Public Accounts Committee on June 17th, 2008

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Explosives are kept in a completely separate and segregated warehouse, for obvious reasons.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

The action plan states that 15 key performance indicators were developed. What are they?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

One of the indicators is the time it takes to deliver an item. Another is the time it would take to purchase items, after having checked that there were none on our shelves. There's also a series of detailed indicators.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I am rather interested in material items. Are there indicators regarding the number of rifles or grenades in stock?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

The indicators are associated with priority codes, i.e. 1, 2, 3 and 4. We measure the number of priority 1 items and the time it takes to purchase them and ensure delivery to the theatre. This is a new process, which we are only starting to implement. This is one of the areas we really want to improve over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, Mr. Lussier.

We'll have Mr. Poilievre, for five minutes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

My question is for Major-General Benjamin.

I'd like to know a little more about the importance of strategic airlifts in executing your supply chain plans. Can you tell us what impact they have?

There has been a lot of debate as to whether Canada needed strategic airlift capacity. I'd like you to explain to us whether it has been an important investment, or if in fact you could have done without it.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Strategic airlift and sealift in fact is something critical to a country like ours that wants to be successful in a place like Afghanistan, which is a land-locked country.

You may take Air Canada and fly to wherever in the world. These are predetermined paths. When we bring the military materiel and go to a place like Afghanistan, we have to go over 16 different countries. We need flight clearance over those 16 different countries, and very often they will say they need two weeks' notice, especially if it's a weapons system, ammunition, and those types of things. So it is extremely complex. In some instances you could go one way, and that nation may say no, you're not coming this way. It's like a huge puzzle. It is a tremendous challenge to then support our forces by having strategic airlift and sealift to that theatre.

We have found over the last three years of experience that the most efficient way of doing business is obviously related to planning and for us to load the heavy equipment on a ship, a full-time charter. I now have a full-time charter, a roll-on roll-off type of ship that's like a big ferry, if you wish, so we can bring that equipment closer to the theatre of operations. We do the last leg with a tactical airlift directly into the Kandahar region. The way we do that is saving us millions and millions of dollars. As we do that, obviously there's equipment we want to repatriate back to Canada, especially the beyond-repair kit that they don't need any more, and we fly it back to that staging base very close to the theatre and sail it back to Canada. That's the most efficient way of doing business.

The business is extremely demanding, as I've mentioned. We have at least 16 strategic flights per month to support and sustain that mission, and every time it's a different path as we go there and have to get clearance or not. The C-17 has been a tremendous asset to help us out in that process, and it's giving us some autonomy. We use it. It is in the pipeline, and it has been a tremendous asset for us to support that mission and to support any other demands worldwide. For example, we had the cyclone in Burma, we had the earthquake in China, and we can use our own strategic airlift or we can contract it out.

Even though we will have at full operating capability four C-17s, this will only represent about 40% of the job that I do on a daily basis--only 40%. We will always rely on other strategic airlift and sealift means, because it gives you a lot of flexibility as you move around the world to do the job. So it is complementary and it is giving us, really, the autonomy that we need.

If Canada could afford five, six, or eight C-17s, that would be great and fantastic, because it would give us that much more autonomy. But look at the United States. It has close to 200 C-17s. And even though they have 200, they still rely heavily on strategic commercial airlift through the Antonov IL-76 type of platform.

It is a complex business, and having the two tools helps you out, because in some instances a country will say no to a military aircraft but will say yes to an Antonov. That gives us tremendous flexibility to go anywhere in the world.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

The advantage, then, of having some strategic airlift capacity is in the flexibility it offers to your planning and execution of the supply chain. Are you telling me that even though we cannot carry out 100% of our strategic airlifts with our own planes, it's better to have some rather than contract out for all?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

You really need some autonomy. When a crisis explodes somewhere--and an earthquake is a good example that we've seen in the past--everybody goes out to get those Antonov 124s and those IL-76s. Everybody wants them, and it's first come, first served. If you're out of the loop, you don't have any. That would mean that if you wanted to send the disaster assistance relief team and you don't have your own autonomy in terms of strategic lift, you may end up not being able to do anything. We've seen it with Burma; we were well set up for that. But many other countries in the world could not access either their own strategic lift or the Antonov. So it's really fundamental, because it gives you that autonomy.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Perhaps I could close with a quick, very numerical question. How many C-17 flights are there to Afghanistan in the same month?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Right now we have flights every two weeks. That's because we only have an interim capability. There are still some upgrades being done to--

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

There's one flight every two weeks?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Yes. We'll go to once a week pretty soon, as we get more crew qualified and all the upgrades done on the airplane. But this is a capability of the air force. I give them the tasking.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Poilievre.

Major-General Benjamin, there's one point I want to clarify. In the Canadian supply chain, the way I interpret your testimony, all the work is done by the Canadian Forces. If you read about what happens in the United States, a lot of it's done by private contractors, such as Halliburton. But in the Canadian experience, it's all done internally by the Canadian Forces. Is that correct?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

We contract out for strategic airlift and sealift. We have an agreement with the United States, the integrated line of communication, and we use their assets extensively. We have CANCAP, which is also a Canadian contract, working hand-in-hand with an MSOC contract in that field.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

So CANCAP works in the theatre.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Once the materiel and goods arrive in Kandahar, are they handled by the Canadian Forces, or independent contractors working for the Canadian Forces?

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

When our equipment gets into theatre, it is handled by Canadians. We take ownership of our equipment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

But when it arrives in Kandahar for storage and supply, is it all handled by the Canadian Forces? I know you rent strategic lift from other independent contractors, but when it arrives, is it handled by Canadian Forces personnel or by independent contractors?

You know that in the States, the whole supply chain in some cases is handled by independent contractors. That's not the Canadian experience.

[MGen Daniel Benjamin]

We could really go into detail on how we operate the airfield in Kandahar. It is a NATO airfield. They have a contractor that does materiel handling and gives that materiel to our supply tech, who then takes ownership of it. You will be pleased to know that the contract under NAMSA is held by a Canadian company.

The handling of the equipment as they land, the control of the airspace, and all these types of things are under the NATO umbrella. But as soon as the airplane has landed and we take the equipment, we bring it to our compound and take ownership of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, that concludes the second round.

I'm going to invite Mr. McRoberts to give any closing comments.

[Hugh McRoberts]

I'd like to come back to the department's action plan. We believe it is a very constructive action plan and responds well to the recommendations we've made. We look forward to watching the department put it into operation. I think that will help move the yardsticks.