Thank you for the question.
One of the main things I spoke about at the beginning of my remarks was the need for an industrial strategy for defence and aerospace. It goes to many of the things that were spoken about here before. Industry thrives on predictability. Industry thrives on transparency. Industry thrives on having an understanding of what and where the government wants to invest and where the government sees the key capacities and capabilities that are there. That, to me, is fundamental, right from the beginning; we need that long-term industrial strategy. If we can get those ingredients right, industry will respond and be up for the challenge on these things.
Some of the very specific pieces that I keep hearing from industry include greater collaboration between the government and industry when you're defining the capabilities that are required and when you're putting together requests for information. I listened in attention to some of the other testimony you had here also. That, to me, is a key theme. The more you can have discussions with industry earlier on in the process, the more industry can respond. But it's not only that; industry can propose new solutions and new ideas. We have disruptive technologies happening right across the board, and we seem to be always late to the game here.
The other piece that I see as a huge challenge is that there's a risk aversion with government on moving forward on some of these key procurements. We need to remove some of that risk. The old adage “fail fast, fail quickly” needs to be ingrained into the procurement system. There are lots of questions back and forth. You keep hearing, from industry in particular, that when you're in other countries, the procurement process, including the request for information, is quick, and then in Canada it's out the door. Some specific pieces need to be happening there.
In my mind, fundamentally, it's the need for that overall industrial strategy. Having the government come out with a clear policy, a clear industrial strategy, will address a lot of the issues that we're seeing right across the board .