Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to our guests today.
To the entire panel, the chair set the tone at the beginning of the meeting in stating there's consensus that something needs to change in the way we're doing defence procurement in the world. The very excellent analysts who support this committee researched models that exist in countries all around the world. They range from models where each branch of service is responsible for its own procurement to models where simply the department of defence is responsible for its procurement or an executive council of government is responsible for defence procurement. There may even be an independent, external civilian committee or organization that looks into procurement.
The point is that there are many different models, but Canada is unique. There is no other country that seems to have the dispersed accountability, if I could call it that, that Canada is using.
I noted in each of your opening remarks that you used most of your time to talk about the way you're doing things now and to describe the current processes. There was discussion about a pilot. I heard that.
Having worked in bureaucracies myself, I know that bureaucracies are sometimes naturally resistant to change. Maybe it's not the individuals within them, but the collective is sometimes resistant to change.
I want to take your temperature on being hospitable to change. In particular, do you see any pitfalls or benefits to some of these other models that do not have dispersed accountability?
Mr. Page, I will start with you.