By when?
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.
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.
5:15 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Those numbers will be phased in to support the introduction of the advanced fighter.
5:15 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
By 2026, are we looking at an increase in technician positions by 200?
5:15 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
That's correct.
5:15 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Therefore, am I assuming that the maintenance renewal plan shows how we're going to achieve filling those positions by then, and that the cost is already embedded in the Department of National Defence forecast budget up to 2020, or however long we have?
5:15 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Sorry, of those 200, just over 100 of those additional 200 positions will be on the technician side. Some will be other support trades and the like, so it's not—
5:15 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Yes, indeed.
With the fighter renewal initiative and the contracting of second-line maintenance, we're going to be moving approximately 200 serving members forward into first line. You're going to see a significant increase in technicians on the flight line fixing aircraft. We believe that's going to lead to more mission-ready aircraft for our pilots to fly.
5:20 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
That's very interesting, and I'd love to get to that in a second.
Do we have a corresponding plan for pilots? I don't see it in this report. I see a study—an air ops study—but I do not see an air pilot plan that shows us how we're going to address the shortage of pilots. Have I missed it?
5:20 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
I don't think you'd find that detail in the OAG report, but specifically in the MAP.
5:20 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
It's in the response, in the “Key Interim Milestones (Description/Dates)”.
5:20 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
I can tell you my plan for 10 squadron, which is the training unit for fighter pilots. Over the next two years, we're going to be running serial courses for flight training and the fighter weapons instructor course.
It's really important that we continue to run the fighter weapons instructor course. You may know that is the incubator for creating the tactical specialists, those who know how to plan complex missions, how to weaponeer. We need those individuals in our squadrons.
Right now the challenge—
5:20 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Absolutely, but that's the training piece.
What we're really trying to achieve is the actual number of pilots. It's a combination of retention and training. Where is the plan that shows that, by 2026, we will have all the pilots we need? What does that trend look like, and of course, what has the trend been up to this point. It says we have a 64% shortage. We need to know the plan. Do you have that?
5:20 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
My assessment is that it's going to take us approximately five to seven years to grow the crew force. Again, a lot of the considerations are in the future. We have to stave off the attrition we're experiencing today. We're getting at that as a priority in terms of some of the retention ideas we have.
We're going to maximize the throughput at 410 squadron, but we recognize that we can't pull all of the experienced pilots from the 4 line squadrons to teach on 410 squadron, because we need them on the line squadrons to train the new pilots who are on the line squadrons.
It's a pretty delicate balance, but we're optimizing that based on the current crew force we have.
5:20 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Have we included the increased cost of training, particularly the outsourced elements of training for fighters, specifically in that $3 billion?
5:20 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
There's no outsourcing costs that I could think of that would relate to the current plan.
5:20 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Fighter training is outsourced, a significant portion of it.
5:20 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
I manage the O and M costs that are attributed to force generation on a yearly basis, so that's reflected in the monies that get allocated to me as the commander.
5:20 p.m.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, CPC
Do we have enough money, and are we fine for money to achieve all of the training for the pilots?
5:20 p.m.
LGen A. D. Meinzinger
Each year, I have to make a case for the yearly flying rate for all of the fleets, and we've had support to fund that full YFR demand. That's a number that will continue to grow as we introduce more fleets.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Ms. Alleslev.
We'll now to go Mr. Fuhr. It will be the last question of the meeting today.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Stephen Fuhr Liberal Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Thank you.
First of all I want to thank the Auditor General's office for putting some heat and light on this issue. Many of us knew that this was coming and it was here. It speaks specifically to a capability gap, yet adds in the other elements that are required to generate combat capability—pilots, technicians and aircraft. All of them are equally important, and we need them all to make things happen.
I want to circle back to what I suggested before, because this is going to require the military to think outside the box in solving this problem and to do things that it may not have been willing to do in the past.
We need to lean on our service providers more than ever—KF Aerospace, CAE and Discovery Air are there. Most of those guys, we knew. We used to fly with those guys. They're all retired, and we know they're capable. We know we have existing contracts. We need to put those people in the best position to help us as soon as possible.
I know you've mentioned that you're mulling around financial retention. It has to be done and it has to go to Treasury Board. That is not a slow process, so I would suggest that we just come to terms with that soon and get on with it because our allies are doing it, and if we don't, we're going to be hurting.
I know, General, you mentioned that you talk to your counterparts or their allies often about asking them for help. I think we need to circle back on that because I don't recall, back in the nineties, that we were in much better shape. We were hurting as well, but we responded to an urgent request from our allies, and I think we should maybe circle back and ask them if they can help us out, the marine corps in Australia being probably the best suited to do that.
Also, engaging with industry, maybe in a way that we haven't before.... The current airplane that we're flying right now, Boeing, has the capacity. We ultimately just need to write a cheque to get them to help us train more technicians more quickly. What we do isn't exactly the same. I appreciate that. I was in the squadron and I understand how that works. They can get our squadron or our squadron techs to the 75% solution, and then we can take over from there.
If we do all those things, we'll be able to ramp up our capacity to generate pilots and technicians a lot more quickly. I appreciate that, simultaneously, we need more airframes at the end of the day, so when both those phones ring we can be responsible partners and generate the combat capability that we said we would.
That's all I have.
Thank you.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Fuhr.
Now Mr. Christopherson has come back and has asked for a very short summary or a very short question.
You have it, sir.
5:25 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
No, actually it's a point of privilege, and I thank you for the floor.
I notice we have about five minutes. I'd like to take just 60 seconds of it, if I could.
This has been a pretty intense hearing. I thought maybe I would like to put a small bit of humour into where we are, believe it or not. Let's see if I achieve it.
It's under the category of one of the greatest put-downs that was ever thrown back to me from across the floor from a colleague.
I'm on one of my big rants, Chair, and you've been around long enough with me that you know what they're like. We saw one of them today. I was going on and on, and my theme in it all was 30,000 feet. I kept saying, “If we look at this from 30,000 feet” and then I would go and do my attack, and further I'd say, “You know, never mind all these details, when you look at this from 30,000 feet” and I went on and on and on like this about the 30,000 feet, as loudly as I could, as I do. The room was dead quiet and Laurie Hawn, a former Conservative MP who served here, asked for the floor.
What triggered this memory was either the general or Mr. Finn answering a question about 50,000 feet, or somebody making a reference to 50,000 feet.
After I'd finished doing this whole rant, wrapped around what you really see from 30,000 feet in terms of what's going on, Laurie Hawn takes the floor—dead quiet—and he says, “I'm a former fighter pilot. You know what you see at 30,000 feet? Nothing. Just like the value of the arguments we just heard.”