National Defence committee  That's a question that is very.... It's something that comes up every now and then. We're a budget office, so we tend to go with dollars and cents, with numbers and the cost of specific proposals. Even though there are social impacts and environmental impacts to many of the gove

National Defence committee  That's definitely a model we should consider. If politics were removed from the decision-making process, the approach to procurement would become a much more neutral. We all know that politicians are elected to represent what the people want. It's important, particularly in mat

National Defence committee  That's a question for the department to answer, particularly by service personnel who have to cope with the shortcomings of this procurement system. I don't have a detailed enough knowledge of the procurement processes and feedback loops, and Mr. Penney has indicated to me that h

National Defence committee  We don't do these checks systematically. We have done so for major programs, combat ships for example, but not for the entire procurement process or other specific processes, apart from the reports we've published. It's probably something that relates more closely to the Auditor

National Defence committee  What we have seen so far does not lead to concerns of that nature—or what we've seen several years ago. We have received very good collaboration from the Department of National Defence. There have been some hiccups: information that we had asked for earlier this year that did not

National Defence committee  It's difficult to provide a definite and clear answer to that. If you look at some countries, there are anecdotes that some military departments can buy pens and screws at prohibitively expensive prices, but on the other hand they're very efficient at producing and putting frigat

National Defence committee  I don't know about that.

National Defence committee  To answer the second part of your question, no, we were never consulted. Like you, we did not see any progress in this area. Nor did we see this entity mentioned in any of the mandate letters. What I can say, however, without being aware of all the details and without having bee

National Defence committee  That's what I believe too. There is no need for another entity, but if it were established, it would have to be the only organization responsible for procurement. And yet it would likely be difficult to have a only one entity responsible, because for obvious reasons, the armed fo

National Defence committee  Again, it's a value judgment that's a bit difficult to make or to decide upon because there are reasons why the ITB has been put in place. One would need to look at the counterfactual to determine in the absence of ITB what would be the price and what would be the economic benefi

National Defence committee  It's an interesting question because we start from a base where there's a small defence industrial base in Canada compared to other countries. Right there, we are at a disadvantage especially if we insist on having Canadian-made major equipment. The government obviously for vario

National Defence committee  That requires a delicate balancing act between cost and value for money versus.... It's that and also ensuring that there are significant or measurable economic benefits for the country while also ensuring, as has been the government's policy for some time now, the development of

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you for having invited us to testify before you today. We are looking forward to telling you about our analysis in connection with your review of the impact of Canada’s procurement process on Canadian Armed For

National Defence committee  When we released that report, we indicated that the government was underspending compared to its planned capital expenditure under strong, secure and engaged, to the tune of about $8 billion over a four-year period, which led to a shortfall of about $2 billion per year. The gover

National Defence committee  It's a delicate issue. We're not military experts when it comes to the needs of the Canadian Forces and it's difficult for us to determine whether these specifications are excessive or not. However, we can provide general statements or general observations when it comes to defenc