moved:
That this House call on the government to eliminate the barriers in the Letter of Interest to the aerospace industry, which impede a fair and open Maritime Helicopter Project, and that maritime procurement be conducted on a “best value to the Canadian taxpayers” basis, in accordance with the Treasury Board guidelines.
Mr. Speaker, I should like to inform the Chair that I intend to split my time this morning with the member for St. John's West, Newfoundland. You have Saint John, New Brunswick, here and you will have St. John's West, Newfoundland. Boy, when they come from Saint John and St. John's, the Liberals better look out.
The motion we debate today cuts to the very heart of an issue that has seized the attention of the House and indeed of the country for some time. In my seven years in this place I have risen many times to speak against the government's actions on defence and speak out for the military.
In the last seven years we have watched as our military forces were cut. We have seen a near constant decline in troop morale. We have witnessed countless equipment failures, all due to government neglect. That which we will discuss today is certainly the most outrageous and offensive example of government interference and misconduct I have ever seen.
I need not tell the House that in August of last year the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Works and Government Services initiated a program to replace our aging Sea King helicopters, something they had promised to do by the year 2000 in their 1994 defence white paper.
I need not tell the House that the procurement process put in place has come under serious attack by stakeholders in the global aerospace industry. I need not even tell the House that the majority of those now sitting on the government side were elected in 1993 on a promise to cancel a helicopter contract to replace the same Sea Kings still in use today, which cancellation cost taxpayers anywhere from $800 million to $1 billion.
The Canadian armed forces are in need of our help. Our men and women in uniform cannot come up here, as so many others do, with placards to protest the injustices committed against them.
These people need safe equipment capable of doing the difficult jobs that we all assign to them. We ask the sons and daughters of our Canadian families to lay their lives on the line for each and every one of us in the Chamber. We send them to every corner of the globe. We in the House therefore have the great responsibility and awesome duty to afford them all the protection and security that we can.
That protection will come with cost, costs that can either be financial or even political in nature. I stand here today to tell everyone that the government is so worried about paying the political costs of replacing the Sea Kings that it has distorted the tendering process to undermine competition so that it is not embarrassed one more time. The government has already decided who is going to get the helicopter replacement contract. That is very clear.
I could talk about political trades between this government and the governments in Europe. I could talk about industrial exchanges, a helicopter contract there for a manufacturing plant here, but let me for the moment just share a little story.
Last May, a caucus colleague of mine, someone who now sits on the government side, came to me with a conspiracy theory. He said the government was going to award the Sea King replacement contract to a company called Eurocopter. As history and Hansard will record, my colleague at that time and I rose in the House and called on the Minister of National Defence to deny the story. He did.
The minister stood and told us “all that sounds like a lot of nonsense to me.” However, within months, within three short months to be exact, the minister stood in another place and announced a procurement process so strict that it, to the eyes of many, eliminated all of the competition but Eurocopter. The minister and his colleagues produced a document. To be specific, it was a letter of interest addressed to the aerospace industry. That document and the problems it contained is the reason I stand here today.
The letter of interest showed for the first time that it would be “the lowest price compliant” bid that would be chosen. First, it means that no matter what aircraft competes, even if it is only of marginal ability, as long as it meets the statement of requirement and is the cheapest helicopter, it will be selected. If an operationally marginal competitor is even $1 cheaper than a helicopter with 100% more operational capacity, then saving a dollar will win that contract. That is a disgrace. All this despite the fact the treasury board guidelines 9.1.1 and 9.1.2 state clearly that government procurement should be done on the best value.
That document opened the door to a process with certification deadlines and technical requirements that penalized some of the most respected helicopter manufacturers in the world. It opened the door to a procurement process so alien to both logic and reason that major industry stakeholders took one look at it and scratched their heads.
The House knows that one company was so disadvantaged by the letter of interest that it was compelled to take the matter before the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, and now the Federal Court of Appeal.
There are companies that are beginning to say that the process is so flawed and so biased that they might not even waste their efforts making a bid. However the process did not hurt all companies. The only group that is in no clear way disadvantaged by the current competition rule is Eurocopter and its Cougar MK2.
Let us look at the process itself. In their exalted wisdom, the powers that be on the government side chose to split the contract. Never have we seen this done before. Instead of a single contract there will be a process to obtain a basic vehicle and a second process to obtain the vital mission system. In both cases, even with different possible contracts for maintenance and upkeep, there is no question that this will mean increased cost.
So that the everyday ordinary citizen knows what the government is planning to do, it is like saying to Canadians that they should go out and buy a car with no air conditioning, no radio, no speedometer, no tires and then go out a second time and buy all those things and have them installed at a later time. That is exactly what the government is doing with the helicopters. It is foolishness for certain. Worst still it is foolishness with a political motive.
If the proper tendering process was used, the worst case scenario for the defence minister is that he would have to walk outside these doors and announce that the company that won the bidding process fair and square is the very company that this government snubbed seven years ago.
The government knows it made a big mistake in 1993. It is now willing to manipulate the bidding process so that it is anything but fair. Therefore, it will not have to give the contract to the company that can replace these aging Sea Kings and do what is right for our men in the military.
Do Canadians know that there is a special cabinet committee through which all decisions related to this process must pass? I do not think the members know about this. Do Canadians know that the special cabinet committee is so shrouded in secrecy that it is difficult to know who is actually making the decisions? Do Canadians know that with the help of this committee the government ignored the recommendations of the defence department to avoid the political suicide that a fair process might entail?
We are way beyond giving money to golf courses and hotels here. This is not a little problem that the cabinet can sweep under the carpet. We are talking about billions and billions of taxpayer dollars. We are talking about corruption and abuse of power at the highest levels. We are talking about the government sacrificing its own rules and guidelines to force an outcome that does not make it look bad. If things are not changed we will end up with a helicopter less capable than the aged Sea Kings we have had in use for decades.
I am using the strongest words I know to express the anger and shame I feel. I am using the boldest language allowed in the Chamber to warn Canadians of the deceit and dishonesty that we have discovered. I say let us do the right thing. Let us correct the injustice where we find it. Let us do what we were elected to do. If we do not we will dishonour those who came before us and those who defend us from evil if we do not.