National Defence committee  I would close by saying that obviously defence procurement is a complicated labyrinth of an animal. It's clear that there are various recommendations that can be implemented that would help facilitate clearer contracts and more transparency. There are ways in which data could be

National Defence committee  Well, of course, there are only about six or eight militaries in NATO that are militaries one would consider to be sufficiently capable—the ones that are looked towards. To this, we would add the Finns and Swedes, who are coming in as other extremely capable militaries. One thing

National Defence committee  First, on the helmet story, I think it has been shown that it might not actually have been factually correct when it was released to the media. I'm not sure if that's actually.... Anyway, I would put a question mark next to that. When it comes to the idea of equipment and the fa

National Defence committee  In terms of the details of the process, I would not have much to add other than what my colleague said, because he understands the process on the inside far better than I do in terms of timing. I would say, like I said, comparatively it's a long process for things that we see pro

National Defence committee  Generally speaking, issues related to classified information are not expressly part of specifications or the way contracts are drafted. Things can come up once the process is under way. Often, it's part of the contract terms and conditions. It's the next step; it's a bit like imp

National Defence committee  Yes. It's important to at least have some ideas and to establish expectations for sharing the responsibilities. I am currently analyzing a pile of other contracts, and that is what I see very clearly. Of course, there are strategic reasons why the Americans and others don't want

National Defence committee  Canada needs to do a bit of prioritizing in terms of what its essentials are. We talked a little about the types of projects that get a lot of focus, these big end projects like joint strike fighters, but other things, like equipping the soldier, don't get very much focus. I do

National Defence committee  Yes. There's a bit less focus on purchasing, but I think one of the things Canada doesn't do well enough is thinking about how it can go into R and D with other countries in a collaborative way and how it can work in the line towards producing those things that are sold. If you l

National Defence committee  I think it comes down to looking at the types of defence industrial sectors where Canada right now has key capabilities and deciding that these are the ones we want to foster, these are the ones we want to develop. We can look around and say, these are sectors that are maybe comp

National Defence committee  I just want to be clear: What I was talking about in that instance was not the large defence contractors that are changing the market. Those changes to OTA authority were about small businesses. This is the market Canada wants to be in. We're not Raytheons or Boeings. We don't h

National Defence committee  I would say for sure that the people who are drafting these contracts with the defence sector need, before the negotiations, to have a better understanding of how these risks arise. The fact is that they can actually integrate appropriate responses within these agreements themsel

National Defence committee  I think the other thing is that the public doesn't understand that the defence market is not a normal, classic market, according to Adam Smith, in which prices are based on supply and demand. We have this very bizarre market. When we talk about all these things, our abstract con

National Defence committee  I would add that as soon as several stakeholders are involved in the process, we see that the timeline gets longer. That's where inefficiency comes in. It's a matter of compromise. As researchers, of course we want transparency and greater access to information. We're always com

National Defence committee  I'm sorry. I can come right down to the point.

National Defence committee  Okay, I have two seconds. The first thing is that on the contracts themselves there needs to be a much greater follow-up in terms of how we restrain the two parties and ensure that there is actually good faith with respect to overriding the limits, the financial limits, of the co