National Defence committee  I'm sorry. I didn't hear the first part.

National Defence committee  I think the Canadian Armed Forces is an employer of choice and the numbers would suggest that. In any given year, there are about 35,000 to 65,000 people who come through the door, and about 5,000 of those end up getting hired. I would say that the organization has good standing

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will speak in English, but I will answer questions in both official languages. Thank you for the invitation. Last week, I was called before government operations on the topic of procurement. Today, I have been asked to share my expertise on recruitment

Government Operations committee  I'll give you one example. Since Canada is far away from other parts of the world, when we send a frigate somewhere, we might need that frigate to be more or less self-sufficient for, say, six months at a time. That has implications for how you set up your ship, as compared, fo

Government Operations committee  We certainly want to make sure we have equipment that delivers for Canada and Canadian interests, in terms of both Canadian industry and national interests abroad. For any military, I think that means it's going to require some customization. In particular for Canada, because our

Government Operations committee  That's a good question. Let me provide a simple example to you. Often what Canada will do is that it may decide to substitute a Canadian frigate for a U.S. frigate in an American aircraft flotilla, for instance. That means the Americans can pull out their frigate and deploy it

Government Operations committee  I would simply comment that I'm not as disenchanted with the NSS as Mr. Williams is. I actually think it provides perhaps better trade-offs on the Canadian benefits and the results that the Canadian navy is going to get from it. I would also like to point out—and I don't know i

Government Operations committee  Mr. Bains, you're asking an extremely important question, because I actually think the greatest challenge, regardless of what my colleagues have said, is not the actual equipment; it is the people. The greatest shortfalls currently that the Canadian Armed Forces have are with re

Government Operations committee  Interoperability is absolutely critical because, when it comes to international, multinational operations, Canada rarely does things on its own. We always go places with allies, but our needs are also somewhat different from those of our allies. For instance, French frigates are

Government Operations committee  Maybe I'll defer to Mr. Williams. I'm sure he has some insights to offer on this. I have my own views, but I've said enough on this.

Government Operations committee  There are some elements that we knew the shipyard wouldn't be able to deliver, which National Defence now has to build at Esquimalt in order to deliver on some of these components. I don't want to comment on who is qualified or not, but there are always political trade-offs in

Government Operations committee  I cannot judge to what extent individual companies were affected, but when we talk about defence procurement, we potentially have to be able to do it under very challenging circumstances. Imagine if we had to do this in a situation where Canada was at war or in an adversarial con

Government Operations committee  There is a pretty clear answer: it is a matter of political ideology. In other words, the more complicated government procedures, bureaucracy and accountability become, the more difficult it will be to buy anything or to complete projects that are underway. I think there is a la

Government Operations committee  One of the issues in defence procurement has to do with the fact that, the longer projects take, the more costs escalate. In public sector procurement projects, costs increase by 6% per year, but in defence procurement, the increase is about 12%. The longer it takes for a project

Government Operations committee  Thanks for the opportunity again. The NSS is emblematic of the extent to which defence procurement is highly politicized, especially by opposition parties looking to score points, and of how politicians prioritize spreading largesse to industry in targeted ridings over effectiv