Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Witnesses, thank you for this.
Mr. Hayes and Mr. Swales, thank you for another depressing report. I think you could have titled it “A Whole-of-Government Failure”. We have a failure to buy equipment on time, a failure to retain our pilots or even train new pilots, and a clear failure to secure the north. This is an absolutely abysmal report. I don't think I have a different word for it.
We have a government and bureaucracy that.... We actually saw them, with opening statements, appear to think that making announcements is actually going to get ships built. We have delay after delay after delay on the ships. The icebreakers are a decade late. The AOPS are delayed. Everything is delayed.
We're running out of pilots to fly the few planes we have left. We have, basically, what turns out to be a politically motivated purchase of the Kingfisher search and rescue plane that cannot fly in Canada and that the RCAF doesn't want. We have the AOPS that the navy doesn't want and can't actually patrol with for a large part of the year, and that's when these ships are actually working. We know there are diesel issues and water issues.
You read in this report that we have committees that repeatedly identified issues, but the government refused to act on them. There are departments that can't share information with each other. Work plans are developed with no implementation plans or timelines to go with them, and then there is no monitoring of those implementation plans. Then there are plans to develop an Arctic security strategy that never got completed.
You think it just cannot get worse and worse and worse, yet along comes the government to say, “Hold my beer,” and it sits back as the Chinese float 99 red balloons into our territory.
Mr. Hayes, Mr. Swales, is there any redeeming information from the government's performance that you can share with us out of this report, besides that the government recognizes that it's an issue? I've read through it. I don't see the action. I don't see anything but announcements and witnesses around a table patting themselves on the back for what a great job they're doing, but nothing's getting done. We have Russia being aggressive. Obviously, the Chinese are aggressive. However, we're a decade or two decades away from being able to secure the north.
Is there anything good in this report?