my own personal experience.

As a young major-general sent to Afghanistan with roughly 3,000 Canadian troops, that's not the story, the story is how the procurement system under the guidance of three different prime ministers responded. Quite frankly—I'll tell you the end right now—it was superb, so it proves the system can work when you get a certain level of concentration and focus.

What was acquired: new guns, new radars, new night-fighting equipment, new mine-protected vehicles, new big helicopters, new weapons for the snipers, new heavy transport aircraft, and I could go on and on and on. In several cases, some of these systems, such as the new tanks, were acquired from flash to bang in about five to six months, and new heavy transport aircraft, the C-17s, in a matter of about six months. So the system can work.

What was different? I don't know, I'll just tell you what I went through and others. As a task force commander, I ended up briefing Prime Minister Chrétien, who assured us, by the chain of command who were all there, that the system would respond adequately, and they gave guidance to the clerk and that flowed down through. Of course, we were accompanied by the Minister of National Defence.

As the army commander under Prime Minister Martin and then, of course, Prime Minister Harper, I would personally brief them with the CDS and the deputy minister there, along with the minister, because we were expected to give updates and status reports.

The system can work because there were usually three to four key people in the room: the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of National Defence, and sometimes the President of Treasury Board, and it worked.

The system can work if you get that hyperfocus based on actual outcomes facing dire circumstances, which we have, by the way, now. What's happening in Ukraine is of enormous strategic importance to all of us.

If we have that same duplication of effort and intense focus, the argument is that we can solve this. It shouldn't be that hard. But notice the example I gave and who was present.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

In the past, it was simply a matter of will. You said there was will under those three prime ministers and that there's no current will. Would that explain why we have troops being deployed to Latvia with inadequate kit, why we can't modernize NORAD and why we can't get things procured?

[Andrew Leslie]

I can't comment specifically on what's going on right now because I'm a little bit removed from it, having stopped being a politician, of course, in 2019.

Having said all that, I can tell you and I can attest to the fact that, when the Prime Minister is focused, when the Prime Minister is asking questions, specific questions, because they've been exquisitely briefed by their subordinates on the status of the army procurement program or the deploying forces program with the ministers relevant to defence production capability, the system responded magnificently, not only among the military people and the politicians but also the public servants who relish the challenge of getting things done quickly because lives are on the line.

By the way, lives are on the line.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Use whatever time I have left. What are specific ways to make for efficient procurement? Can you give us anything else you have on that?

[Andrew Leslie]

The Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of National Defence and the President of the Treasury Board have to be in the room to get it done.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have a few seconds left.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you for that testimony.

Is there a priority right now? You talked in your opening statement about NORAD modernization. You talked about the Arctic. You talked about our capacity to participate in NATO deployments. Can you give us anything about priorities and details on any of those?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You'll have to save that answer for another round.

I see that General Côté is back. We're going to give this one more go.

[An hon. member]

He has to tell the rest of the joke.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay. In our copious free time, you're going to have to finish off the joke about the Canadian Football League, and then you'll have five minutes.

Go ahead, General Côté.

[BGen (Ret'd) Gaston Côté]

Three tries for 10 yards....

I am retired BGen Gaston Côté. My remarks may differ from what you've heard so far.

I have a lot of experience with the Canadian Forces procurement process. I'd like to give two examples. I continue to have a lot of procurement interaction weekly, mostly with the Canadian defence industry and particularly with the United States. I was fortunate to have a privileged position as commander of the special forces when we had a budget. We also had a direct link to procurement, so all our needs could be met. The real lesson to be learned from this example is that if the supply system is receptive to the needs of the operator, you're going to be tremendously successful.

Other things have been a little less glorious. Several years ago, I was asked to look into the possibility of working for a Canadian mechanized brigade in a northern environment. As you know, the majority of our current vehicles are wheeled. I had to consult all the science behind Canada's defence research and Canadian industrial research into winter and Arctic mobility. Interestingly enough, I noted quite a disconnect between the science, the capabilities of Canadian industry—although all civilian industries are actively working to get this kind of vehicle, which can go into Arctic environments—and what we have on the ground. If, for any reason, we were to deploy a brigade to the Canadian Arctic, we'd have some pretty serious supply issues, since we don't really have the fleet of vehicles we need to operate in that kind of environment.

I believe the point has been made about the incredible delays on some equipment-related projects. Right now, what's particularly close to my heart is protecting Canada's North, where we're seeing a staggering militarization of the entire area. What's more, the Northwest Passage is becoming increasingly busy, making it vulnerable in every respect, from potential pollution to illegal use of the seaway. In spite of this, we have to go back to the announcement made in 1988 to see a Canadian military vessel able to operate in the Arctic. An Arctic-ready ship was delivered to us in 2022. That's really an egregiously long time to wait for a device that's truly needed to protect Canadian sovereignty in such a special environment as the Canadian Arctic.

Right now we're witnessing a sea change, and that's a return to conventional warfare, something we've forgotten for several generations because we were mostly involved in peacekeeping. Recently, with the situation in Afghanistan, we've become involved in counterinsurgency.

Extremely important lessons are emerging from all this and from everything happening in Ukraine. However, these lessons are being ignored in some of the defence policy programs.

I'm thinking in particular of rapid targeting capability, which is increasingly important, the use of drones at all levels, and long-range precision shooting. Most of our artillery is, in fact, towed artillery. Currently, the most effective pieces of artillery are mobile and can fire quickly.

Obviously, for Canadian Armed Forces, air defence is really a big issue for any operation within the NATO framework. In fact, there hasn't been much development since the ADATS program was shut down.

Finally, I'm thinking of anti-tank weapons that can be used at any temperature and in any conditions, such as the Javelin system. As a military man, I've always used the Carl Gustav ever since I joined the Canadian Forces. That system is still in place, and it has many qualities but it also has its faults.

It's still important to note that we've experienced a significant loss of capability in this area.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

General Côté, could you wrap up, please?

[BGen (Ret'd) Gaston Côté]

It's done, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

We can go back to our questioning round.

We'll go to Madam Lambropoulos for five minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to start off by thanking our witnesses for being here to answer some of our questions on this really important topic.

Previous witnesses, both today and on panels from other days, spoke to us about the need to transition from many departments in procuring for defence to one department, saying that this would make it a much more efficient system.

My first question for all panellists is: Do you agree with this?

Do you also see a major renewal causing potential setbacks, seeing as we're in a time when we need to act quickly? Ukraine needs us, but so does our own.... We need to make some big decisions soon.

Would you say this would be a major setback? Do you think there's a way forward that's better than transitioning to the one department way of doing things?