Evidence of meeting #122 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aircraft.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
The air force said that beyond 2025 there were concerns about achieving capability.
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
We'll certainly ask the commander of the air force to speak to the safety and the capability of those planes.
I assure you that the money being put into those airframes will keep them safe and operable. We would not otherwise put the money in. We certainly are not in the business of putting our pilots at risk, but I will ask General—
3:50 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Fair enough, but if I could, it's money that we need to ensure we deliver on a capability, so I think the real question here when we're looking at taxpayers' money is this one. Is this good money after bad, when we're looking at almost the equivalent of a horse and buggy in an era of cars, yet we're saying that we're going to attract pilots and we're going to continue to operate horses and buggies and deliver on a car mission?
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
The goal of the interim fighter capability project and the investment we're making not only in new aircraft—the Australian planes—but in our own fleet is to ensure they are operable and highly operable and functional until the future fighter program comes into effect. The future fighter program is moving as quickly as is possible. As I've said, we've met every milestone for it. Our focus is the future fighter.
3:50 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Yes, of course, Chair.
If we could look at it, is it a reasonable expectation that it will take us another 10 or 15 years to procure aircraft? I know that other countries are able to procure replacement aircraft more quickly than that.
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
General Meinzinger and Pat Finn can speak to you about the current fleet, and certainly Pat can speak to you about the timeline for the project.
3:50 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
I will try to be brief. I wanted to get at a portion of your question with respect to maintenance. Unquestionably, hand over heart, we have the best maintenance personnel in the world. I think I would make that point to any particular crowd. One of the most important—
3:55 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Yes. One of the—
3:55 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
When we're 22% short and the maintenance hours are increasing exponentially because in many respects it is beyond its estimated life expectancy, we are asking something that may be more than we can actually achieve to maintain capability. I think that's the question I'm looking for, General.
3:55 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
The maintenance renewal plan approved in 2017 is going to be transformational in terms of our maintenance capacity within the fighter squadrons. Currently that particular contract has yielded almost 50 seasoned contractors, who are largely retired technicians who have dozens of years of experience. Those teams are now working in 3 Wing and 4 Wing—
3:55 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
If they are retired technicians, General, why are they not still serving?
3:55 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Some of them, I believe, have retired due to age and others due perhaps to medical reasons.
3:55 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Okay, so in that regard, are we not looking at furthering the demographic problem so that we don't actually have the maintenance capability over the long term to get us to 2032?
3:55 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
No. I think that in this program what we're seeing is about 2,200 hours of mentorship happening per month per squadron. On the feedback I've had, certainly in being in Romania quite recently and speaking to the technicians who are delivering on that NATO mission with our F-18s, the feedback was extremely positive. A lot of these individuals are able to discern the snag or the maintenance problem just by quickly assessing the challenge, whereas it perhaps would have taken a little longer with the current technicians we have.
I think we're going to see some improvements in that regard as a consequence of this very important maintenance renewal contract.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to Mr. Christopherson, please.
The first round is seven minutes.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you all for being here again. Once more around the mulberry bush, eh, Deputy?
I want to open my remarks by going in a little different direction from what I normally do, to the extent that usually.... I would say that 95% of what we do deals with exactly what we deal with at every meeting, which is the administration of the policies the government sets. The politics of the issue get dealt with in the House of Commons, and we hold you, Deputy, and your staff accountable for the dollars you've been given to implement the policies that the political folks have said will be the priority policies.
I've been around here a long time. I was around before we had the legal basis for an accounting officer. We brought that in for a very good reason. It was to separate the responsibilities between the minister and the deputy, because it can sometimes be a blurry line. I'm prefacing all this, Deputy, by asking you to be very clear, if you would, in your answers, at least to me, in terms of what your responsibilities were, what your decisions were and where that line is.
In the past, it was expected that if you wanted to be a deputy, and stay a deputy, your first priority was to protect the minister. We now have legislation that says your first priority is to be accountable. If your responsibility of accountability ends, and it's a political one at that point, then you have to leave that there and not be defending the politics of the day. I'll be watching very closely on that, Deputy. Trust me, it's in your interest. If we start sliding into just blind loyalty and defending, I'm going to be very upset—really.
I have to say that for the first time in this Parliament—not some others, but only for a total of maybe three or four times that I can think of, in 15 years and five Parliaments—where we need to go speaks to the politics of the issue and the politics of the policies that were given, as opposed to what the department did and didn't do.
I say that this way. I've looked at this thing. I read this very carefully. I was the defence critic for a number of years. I understand this a little bit. I don't pretend that I'm any kind of expert. It's pretty clear that no matter how many edicts from on high the government may make, if there are not enough pilots and technicians, we're not going to keep the planes in the air that we need to meet the commitment. Pretty much, that's what this report is.
I want to point out, Chair, with your indulgence, that the audit objective.... You all know that often I like to start right at the beginning of what this is about.
The objective of this audit was to determine whether National Defence managed risks related to Canada’s fighter fleet to meet government commitments to NORAD and NATO until an operational replacement fleet is in place. The conclusion was “that National Defence has not done enough to manage risks related to Canada’s fighter aircraft fleet so that it can meet commitments”. Also, in paragraph 3.52, “National Defence has not done enough, in part because of factors outside its control.”
I have so much sympathy for that when I read this.
I get the politics. As I understand it, there was a shift from NORAD being the priority, to making sure that a high alert at NORAD and all of our NATO commitments could be made. I get the politics of that. With the President of the United States going on and on about NATO, and the responsibility of the minister to make sure Canada is seen to be a team player—I get all of that. That's to be dealt with in the House of Commons. To turn around then and buy these planes, leave the impression that this is going to solve our problem and pretty much hang out the department to dry, as I see it, is not acceptable.
There is a part of this in my second round where I'm going to hold the department to account on a bit of their estimates and some planning they did, where I have some questions. Overall, I have to say this is very serious.
I've been around. I know there are procurement problems. We've gone around that many times, Deputy. I've done that with other deputies, too. That's not the issue here. I look at this, and I am saying to myself that the politicians of the day—and I was a provincial minister, so again, I do understand that relationship—made a proclamation that we will now be able to do this with NATO, we'll do this with NORAD, we're going to buy these planes and, there you go, we've solved our national defence problem.
No. Because of the reason they've outlined in this audit. We don't have enough technicians and there are not enough pilots. If you don't answer those questions, it doesn't matter how many aircraft you have, we're still not going to be able to meet our commitment.
I look at this and I ask, how much of this can I put at the feet of the deputy and the department? I have a lot of sympathy for the fact that you were put in an impossible situation. To that degree, I don't really have a lot of questions for you. To me, a lot of this stuff is back in the House of Commons. Why is the minister announcing things that, when we look at it, aren't real, i.e., our ability to meet a NORAD high alert and all our commitments to NATO. The minister has left the impression that purchasing these planes is going to solve that. The fact is that it has not. I scoured this, trying to find where I can hold you to account on this, Deputy, but from what I can see you're working really hard and going against headwinds. I accept what you say, General. There is a problem out there.
Would more money solve the problem? It usually would, so there may be some solutions. However, the department doesn't decide, how much money they get. The government and then Parliament does.
This is one of those times, colleagues, when I really feel the actual crux of the issue is not so much that our senior bureaucrats and decision-makers have let us down. That's often the case when we're here. It's our job to hold them to account. I have to tell you in this case I don't see it. I read the analysts version of things. I've read this. I've talked to our critic. To me, it all boils down to the fact that we haven't had the replacements. The department's been jerked around by both parties who've been in government saying, “We're going buy all these planes, that's going to take care of everything.” Then you get the rug pulled out from under you, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere there's an edict from on high about all this defence we're going to do in the air with all our planes because we're buying somebody else's used problems, which is a different issue and we can talk about that.
Anyway, I don't have a direct question on this. I do later. I'm coming around on the second round—I'll give you warning, Deputy—but that's the way I see this. I'll just give you an opportunity, Deputy. I'd to hear your thoughts. Maybe in the second round the deputy could give us her thoughts on.... Maybe I'm wrong and it is her fault and she wants to confess and say so. I'll accept that, Chair.
Thank you.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. Thank you.
In the enjoyment of the moment, I gave you an extra minute already, so I can't give our deputy any time to answer.
4 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
However, I will give Mr. Fuhr some time. Welcome to our committee, sir.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you, Chair.
It's nice to see everyone. I'm usually not sitting on this side, but it's nice to be here.
I wanted to pick up on something that was mentioned earlier. Just before I do that, when I read that Auditor General's report, I thought it was a good report and I thought that it stated the obvious. We have a capability gap. We've had it for years. It really started to manifest itself when previous governments decided to only modernize 79 airplanes. We lose an airplane every two years. We're at 76, and that's kind of where we're at.
The report did say that the jet set that was being purchased would help manage the fleet. I accept that. I totally understand it. We'd all rather have new aircraft, but we are where we are, and that's the best way forward, given where we're at. It did identify that the limiting factor, however, was pilots and maintainers, and I understand that you have to work on all three at the same time.
With regard to pilot retention, not recruitment, I've done some reading. I appreciate your remarks at the beginning, but I have to say—and I have tabled M-177 at the House—that I'm very aware of the numbers with regard to the global pilot shortage and Canadian pilot shortage. If I look at what our allies are doing on the retention side, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy are offering up to $210,000 U.S. for up to six years of obligatory service, depending on how many years you have in and what aircraft you're flying.
The Canadian Forces in the mid-1990s offered a bonus to pilots as well, so we have a precedent for doing it, and our allies are doing it. FedEx is offering between $40,000 and $110,000 to keep their operations flying. Delta is giving everybody a 30% pay raise. I understand that is a unique challenge when you have to do something like that, but I would suggest, if that's not already being considered in the other things you haven't identified, that you seriously consider it, because this pilot shortage is not going to get any easier. It's going to get harder. We need to stop the bleeding, and that's one way to do it, in addition to some of the other things that you mentioned. We have a precedent for doing it in the past.
Some of the other things are on the generation side, and I had a longer conversation with the chief of the air staff at a function recently, and I want to bring some of these up as a recommendation that you guys could look into if you're not already looking into it.
We have CFTS and NFTC, which are two contracts that are generating pilot production in Canada. To the best of my knowledge, we have retired military pilots working there, teaching in simulators and teaching ground school. There's no reason why those gentlemen or women couldn't fly an airplane to just give us better force generation capability. I understand they do it in helicopters right now in Portage, and if we're not using them to their maximum capacity, that's going to hurt us. You could free up military people and post them to the OTU to generate and crank up your OTU at the same time to generate better capacity there.
I would also recommend that we ask our allies for help. In the mid-1990s we seconded, I believe, four F-18 fighter pilot instructors to Australia. If we haven't made a phone call to the U.S. Marine Corps or the Australian air force, I suggest that we might want to consider doing that. We've helped them. They are our pals, and they'll help us out if we ask them, I'm sure.
Finally, on the 419 squadron, when we ship to fighter pilot production, like has been mentioned, that is a sub-component of pilot production in general, which is a problem. The 419 for the most part, I understand, generates much of its adversary training in-house. We have a contract with Discovery Air right now that generates pilot adversary training. You could shift a lot more. You might have to beef up the contracted hours, but having the 419 generate its own radar training is just taking another CF aircraft and a CF pilot out there as a training aid for a student when we have resources that could do that.
Either one or more of those things or a combination of all of them, I think, would help overnight with pilot production and help get this machine cranked up in addition to recruitment.
I want to shift quickly to combat capability. I don't know if you can share this, but as we know, the F-18 hasn't had a lot of combat capability upgrades since about 2008. I think they got air-to-ground capability upgraded in Libya with a new air-to-ground weapon, but we haven't had much. I was wondering if you could comment on what you're considering for that, because that's going to be an important part of keeping our aircraft relevant moving forward.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Thank you for the comment.
Certainly, if I could just reflect a lot of the ideas that you've presented, I would start by one point. I attend the NATO air chiefs conference twice a year. Since my first time at that table, I would tell you that the lion's share of those NATO air chiefs are dealing with the same challenges we are. We regularly consider option space ideas, and we try to share our thinking in that regard. I've taken note of your comments. I certainly have reached out to my counterparts across the globe looking at opportunity space. There are other nations that are transitioning to other aircraft, meaning they may have some pilots who need to be employed to be seed corn perhaps. I've had those discussions as well, and we would be very open to one-way exchanges.
I think at the core the issue is about experience and how we ensure that we can maintain a level of experience in the key core within the schoolhouse.
I'd end on just answering your question. Consequential to the OAG's report, we certainly accept both recommendations, and we are embarking upon conducting an analysis of those combat capabilities that we might consider moving ahead. I guess, just to be general in this forum, that will include looking at sensors, weapons, self-protection, capabilities and also a bucket we call mission support capabilities. That's the area we're going to explore in the context of that work we're going to complete by the spring of 2019.