Government Operations committee  I think that in this country, it's almost as if we relish procurements that don't go well. When I look at the NSS, there are many little projects within these very large projects that are going well. When I look at shipbuilding, it truly is nation building. Forty per cent of th

Government Operations committee  Interestingly enough—

Government Operations committee  On shipbuilding, there are two very interesting dynamics with respect to the pandemic. One is that because of the economic stability of continuing to be able to build ships during the pandemic period, hardship or not, we actually saw statistical growth in the defence sector. In

Government Operations committee  Well, I think the Vancouver shipyard isn't much different from the Irving shipyard in terms of the challenges it's facing. They will be facing escalations for raw materials and services, in some cases due to COVID, and that impact will be across the board in the NSS. I think on

Government Operations committee  Oh, you're on planes. I do not have any insight into the bids that were put on the table by the vendors themselves. We stay out of the procurement offers, so I cannot tell what the winning procurement, the negotiated—the seemed-to-be-negotiated—procurement with Lockheed Martin

Government Operations committee  As I mentioned, I think that in creating a specific strategy around shipbuilding, you have done, to some extent, some of the work. It's called the NSS. It's almost as though it's a rallying call, so that it becomes harder and harder for partisan politics to play out and for subse

Government Operations committee  I can't speak to the ferry situation. I am not educated on it per se. There are many types of policy frameworks and mechanisms that are used. You would be familiar with the industrial and technological benefits policy in Canada. Basically, for every dollar spent on a federal pr

Government Operations committee  Sure. I'm mindful of the fact that I have a bit of a different opinion from one of my member companies at Irving Shipyards. I believe they are looking at it through an execution lens; I look at it through the lens of the complete procurement system. One of the challenges that

Government Operations committee  Yes, you did. Thank you.

Government Operations committee  Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. In my opening remarks, I would like to give you a Canadian defence industry perspective on the national shipbuilding strategy, or NSS. When the government unveiled the NSS over a decade ago, the core principle was that the recapitalizati

Foreign Affairs committee  I can go first. We have not been consulted on a panel. We don't really know, because it hasn't been fully described, what such an agency or a panel would mean in this context. If an expert panel is simply to assess the vigour or robustness of our permitting system, then we are f

Foreign Affairs committee  I think if it were simply that the permits required consultation, we would have a bit more understanding of the dilemma that sometimes the government and the department itself are under, but we're not talking here simply about the permits that are at risk and require consultation

Foreign Affairs committee  There should almost be a constant conversation between the political level, first and foremost, when something goes into a hot zone, and the industry to advise it in advance that there is an increased risk that its permit will not potentially come out the other end, so to speak.

Foreign Affairs committee  No. As I mentioned at the onset of my remarks, we do not advocate for individual companies. The conversations we had during that period of time were about the system writ large. During the period of September 2019 to December 2019, the minister of foreign affairs at the time, M

Foreign Affairs committee  There have been multiple attempts, first and foremost at the political level, to talk to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, going back to 2017. We have sent multiple letters requesting conversations. Only recently—that is, within the last three weeks—have we had a conversation with