First of all, I very much welcome the opportunity to speak to this very important issue.
It has to be commended that we finally have an industrial strategy. We have to go back to the Canadian shipbuilding strategy to find us actually addressing this very important issue.
However, my biggest criticism of the strategy is the assumption on which it is based: that the geopolitical environment gives us the time to do what the strategy calls on us to engage upon. I will argue that we do not have that time, that there's an urgency to what the three ministers in the introduction to the strategy call the changing geopolitics. The change has been so rapid and so dangerous that Canada now has to be thinking in the context of not only how we reform and engage upon economic engagement to provide our military with this capability, but also how we do so with an appreciation that we may find ourselves in conflict much sooner than we anticipate and that any industrial strategy has to take that into account.
This means that there are three core omissions from the strategy.
The first is how Canada actually provides the necessary equipment to its forces in the event of conflict. We have two friends we could have gone to for advice. We could have gone to the Ukrainians, who, of course, have had to engage on this very issue since 2014. We could have talked to our Taiwanese friends as well, in order to get some insights into how they have prepared in a very shortened time period for being engaged either in conflict or in unexpected conflict.
The second omission we have, which is from the industry, is the embedded element of the United States. We know that part of the reason we have this strategy is the recognition that the United States has become quite destabilized under the second term of the Trump administration. I think it would have focused our attention much more if, instead of talking around this issue, we would have been much more straightforward, would have identified that there are certain issues on which we cannot separate ourselves from the Americans, and would have been more forthright on it.
The third element the strategy does not deal with is the complete lack of any consideration or discussion about how Canada must deal with the political interface between our industrial strategies and what we actually do. Examples such as the Sea King replacement, the ongoing issues surrounding the replacement of the F-18s, and other related issues have demonstrated to most observers that one of the greatest challenges we face with regard to having an industrial strategy is understanding how the political interaction occurs, how and when it has hindered the process, and how and when it has helped the process.
We've seen some examples, such as the acquisition of the C-17s, that demonstrate that the process can, in fact, work. However, we have nothing within this strategy that tells us where the political interaction is a positive factor, where it is a negative factor and what we can do to ensure that, moving forward, we are focused only on the positive aspects.
That leaves me with three considerations for any effort to bring forward the strategy and build upon it.
First of all, we have to have a much greater urgency and a recognition that we are not just simply talking about making up for lost time, when, in fact, defence was at the bottom of any government priority. We also have to start recognizing what happens in a war or in a warlike environment and how that changes how we proceed with an industrial strategy.
Second, I think we have to take very seriously the examples and experiences of our friends and allies and look for advice on how to do this. The shipbuilding strategy goes back a long time, and we have a dearth of other examples in this regard. It's imperative that we pay attention to what our allies and friends have done.
Third, and last, we need to ensure that we change the manner of how we think about it. The report itself makes reference to the need to improve the ability for academia, industry and other actors to engage, but the hard reality is that we have not done this very well. We have to change how that environment actually functions.
Thank you very much.