Good afternoon. Thank you for your invitation.

I will speak in both official languages.

My remarks will be in English.

My opening remarks on defence procurement highlight the myriad needlessly onerous rules that err exceedingly on the side of transparency and accountability instead of making good on getting the military the equipment that it needs. There is a trade-off between effects—that is, getting the troops the infrastructure and equipment they need—and the transparency to risk-manage the procurement process, assert political control and avoid an aggrieved bidder crying foul.

Without a new significant influx of money and with no immediate prospect for more staff, Parliament and government must look seriously at reducing the exceptionally onerous procedures that plague procurement and staffing processes. There are two options: either generate more staff and money, or simplify procedures that consume vast amounts of time and staff resources.

Both the Liberal government under Chrétien and the Conservative government under Harper tried to tackle the bureaucratic hurdles, but the red tape action teams got bogged down in red tape and never accomplished anything.

The CAF maintains 25 bases, wings and stations across the country. It has the largest real estate portfolio in the Government of Canada, with 10 million square metres of floor space, 21,000 buildings, 2.2 million hectares of land and 13,500 works that include roads, sewers and so forth. Due to the persistent lack of staff and financial resources, there's a consistent risk of failure. As a result, DND is responding to crises that cause costs to increase exponentially over what it would have cost to do proactive maintenance had DND been allocated the money to do so.

These are constraints imposed by central agencies, often at the behest of Parliament. DND returned $1.2 billion last fiscal year, which was about 5% of its overall budget allocation. That is an indication of the mismatch between funding and procedures. In other words, an increase in funding will not necessarily fix the CAF's procurement woes.

This committee should study in depth the copious and onerous procurement requirements imposed on DND and the CAF, to examine how these can be streamlined and aligned to ensure that the procedures that enable funding allocations are more optimally matched with the effects that Parliament and government intend to generate.

The committee might also look at alternative procurement models. One is to have a dedicated minister of defence industry, as in Australia, to ensure better political attention and expertise. It is necessarily spread thin for a single minister who is responsible for the single largest organizational employer in Canada, which makes up about a quarter of the federal government's direct spending.

The committee should also examine alternative procurement models, such as the Swiss approach of voting a budget envelope for defence on a particular issue, to that particular effect, but then defer to defence and government procedural mechanisms to decide on what effect to procure with that envelope.

Thank you.

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