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.
October 23rd, 2025 / 9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Liberal
Chris Malette Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Fuhr.
As you pointed out, in other countries, defence procurement is undertaken by individual armed services, defence departments, centralized defence organizations, separate government organizations or independent civilian corporations. In recent years, the global trend has been to centralize defence procurement processes under a single independent organization, as we have now done.
My constituency, the Bay of Quinte, is home to several defence industry players, including L3Harris, that support operations at CFB Trenton. How will the new Defence Investment Agency help companies like these deliver the capabilities that the Canadian Armed Forces need now more quickly and efficiently at such bases?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
Thank you very much.
I have been to L3 very recently, and it's a super capable company, as are many.
One thing that I've really come to appreciate over the last several months, with industry engagement across Canada, is how much capability and capacity this country has. It's unbelievable. L3 is a very good example of that capability and capacity. It has a lot to offer. The government is currently working with L3 on a number of projects, and we'll continue to work with L3 moving forward, as we will with all sorts of companies across Canada.
I think, moving forward for opportunity, it's not only in Canada, though; we need to start building ourselves outside of our own economy. When we talk about L3 or any other company we can buy from or can have them support us in Canada, we certainly will look to those companies to do that. Where we can help them expand their supply chains or their offerings outside our borders, we're also very focused on that. I don't think governments, previous governments, have really focused on that. I think there's more opportunity, to answer you more directly, for countries as we buy from ourselves and more opportunities for these companies as we try to help them sell outside our own borders.
Liberal
Chris Malette Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Further to that question—again tying it to CFB Trenton at 8 Wing—we have a good relationship with the civilian organization Nasittuq, which undertakes the contracting and supply of civilian contractors to Alert, for instance. Are there plans to further develop these sorts of procurements and contracts with our own indigenous-based companies?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
The current policy on procurement is 5% indigenous participation. That's the floor; that's not necessarily the ceiling, so yes, we're very focused.
Again, I've met with industry extensively, and I'll continue to meet with them. I'm meeting with them today, again. We need to bring everybody into the tent as quickly as we can. We have the capacity and capability here, indigenous capability. We have many companies that can contribute. Part of this massive spend is to make sure that we leverage our own capacity and capability to help our own economy. We talk about this in the House all the time. We need to start creating jobs and opportunities for ourselves, and we will.
Liberal
Chris Malette Liberal Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you.
As Canada invests in new defence capabilities, how will the Defence Investment Agency ensure strong in-service support throughout the life cycle of some of these capabilities? What role can domestic industry, as well as our CAF, contribute?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
You bring up a good point. Obviously, we're going to look to see if we build it in Canada, or if we can quickly get it built in Canada, and then we're going to focus on making sure that happens, where we can. I'll use submarines as a good example. Could Canada build a submarine? I would say that, yes, we could. It would take us a while longer than we have to get them, so we're looking at other places right now to get submarines. That's public knowledge.
The in-service support of whatever we buy, depending on who you talk to, is around 70% of the life-cycle costs of the system, so that's the bulk of the opportunities of actually looking after the thing over its life: servicing it, upgrading it, maintaining it. If we have to buy outside our borders, I want to make sure that Canadian companies are fully embedded in the in-service support, ISS, of the thing over its lifetime, because that's where the opportunities lie—in the things we have to buy outside our borders.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We'll pick up roughly where your last discussion left off concerning the matter of working with companies.
The Defence Investment Agency website states—
Conservative
Conservative
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
I want to point out that I can hear you speaking English even though I selected the French channel.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Is everything working? Great.
I'll continue, but may I have my time back, Mr. Chair?
Liberal
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
I'll pick up where you left off with the member who spoke just before me. You were talking about working with businesses.
The Defence Investment Agency website states that there will be more collaboration. We can read the following: “will work more directly with businesses”; “clearer contract solicitation documents”; and “this will speed up the awarding of contracts”.
On a practical level, what can we expect in terms of clearer bid documents sent in response to calls for bids? How will you ensure that the rigour required for the process isn't compromised? You want to move faster without cutting corners.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
The Defence Investment Agency is importing in the best folks we have from the departments that currently exist: PSPC, DND and ISED. Those folks are coming to our agency right now.
What I heard when I was consulting with industry a lot is that it is just way too complicated and too complex, especially for the small to medium-sized businesses. The OEMs have lobbyists and all sorts of different people—they know what to do—but the small to medium-sized businesses don't necessarily have the resources to get involved in military procurement. That's a fair criticism. Bringing all these bits of procurement and centralizing them in one place is designed to be one-stop shopping for everybody. Right off the bat, you're only going to one place. You're not running around Ottawa, trying to figure out how it works.
The defence industrial strategy should lay out a road map for how small to medium-sized businesses get more involved. With regard to industry engagement, certainly with big OEMs.... Canada has a number of them, and I have asked them to look at their supply chains that they pull from in the provinces or the areas that we work in—some of them pull right across the country—and to bring small to medium-sized enterprises into their tent so that we can maximize this big spend across the country to as many businesses as we can.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
I understand the issue of inclusion, which is obviously desirable. Small and medium‑sized businesses are subject to different constraints. They don't necessarily have the resources to hire experts to submit their applications. That's fine. I agree with that.
However, we're also talking about speed. I understand that this involves clarifying and simplifying contracts. Yet your website also includes a commitment to a faster awarding process.
What would be the concrete measures in this area?
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
The Defence Investment Agency by design is the one-stop shop. I'm sure that we would all agree that when we have three large departments involved in anything, there is more likely than not—in fact, almost certainly—duplication of effort. Despite everybody's best efforts, there is duplication of effort, so when we centralize this and bring this into one office, we really reduce duplication of effort.
If we go from dispersed accountability to a single point of accountability, we can move much more quickly. When you're delivering big projects or even small ones, sometimes there are issues, and it's hard to move forward unless someone who's ultimately accountable can get involved early, as opposed to later, solve the problems and move forward. So, by design, this agency is set up much better to deliver more quickly, and it's all about getting the things we need more quickly.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Of course, this must be done without compromising on rigour or the time still needed to make an informed decision.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna, BC
Again, we have everybody located in one spot and there is one single point of accountability so that, at the end of the day, we don't have to run around to get an agreement. Once it comes to contracting and we're delivering on the procurement, it's one-stop shopping. That will speed things up greatly.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
The Defence Investment Agency website also shows that new procurement models and tools will be put to the test.
Can you elaborate on this as well, meaning on procurement models and tools?
