National Defence Committee on Sept. 28th, 2023

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

The deputy minister hit it right, Mr. Chair.

Generally, there are train, deploy and recover phases. In the train phase, you're preparing for deployment. In the deploy phase, you're on expeditionary operations. When you're in the recover phase, you are reconstituting yourself, reconstituting your unit and getting back with your family.

As these domestic deployments increase, that cycle becomes increasingly more challenging. It increases the personnel tempo for deployment, which has a knock-on effect on issues like recruiting and retention.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Then, from an equipment perspective, are there any special needs in that regard? You're responding more often and being stretched across the entire country. This is no longer a regional issue on the west coast or east coast. This is all across the country. Do you have special capital requirements related to the number of responses?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

It puts increasing stresses on our airframes, for example, that we use for evacuation. Those are our transport aircraft and helicopters. The wheeled vehicle fleet numbers are low, so they get used more than what would regularly be the case. Yes, it increases the overall stress, mostly on land and air fleets.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I have about 30 seconds left.

In terms of housing, could you just give us a brief snapshot of the challenges you're facing in providing housing to those who serve?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

This is probably the number one issue that comes up as we travel around the country.

As for every Canadian, housing is an issue, but it's more acute for our people. We expect them to move across the country—and they have to—based on where our operational bases are. Housing—getting assistance with housing and building more housing—needs to be right at the top of the list of our personnel care issues.

We're somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5,000 to 7,000 housing units short across our footprint, given our current size.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Ms. Normandin, you have five minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

My first question is for Mr. Matthews.

The minister mentioned that one area where budget cuts could be made was in the use of external professional services. When we started the McKinsey study, we realized that the Department of National Defence was the second-largest user of use this type of firm, after the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

Is that the kind of consulting firm we're referring to when we say that we want to cut back on the use of outside firms and go back to relying more on in-house public servants?

If so, what was the total of the contracts awarded to external consulting firms by the Department of National Defence last year?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for your question.

Yes, we can send those figures to the committee to better explain the number of external contracts.

One thing I would like to emphasize is that we've gone through the examination of contracts. I think there is an assumption by many people that the external contracts are all of the management and consulting firm types that we've talked about at previous committees. The vast majority of our contracts are for maintenance and repair and for health services.

We will get you the split in terms of the consulting types of contracts, but the vast majority of our spending on contracts is on those value-added things that the chief and the minister mentioned earlier.

The other point I would make is.... I know the increase in the services and contract spending has gotten people's attention, but we are also growing on the civilian side. That growth in external contracts has not come at the expense of civilian growth. We are growing on both fronts. It relates to the implementation of the existing defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for General Eyre, and it has to do with transfers. I'd like to come back to it and get a little more detail.

The minister mentioned that, when a military member enlists, it's as if their family has enlisted too. We know there's a lot of pressure on the family, and many divorces result from that. The member still has to leave service.

Despite everything, shouldn't we be working to offer greater flexibility on the one hand? On the other hand, shouldn't we improve the ability to easily transfer a member from the regular forces to the reserve forces, just as the opposite is true? For example, a member could withdraw to the reserves while managing a family situation, a birth, an illness or some other event, confident that they could return to the regular forces without having been released. It would also allow the forces to avoid losing that member.

Wouldn't there be more flexibility in that context?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Thank you very much for that question.

Transfer between components is one way of keeping talented people in our ranks, and I'd like to improve the process of transfers between the regular and reserve forces.

We've recently increased our ability to process transfers between the two forces. I think it's a way of retaining talent, and we need to continue to encourage transfers between the two.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to follow up on Mr. Kelly's question about transfers. As I understand it, one of the problems with the insufficient supply of ammunition is that the military doesn't have enough opportunities to train using real ammunition.

Is the fact that the military may not be sufficiently trained for something as silly as a lack of ammunition a national security issue? Shouldn't this be a reason to secure long-term contracts to increase domestic production capacity?

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

Mr. Chair, yes. Absolutely.

This is a very important issue for us.

I am very concerned about our ammunition stocks.

As we take a look at our ammunition holdings, we look at what we call battle decisive munitions, and there are 20 or 20 plus of those. Our NATO high readiness forces asked us to have what's called 30 days of supply. If we were to consume munitions at the same rate that we're seeing them consumed in Ukraine, we would be out in days in some cases, and it would take years to restock.

Increasing the size of our ammunition stocks is therefore one of my major concerns.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

You have five minutes, Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Getting back to what was being said about the contracting out of maintenance facility services, of course, I am very concerned about that privatization piece and ensuring, when we can, that good-paying unionized public service jobs are kept within the public service.

In 2018, the assistant deputy minister of review services published a report titled, “Audit of Contracted Facilities Maintenance Services”, which found that there was no evidence that facilities maintenance services had the ability to complete a value-for-money analysis on outsourcing.

The department is the single largest landowner in Canada, and its facilities management services are outsourced, but there's no idea of how that's happening and the best move for that.

Can you give us an update from that report on what changes you have made in reaction to that report, ensuring that those department cuts aren't just blind outsourcing because, ultimately, this report says that it is.

[Bill Matthews]

There are a couple of points there.

When I have engaged with union leadership, this is usually the first issue we talk about. The most significant change that's been put in place since the report is that, when there is a proposal to change the service model from public servants to an outsourcing, it needs to be supported by a business case. That change was made, I'm going to say, three years ago. We have seen very few business cases come forward in that time, so there's really been no change in the status quo.

Where we get some tension is that, when there are public servant jobs that remain empty that are critical on base, you will see contracts put in place as a temporary stopgap. I think that in some cases, that stopgap continues longer than it was initially intended for, because it fills the immediate need, when the real work should be to actually staff the position.

We have some locations in Canada where we are struggling to find public servants to occupy those jobs—not just on base facilities but in other trades as well—so you have seen contracts used to temporarily fill a gap. However, I've seen no change in terms of structure or moves to permanently outsource facilities maintenance, etc., since I've been here at the defence department.

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

Ultimately, what would be the reasoning for a company that could fill it at a lower pay rate—because ultimately a private corporation would take a part of that contract—versus somebody who is provided with full-time work, ideally at specific pay levels, unless those pay rates are not sufficient, and with the benefits that would go along with it? What are the reasons?

[Bill Matthews]

I think it depends on the geographic location. There are flexibilities and different models that private sectors have used to fill the gap, but it does beg the question of whether they can find people if in some cases they're paying less. In some cases, they're paying more hourly, but the benefits are not the same.

At the end of the day, employees vote with their feet. If they would prefer to be working for the private provider, that's their choice.

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

Okay. I'll move on.

In April the Prime Minister announced that Canada was providing arms and 2.4 million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, manufactured at Colt Canada. Defence officials then walked that back, saying that, in fact, they were not fulfilling that Canadian-made commitment and that Colt's parent company would not guarantee that they were being made in Canada.

There was a story additionally published by David Pugliese about a memo that you sent to Minister Anand in August of 2022, where you stated, “For a variety of reasons, Canadian munitions suppliers have been unable to provide the types or quantity of operational munitions required in response to the invasion of Ukraine”. You recommended to the national defence minister and the PSPC that they use non-disclosure agreements when talking to industry about domestic manufacturing capabilities.

Can you talk about that and the impact that has on transparency in terms of your department?

[Bill Matthews]

Certainly. When you're in negotiations or potential negotiations or discussions with industry about what it would take to change production, an NDA is very standard practice, because you may be having different conversations with different companies. That was the genesis for that—

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

Where was the confusion in terms of announcing that it was Canadian-made but in fact it was not?

[Bill Matthews]

Sometimes plans change. I can dig into the details in this one, but you often talk to industry or talk to employees, think something is possible and find out there's a delay. In the case of Ukraine, urgency is job one in terms of finding the quickest way to ship available ammunition. If that means we have our stocks replenished later, that's fine too.

Urgency is job one. That's what was driving that conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Mathyssen.

I think we have time, colleagues, to get in a full round.

You have five minutes, Mrs. Kramp-Neuman.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Earlier Minister Blair mentioned that he's building on the work of his predecessor, Minister Anand. Her suggestion was that we needed to continue to build resources, especially in the area of personnel.

My concern is the discrepancy between the numbers in the Order Paper question we received back in April. If we're talking numbers, based on the Order Paper question, we're about 8,000 personnel short for the regular force and 1,000 for the reserve force. However, there's a discrepancy, because other numbers suggest that we're 16,000 personnel short, with another 8,000 personnel short on the reserve side.

Just looking through the numbers, are you able to clarify with us what the numbers are for the Canadian Army, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command and the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command? The numbers aren't adding up.

[Gen Wayne D. Eyre]

It's important to state that a guiding principle is that truth has a date timestamp. What was true on one day will not necessarily be true the next day, especially regarding numbers and personnel strengths.

I can give you our numbers effective as of August 31 for the Canadian Armed Forces. The difference between our authorized strength and our total strength of the regular force is 7,862.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Okay.