National Defence Committee on Sept. 26th, 2023

[Richard Shimooka]

Certainly there have been differing changes in its requirements. It started, basically, at the cusp of Afghanistan. There was a requirement then. Then we needed an urgent operational request, so we brought in two temporary systems to operate there. Since then, there have been differing scopes of what we want to use the project for. I mean, there are multiple different factors.

In some ways, it's a good case study to show a lot of the issues that we see in delays in defence procurement, to show that we see differing changes in requirements, differing interests in actually spending for it and in what we want to use it for. It is actually, in some ways, a microcosm with a lot of these issues brought together in one program.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Fisher, you have five minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today, all four of you.

In addition to being a member of the national defence committee, I'm also on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

I want to go to Major-General Foster first.

Thank you very much, Major-General, for your 35 years of service to our country.

I'm interested in the procurement processes. I think it was you, Mr. Foster, who said that Canada's procurement system is very complex. I think that was a bit of a “duh” moment because we've heard that, of course, under several governments for several decades.

I'm interested, specifically with regard to some of our NATO allies, in what they do well, what we do well and how we can find that low-hanging fruit to improve or simplify our processes—I know some things were talked about today— understanding that maybe not everything is apples and oranges. I know that Canada is much more risk-averse with regard to litigation. Some countries, some allied nations, see litigation as a cost of doing business, so they would add that to the price. I'm interested in your thoughts on how we can learn from some of our NATO allies.

I remember, as well, Mr. Fadden, that you said that, for some countries, some of our NATO allies, the threat is more imminent or more immediate, so they would need to, presumably, jump on things a little bit more quickly than we might have to.

I'm interested in your thoughts on that, Mr. Foster.

[Richard Foster]

I think we need to align our solutions with our allies more. The first one I would look to is the United States, and I would get into its developmental programs. It has very iterative processes that it has started to put in place in terms of radio capability and software development. I think that Canada would be welcome as a partner in those developments. That would allow us to invest in our own businesses and allow our small and medium-sized enterprises to participate. We could collectively do research and development that would be brought to these collective exercises to develop a capability.

I think we should also learn to buy off the shelf more often with regard to capabilities that have already been fielded by our allies.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

It's interesting, because we've already had some questions about buying off the shelf, and I think that's an interesting topic.

I'll ask you, Mr. Foster and Mr. Fadden, if you have examples of the things that we have done well in the past several decades under different governments of different political stripes. What have we done right and why did we, perhaps, not learn from those lessons?

Let's start with Mr. Foster.

[Richard Foster]

I've often heard the example of the Halifax-class frigate program. It was probably the best developed and run program, and that was because industry and government engaged throughout the entire process.

I think there's a fear to engage industry and work with it too often. If you bring enough industry captains to the table to have a transparent discussion up front before a competition, you can get a lot of the clear requirements from the art of the possible of what's out there. What are the best capabilities?

Right now, we tend to put a fence up right away and then we throw RFIs over the fence and say, “Can you answer this? I have no idea what I'm looking for. Can you help me?” They then throw it back and it's back and forth, rather than sitting down in a transparent way to understand right from the beginning what is in the art of the possible, what the best solutions are likely going to be and then driving that to a competition between the appropriate players.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Before I go to Mr. Fadden, if the Halifax class was such a success, why would there, presumably, be this fear? Whether it's bureaucrats or whether it's governments of the day, why would there be a fear if we saw that as a success?

Mr. Fadden, maybe you want to answer that, but I want to share the time a bit.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You don't have any time to share.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Can we let them answer very briefly?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Very briefly.

[Richard Fadden]

I think the problem with the Halifax was not its initial purchase—although that took a while—but its mid-life refits and its replacement.

You wanted two examples of projects that worked well. One was the C-17, which is the strategic airlift. There were not many alternatives. We bought it through foreign military sales. We wrote the United States a cheque and they delivered the aircraft.

The other one may be slightly more controversial, but Mr. Harper's government waived all the rules to have the supply ship Asterix constructed. It was delivered on time and on budget, and it's an example, I think, of when the rules were appropriately suspended because the military was convinced we needed a supply ship then, not later.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Surprise, surprise—some guy from Halifax thinks that a Halifax program is a great program.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

They were built at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We have two guys thinking they're great.

Mr. Thériault, you have two and a half minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to go to Mr. Shimooka, who I see is an expert on air and procurement.

When I first heard about the F‑35, I was even younger than I am today. That was in 1997, under the Chrétien government. Today, there's talk of delivering the F‑35 in 2026.

A simple and quick first question arises: will the infrastructure exist and will it be adapted?

Also, are we going to be on the cutting edge of technology? Why, for example, didn't you consider drones? I'm a little concerned about the useful life of a device and what we're giving our personnel so that they can do their job.

[Richard Shimooka]

I'm not entirely sure about the infrastructure side. I know the government has certainly put forward several programs to build out the infrastructure of Bagotville and Cold Lake.

I think the bigger issue with a transition toward the F-35 is the personnel side. As we see, the RCAF is well below the required established rank for its pilots and its maintainers. Its ability to transition toward a fighter fleet.... Sure, we may get the first one in 2026, but the question is when we will have our full fleet and when it will be fully operational. I believe the dates were supposed to be 2031-32, but the reality is that it's probably significantly further away from that, because the air force cannot fill the seats with pilots to fly the aircraft and maintain them.

To your questions about drones, I would point out that I think we certainly.... There are technological challenges operating in the north. If you look at how air warfare is developing as well, you still need a man in the loop. You still need somebody there to provide the final point of human contact to operate fighters. Drones are not at the stage whereby they can operate in the same effective way; thus, we will require an aircraft that is a manned fighter.

If you look at some of the developments going forward, you also see aircraft that are.... It's man-machine training, whereby drones are going to be controlled by a single-man fighter like the F-35 or a next-generation aircraft in that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

We have Ms. Mathyssen.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Jaramillo, there are some campaigns calling on governments and the United Nations to bring forward pre-emptive limitations on emerging technologies in defence. Could you talk about the importance of those proactive regulations when we're talking about emerging technologies and how they can be implemented within our procurement strategy?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

Absolutely, and thank you for that pertinent question.

There is a growing consensus on emerging technologies that can be integrated into militaries. This essentially poses all sorts of questions related to the ethical implications, legal implications and uncharted territory from a normative perspective. The international community is paying some attention to this issue, to the fact that it is really uncharted territory. There are a lot of questions about the use and if the employment of emerging military technologies would be compliant with the fundamental precepts of, for instance, international humanitarian laws, such as distinction, precautions, proportionality, etc.

Canada has participated in meetings in Geneva on the CCW, the convention on certain conventional weapons. As well, there have been some discussions domestically. However, we feel that the pace and the rapidity of these developments are such that Canada really must, more proactively and more assertively, craft a regulatory regime and start that conversation toward a normative and regulatory regime, because these risks are real. They could affect not only potential adversaries but indeed Canadian citizens, and it is really a matter of getting ahead of the game, because these technologies will be incorporated into the military.

We cannot operate in a normative void. It is quite imperative for Canada to both domestically and internationally contribute to the development of such a normative regime.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have 30 seconds.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Just quickly, then, are we doing a good job in terms of our procurement strategy in also including issues like climate change into that procurement strategy?

[Cesar Jaramillo]

The question is, what policy direction does this procurement strategy respond to? As I said, “Strong, Secure, Engaged” is already from 2017. Six years is a long time in terms of the evolution of the security landscape and the security environment. All of these conversations, even about F-35s or about new capabilities or shipbuilding—all of these things—must beg the question: What is the intended role of the Canadian Armed Forces?

In that context, for instance, references to the United States, the United Kingdom or other allies may or may not be fully relevant, because Canada has identified Arctic sovereignty, protection of Canadian citizens and, for instance, peacekeeping as historical priorities that may not align with those of our allies. They're instructed to—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave the response there. Thank you.

Mr. Bezan, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to challenge Mr. Fadden a bit. He said that political opposition has created problems in the past. Looking toward us, I can say that in the last eight years there is only one procurement that the opposition has criticized. That was the purchase of used F-18s from Australia. Both the waste of money and that we don't have the pilots to fly them were the main reasons for doing it, but everything else we have been quiet about, and I can say that I've received criticism for not being political enough in trying to move some of these procurements forward.

That being said, I'm looking at General Foster, and at you, Mr. Fadden and Dr. Shimooka. You guys have all written about this in the past. The department itself was in here last week talking about procurement and actually criticized industry for not moving fast enough, or they aren't going to build stuff if nobody is going to buy it, or they don't have stuff that the world wants, like 155-millimetre munitions that we could be doing right now north of Montreal.... We have other facilities that build stuff that the world needs right now, including Canada.

DND often takes a long time in defining the procurement and then changes the goalposts and keeps moving them down the field, like we've seen on the surface combatant, as a good example, and adding time and delays. We still don't have a final blueprint to actually go out there and start cutting steel at Irving. How can we fix that process?

General Foster, you talked about better co-operation between industry and CAF, but it's also within the department to ensure that we are addressing things in a more expedient manner. Is it industry's fault? Is it the department's fault? Is it that the generals and admirals are not getting things right or have too big a wish list that might make things impossible?

[Richard Foster]

I just want to address one thing we talked about, the F-35. That is a game-changer in terms of security. In terms of C4ISR, interoperability and JADC2, that is an enabler. I think this is the right time for industry and government to sit down and map that out carefully. It took the Australians six years to get the infrastructure and security requirements in place to accept the first F-35. We've talked to BAE.

In terms of the transition of the F-18, industry can help transition the F-35 and the F-18 to ensure that we can actually get them pilots to help with the transition and we can actually improve their maintenance. It's determining what's required and making the decision to get on with it as opposed to defaulting to the traditional “have to go through the competition process and have to make it fair and transparent”. This is a national sovereignty issue. I think that's where we often get tripped up in terms of getting things done and not allowing ourselves to get on with the case at hand.

In terms of adding requirements—you mentioned the Canadian surface combatant, which has been going on several years—I don't think you'll ever be able to stop some confusion or some issues that pop up with requirements, but I think fundamentally there was a disconnect in terms of the initial requirements that were asked for and the understanding of what the proposal was.