National Defence Committee on Feb. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

It's perfect timing, Mr. Fillmore.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Yes, it's just-in-time delivery. I had to go to have a little coughing fit out there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

You'll have to bear with me on my voice.

Thank you very much, all of you, for your work and for your time today.

Regularly over the last nine years of me being in this job, I've met with your colleagues at PIPSC, and PSAC as well, about many issues, but most frequently about this issue of outsourcing. It came to a head in 2018, I think, with some cleaners at CFB Greenwood who were going to lose their jobs. We had a very successful intervention there. We were able to keep those jobs and cancel the proposed contract. That was a very good day for everybody involved.

All of that was part of dealing with the fallout of the deficit reduction action plan that was put in place in 2012 by the former Conservative government. I think 11,000 jobs were impacted, 2,300 of those in DND. Of course, there was the loss of a great deal of institutional knowledge, which then led to the need for outsourcing in some regards. I don't mean to dredge up history on all that, but that's partially why we're in the condition that we're in now.

One thing I want to understand, Ms. Carr, is whether it's true that there are some services that do need to be contracted out. You mentioned at the top the big number of $5.1 billion, I think, and I want to make sure we're not including some of the necessary things in there.

Can you just talk to that for a moment?

[Jennifer Carr]

Again, it's hard for us to say what is necessary or not if we haven't done the pre-planning ahead of time. Our union has been very clear that you need to make sure that you look internally first. You bring groundskeepers and you bring some of the UNDE members into it.

Let's talk about a recent report from Deloitte. The Department of National Defence contracted a study to Deloitte for real property services, engineering services, for major bases. Lo and behold, that report said to use contractors. That is work that my members do. In fact, when my member raised a red flag about some of the things that were in this report, they were removed from the file.

If contractors are running the department, I really have to question whether I will ever be able to convince the department that there's a need for public service. We need to make sure that we are providing value for the taxpayer and that they have the same values and ethics, that they are part of the defence team and that they are looking for solutions and not ways to line the pockets of their corporations.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Some of the things I've heard from your members and PSAC members are that the hoped-for savings don't materialize. If the purpose of outsourcing is to save on pensions and maybe pay a lower hourly wage, then in the end, with the bump-up to pay the corporations, you don't really get that back. Do you want to talk about that at all in terms of the value for money?

[Jennifer Carr]

Again, I question the fact that it would be less costly. When you look at the fact that they're willing to pay a market rate to any member who can be contracted out, and then a 30% bump on top of that, what is the value to taxpayers? Again, we've lost the institutional knowledge. We've lost the in-house capacity. Now we're actually saying to the public servant who sits there at that job, “You're not worth anything. You're not worth market rate. We'd rather pay the contractor.”

It is this vicious cycle that just continues, because then we have disgruntled workers who will jump ship, work for a contractor, work for a DCC and NETE, and get paid the value that they are worth.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Do you feel that part of the solution to this problem that we're sitting with is retraining in some of the skills we've lost?

[Jennifer Carr]

I do 100%. The institute is very clear about when we think contracting should happen. As June said, it's when there's a short-term and necessary need, surge capacity that we just can't manage, or we don't have the skills.

What happens in these contracts for defence is that we rely solely on the contractor for those skills. We don't say, “We want your skills, but we want you to teach a federal public service how to get those skills and how to uptrain workers so that it is temporary in nature.” Where I worked, we had a contractor who sat at the same desk for 15 years, because he was a specialized skill. It can't be specialized if you're not training people and building them up to bring that capacity in-house.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That completes our second round.

Now we're starting the third round. I have Mrs. Kramp-Neuman, Ms. Lambropoulos, Madam Normandin, Ms. Mathyssen, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Collins. If there's in any change in that, let me know.

Mrs. Kramp-Neuman, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you.

Let's talk retention and recruitment. It's no secret that we have a diminished armed forces, and with that there are consequences. It's no secret that recruitment has reached an all-time low and is at a critical level.

With regard to retention and recruitment, can you speak to how much work has been contracted out to civilians due to a shortage of enlisted personnel? With that, because the CAF is perhaps a less desirable career than it once was, can either of you elaborate on that?

[Jennifer Carr]

That's a complicated question. The military has been doing stretch work for so long—climate change, environmental disasters and all these other things that are not normal to their operational readiness or defence of the country. I believe the department has expressed that it doesn't have the capacity to do that anymore. I don't—

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

If I may, I'll perhaps give you some clearer direction on what I'm looking for. Is the work being contracted out to civilians due to the shortage of personnel we currently have?

[Jennifer Carr]

You used the word “civilian”. Are you talking about public service employees?

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

Yes.

[Jennifer Carr]

I don't believe so. I believe that any of that work is then being contracted out.

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

Okay.

We'll pass the torch and move on to the next question.

Given the massive numbers of contracts procured by the DND and given the limited procurement staff we have, do you suggest that it would be fair to say that procurement officers' ability to work on operational contracts like kit is being sidelined by their handling so many service contracts?

To give you some more opportunity to think.... Can the DND better streamline its procurement strategies to focus dollars, working hours and other resources on things and services that directly benefit our armed forces members instead of on service contracts?

[Jennifer Carr]

The procurement process is onerous, but it is that way for a reason. It's to make sure that we have transparency, that there are checks and balances in place. In that procurement process, when there are add-ons to the contract, they don't necessarily follow the same rigour and oversight.

No, I don't think it's the procurement process that is the issue.

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

Ms. Winger, have you noticed any improvement or heard any particular testimony from any of your members that can speak to the cultural improvement at the DND?

[June Winger]

With regard to cultural improvement at the DND, no, we haven't seen much change at all, really, to be quite frank, when you're talking about the professional culture changes. Is that where you're going with that?

It's been an ongoing challenge. I know that there's a lot of work being done by the Department of National Defence to work towards this, yet we're not seeing the outcomes—at our level, anyway.

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

Thank you.

There's been a lot of conversation about transparency and the importance of transparency. Do you believe that there should be more transparency in the actual procurement process to better define what service contracts do so that Canadians can get a better idea of where their taxpayer dollars are going? Transparency is one thing to say, but how do we actually follow up with that and show it?

[Jennifer Carr]

Definitely, there needs to be more transparency. We were talking about those professional services. All it says is “professional services”. We can't dig into the data and say that those are engineering or IT workers. We need to have a little bit more transparency, especially when calling up something that is so broad, such as “professional services”.

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

What steps do you see that you can do to ensure more confidence in this?