Evidence of meeting #9 for National Defence in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was procurement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Mr. Guzman will report to you, and your job is to do defence procurement.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
In a democracy, public service departments report to elected officials, like every other department.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I'm sorry, but I'm going to ask a question here. Thank you.
There are three government departments that will be providing personnel to the Defence Investment Agency bureaucracy.
Are these new employees they will be taking on or current employees within that process?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
As I mentioned earlier, initially we will be importing people in from existing locations—
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Okay. Those existing locations are the current procurement offices that you mentioned that are government. These are not new employees.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
No, they're not new employees. They're existing employees, because we're consolidating defence procurement.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Will those departments that do the procurement right now that are giving employees to the Defence Investment Agency bureaucracy be stood down?
Conservative
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
If you could let me answer the question, I'll give you a fulsome answer.
There are hundreds of people across multiple departments involved in defence procurement. It's decentralized. That's the problem. We're bringing them together.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
You're bringing personnel, as you said—we heard your answer.
Those departments will get smaller. Are they eventually going to be stood down and have one super department, or are we going to maintain the three current departments plus another department that's going to then report to you? This doesn't seem to be a hierarchy of reporting.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
The stated end goal is the Defence Investment Agency will be the one-stop shop for defence procurement.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Will they be working alongside three other departments that will have people drawn from there, and will those departments still be stood up?
Liberal
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Give me a yes or no. Will the other three departments you mentioned, which people are being drawn from, still exist, yes or no?
Liberal
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
All three of those departments into one....
That's fair enough. Thank you.
How many new employees, other than Mr. Guzman, are going to be hired for this new department?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
We'll take a look once we have the agency fully up and running. We'll look at any additional resources we need.
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
You're not sure, then. Some people would be drawn from the three current departments, and there may be some new employees as well. Is that fair to say?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
I guess anything is possible in the future, but right now, we're focused on bringing in folks we already have, consolidating them in one location so that we have one location for—
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
I'm just having a hard time with the one location when they are reporting to you, but your department is one of those three other departments that are being drawn on.
Conservative
Conservative
Jeff Kibble Conservative Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Some of those people will be coming from your department to the new department, though.