National Defence committee  It's clear that interoperability with our major allies is an important factor in design specifications. We obviously want our military equipment to be able to operate alongside our allies, so it may or may not be a factor in some or all of our military procurement projects. Bey

National Defence committee  Based on my knowledge, it seems to be broadly similar. Of course, there are exceptions for big countries like the U.S., which has a strong, wide military industrial base, but for other smaller countries, it is broadly similar to Canada.

National Defence committee  I think you raise a very good point. If Canada does not rely on its domestic producers, it becomes difficult for them to be credible when they try to sell their products abroad if their own national government is not even depending or relying on them to equip its armed forces. Th

National Defence committee  Personally, I am agnostic as to who should be in the driver's seat, so to speak, as long as it's somebody with the right expertise and the right knowledge and who is well supported by a sufficient number of officials and the right skill set. When it comes to a coordination role,

National Defence committee  That seems to already be the case, to a certain extent. That's a policy decision that's outside my realm, but that is one possible approach.

National Defence committee  Well, the number of military procurement personnel at DND and PSPC is certainly one factor explaining the delay in procuring some major equipment, but it's not the only one. Increasing the number of procurement personnel is probably necessary, I think, but it may not be sufficien

National Defence committee  We found there were some issues with the ITB. We looked at a limited period of time. The ITB was in place since 1986, so we looked at the period that started, if my memory serves me well, in 2015. We found there was about $18 billion in ITB. The majority of these ITBs were to lar

National Defence committee  That's not something we've studied in any detail. Unfortunately, I have no significant or relevant comments to make. Sorry.

National Defence committee  Our reports so far have focused on the expected costs of procuring these major pieces of equipment. We have not looked at the spin-offs or the economic benefits or the industrial benefits. In and of themselves, the major procurement projects we have looked at are massive and th

National Defence committee  It's clear that when we have a shortfall in capital spending, it likely reduces the ratio and it further takes us away from reaching the 2% NATO target, but it also has another impact. If you don't spend money now and you spend the same amount in the upcoming years, with inflatio

National Defence committee  That's an interesting question. I say that because I don't have the answer, unfortunately.

National Defence committee  No, I don't have a sense, but I know there are areas of excellence that export. It's been widely reported in the media for some of these years, but I don't have an overall number when it comes to the balance of trade in the military area.

National Defence committee  If you have one ultimate decision-maker responsible as opposed to having two or even more than two, it reduces the number of steps. If they can sing from the same songbook at the beginning as opposed to having interdepartmental meetings, meeting after meeting, and having differen

Government Operations committee  I do, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. We are pleased to be here to discuss our report on the supplementary estimates (A), 2023-24, which was published on May 30, 2023. With me today is o

Government Operations committee  It is indeed one item of expenditures that we are closely tracking, because it obviously matches interest rate variations very closely. The Bank of Canada recently increased its interest rate once again, and this will quite obviously have an upward impact on the debt servicing co