SoVote

Apr/5/22 11:15:50 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to be really clear, it was the Conservatives who cut billions of dollars. In this government, in a very brief six-year period, we are already finalizing a deal to acquire 88 new fighter jets for the RCAF; we are delivering the first Canadian-built ship in 20 years to the Canadian Navy; we are acquiring six offshore patrol vessels, of which two have already been delivered to the navy; we are beginning construction on a joint support ship that will provide at-sea replenishment as well as 4,000 jobs in Canada; and we are delivering rifles to our Rangers. This is real procurement and real work. We are getting the job done.

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Ms. Louise Chabot (Thérèse-De Blainville, BQ)

Apr/5/22 11:16:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we will certainly support the idea of increasing defence spending to 2% of GDP. My issue is not with these investments. We have long been calling for predictability from the government, in this sector and in others. It is pretty disgraceful to see the way the government acts and the fact that the army has to buy its own boots. Will this money be depoliticized? Can the government guarantee that the money will address the real needs?

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Hon. Robert Oliphant

Apr/5/22 11:17:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for her comments. However, I want to draw her attention to our very important 2017 report, “Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada's Defence Policy”. It shows our plan. It is transparent; it is evolving; it is continuing. We are investing in the Canadian Armed Forces on land, at sea and in the air. We are providing the equipment needed. We are doing it steadily. We are doing it intelligently, however, as well. We do not want to fall into the messes of previous governments. We are continuing to do it in a careful and steady way.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

Apr/5/22 11:18:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am the person who represents 19 Wing in Comox. I can tell members that I have spent a lot of time at the base there, and I am very impressed by the capacity and the ability of the people who serve our country. I also know that they do not have the things they need. What happened recently in Gander with a Cormorant helicopter was a scary moment. It is very scary to recognize that the people who are serving us and trying to keep us safe do not have the equipment they need to do that work. I am wondering if the member could talk about when the government will actually make sure the military has the resources it needs to do the jobs Canada asks of it.

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Hon. Robert Oliphant

Apr/5/22 11:18:52 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again I commend the member for her work. One of the best weeks I had as an opposition member was a week at Greenwood air force base at the other end of the country. That was an opportunity to spend some time with the men and women of the air force. My father was one of those “gentlemen of the air force”, as he called himself. I had that experience of being in helicopters, being on supply aircraft and even being on a fighter jet to look at the way Canada's armed forces are equipped. I would say that it would be absolutely denigrating to say that they are not equipped. What they need is for the equipment to be constantly refurbished and upgraded as we continue. That is why we are getting 88 new fighter jets for our RCAF and acquiring 28 CH-148 Cyclone helicopters, and that is why we will get additional equipment to build on what that capacity already is and do it proudly.

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The Deputy Speaker

Apr/5/22 11:19:59 a.m.
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I have to say, as the representative for 14 Wing Greenwood, that it was great to see that you had a good time in the beautiful riding of West Nova. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Apr/5/22 11:20:08 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and I really reflected on the part about how the Conservatives have been all talk and no action. When he said that, I was immediately reminded of Stephen Harper's interaction with Vladimir Putin back in 2014, when Stephen Harper said Putin had better get out of Ukraine, or something to that effect. We all know how that turned out. That was basically pointless and did not serve any purpose, while at the same time the Conservative government was spending less than 1% of GDP, as the member indicated. I am wondering if he can speak to how important it is that we make sure that our spending level is where it needs to be and also, as he noted earlier, make sure that we are doing the proper diplomatic measures so that we are handling our impact on the global stage from both a monetary perspective and a dialogue perspective.

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Hon. Robert Oliphant

Apr/5/22 11:21:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am hoping to get one extra minute for that mention of Greenwood. As I said, diplomacy, defence and development are three prongs of what we need to be doing. We need to engage diplomatically around the world. We need to make sure that we have intelligence, that we have information and that we have appropriate relationships to build alliances and build allegiances while we are also working on our military alliances and while we are also continuing to develop and provide humanitarian assistance. We will do that. Ukraine is one example of election monitoring, of Unifier and of diplomatic relationship of which we have been very proud.

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Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Apr/5/22 11:21:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Limoilou. I am pleased to rise to speak to a Conservative motion on this opposition day because it will give members of the Bloc Québécois an opportunity to explain our position on defence and especially on defence-related spending. I want to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois intends to support today's motion. However, I will be using some of my time to point out that there should be some caveats to this because, if all we do is vote yes or no to increasing the budget, as though this is a black-and-white issue with no real grey area, then we are not really addressing the main issues currently affecting the Canadian military. If we are talking about increasing spending on national defence to 2% of GDP, which is what Canada promised NATO it would do in 2014, then the issue for the Bloc Québécois is not really “how much”, but “how”. For the past several weeks, this issue has come up in different ways during the Standing Committee on National Defence's study of the various threats to Canada's security. On March 21, I asked a panel the following question with regard to the budget increase: “Should the question mainly be ‘how much’ or shouldn't it also be ‘how’?” I would like to quote some excerpts from what three of the witnesses said in answer to that question, because they presented two caveats that I want to talk about. First, James Fergusson, a professor at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies in the department of political studies at the University of Manitoba, said the following. The quote is a bit long, but I think it is quite relevant. It's not really a question of increasing the defence budget per se. The question is, how much, over what period of time and, particularly, dedicated to what acquisitions independent of operations and maintenance, and independent...of the problems of recruitment. If you want to punch this money into or funnel it into expanding the Canadian Armed Forces, recruitment and retention are a big problem, and you're probably in a real difficulty. However, unless we know where they're going to invest, that becomes a different problem. It raises the question, which this government doesn't want to do—no governments want to do it once they do defence once—about the need for a defence review. Mr. Fergusson went on to add the following: Remember that National Defence, over the past many years—I think in every year I can remember—continues to give back money to the central agency. I might be wrong about the number, but I think last year it was $1.1 billion that was returned. Well, that's a problem. You can commit money, but the question is, where do you spend it...for what ends? That's an open question to this day in Canada. Associate professor Robert Huebert of the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary had this to say: Let's recognize that the 2% increase, when it was created by NATO, is a political target. Once again, what we're really talking about is, what is the need for the effect of the Canadian Forces going into this new environment? It really comes down to the ability to deter growing aggressor states and fight in a collective security environment should that deterrence break down. When we went into the immediate post-Cold War period, we of course went through what many democratic countries saw as the ability to save money on defence, because there wasn't a fear that we had to deter anyone and we weren't going to be called upon to fight. That has obviously changed since at least 2014—I would argue 2008. The question is, okay, 2% sounds good in terms of making a commitment, but it's really getting to that capability...in terms of having the types of forces that you will be able to recruit and bring in to actually give effect to it. It really gets to the heart of what you're asking, and that is that we need to have an ability to go beyond just simply saying, okay, 2% or 1.9%. Those are numbers. Professor Stephen Saideman, who holds the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University, said, and I quote: I would just jump in here and say that we also have to think a little more about how we do our procurement, because it's often seen as a jobs program for electoral political benefit, as opposed to what is best for what we need. For instance, we're seeing in Ukraine a variety of defence systems that are working really well.... Should we build our own anti-tank weapons when there are very good ones out there? Should we build our own anti-aircraft weapons when there are very good ones out there? We need to be a little more realistic about what our own defence industry can do and what it should do, and this leads to a challenge that we've had in our country. We feel that once we start building up a defence industry, it must be kept busy with a variety of projects: “Well, we need to sell LAVs [light armoured vehicles] to Saudi Arabia.” If we think about our defence industry for a minute, we need to think about whether it makes sense for us to have domestic producers of all the stuff, because it puts us in the difficult position of trying to find ways to keep them busy in between our own major projects. We need to think a little more about buying from other folks. Essentially, when I asked at the meeting whether we should, or should not, increase the defence budget to 2% of the GDP, the three witnesses made it a point to take into account two important aspects, namely the human resources issue, which includes the pressing problem of personnel recruitment and retention, and the procurement issue, which is currently impacting the Canadian Armed Forces. With respect to procurement, as James Fergusson mentioned in his testimony, year after year, National Defence generally returns more than $1 billion of its budget because it has not spent the money. This is symptomatic of a cumbersome, slow, inefficient and extremely politicized procurement system. Broadly speaking, the Bloc Québécois is not particularly concerned about the Liberal government’s ability to spend, or, more aptly, to throw money out the window, and that is precisely what we do not want, spending for the sake of spending. A recent example of the government’s ability to spend for the sake of spending is the dithering over the acquisition of the new fighter jets. After saying “anything but F-35s” seven years ago, the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to extend the life of our old CF-18s. In the meantime, it paid a premium to purchase Australian F-18s that needed millions of dollars in upgrades. All that to finally go back to square one and announce the purchase of the F-35s. In addition to spending, there are problems like the naval strategy, obsolete military equipment, the lack of air defence capability and the fact that the army was long unable to provide its members with something as simple as boots, asking soldiers to buy them themselves and then apply for a reimbursement. One of the questions we should ask the government in the future about the various procurement projects is whether the regional benefits have been maximized. Given that, in the mid-2010s, the government abolished the “regional” aspect of industrial and technological benefit obligations, and that more than 50% of aerospace production comes from Quebec, it is to be expected that the Bloc Québécois would pay close attention to anything relating to the acquisition of military drones, for example, especially since this is a burgeoning industry in Quebec. With respect to recruitment and retention, the Standing Committee on National Defence is currently examining that issue. This is a study the Bloc Québécois called for. The question that arises is the following: What is the point of increasing the National Defence procurement budget if it does not have the personnel needed to manage it? For example, the Royal Canadian Air Force is paying a high price for its low personnel retention rate. It has a shortage of experienced pilots and technicians. Because of our old aircraft, each hour of flight requires more than 35 hours of maintenance. In 2018, the Auditor General released a devastating report on the state of the air force, revealing that it has only 64% of the qualified CF-18 pilots it needs and that 22% of technician positions are either vacant or filled by unqualified technicians. The personnel shortage also impacts the support we can provide our allies, and Canada is becoming less and less of a credible partner in this respect. For example, NATO countries are currently taking part in Operation Cold Response in Norway. Some 30,000 allied soldiers are participating. Canada is sending a grand total of 10 people. I asked Major-General Paul Prévost about this on March 9. Not only did he confirm that the fact that we were sending only 10 people had nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine, since the decision was made long before the conflict, but he also added something quite troubling. He said, “Currently in the Canadian Forces, some of the threats to our operational readiness are related to the number of people we have.” In short, the National Defence budget cannot and should not be increased without a review of the procurement processes. We also need an in-depth review of the recruitment and retention issue. That is unavoidable. I will make a brief aside here before concluding, because the question of how to finance the increase to the National Defence budget may be raised, since we are talking about an additional $16 billion per year if we want to reach 2% of the GDP. My colleagues can decide whether it is fair to see a connection between the two, but I will simply mention that, on average, the federal government finances fossil fuels to the tune of $14 billion a year. In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois is focused far more on the “how” than on the “how much,” and the “how” will inevitably require some serious soul-searching about the army’s procurement methods and short- and medium-term solutions to recruitment and retention problems.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Apr/5/22 11:31:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with a warming climate, we are seeing the impacts of climate change: raging forest fires, flooding and other types of natural disasters. In my home province last year, over 350 military personnel had to go to the interior to fight forest fires. We saw what happened to Lytton, B.C. I really believe it is time for Canada to provide not just the manpower to tackle climate emergencies, but also the proper equipment and technology. In the U.S., it is common practice to use C-130s, CH-47s and Black Hawks to support aerial firefighting capacities and we are not doing that here in Canada. There is a company in my riding, Coulson Aviation, that is supporting the Argentinian, Chilean, Bolivian, American and Australian militaries, yet Canada is not doing that. Could my colleague speak about this? Does she believe that the Canadian Armed Forces are not well equipped to deal with these natural disasters in Canada and that there is going to be further demand with a warming climate? Does she agree that improvements need to be made so that the Canadian Armed Forces are able to respond to these incidents here in our own country?

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Ms. Christine Normandin

Apr/5/22 11:33:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is a very interesting question that we will have to consider. It is likely that we will be seeing an increasing number of extreme climate events in the future. Who will respond? Will it be systematically up to the regular forces, because they are the best equipped? Maybe not. Perhaps we should consider another model, for example a paramilitary militia dedicated to this type of response. It could be made up of people who are less interested in combat and the more traditional nature of the army and might be more interested in this type of response, like the Rangers. We could train them accordingly.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

Apr/5/22 11:33:50 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned recruitment in her speech and the struggles we have. Does she think this is due to the fact that when our veterans complete their duty of service, the government does not provide them with the health services they need to transition back to regular life?

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Ms. Christine Normandin

Apr/5/22 11:34:13 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, that is not the only issue with recruitment and retention. There are many others. One of the problems that comes up the most often but that could be resolved quickly and practically is the issue of housing. Forces members struggle to find housing or run into high housing prices in the places they are relocated to. Some make a bit of money, but others lose a lot. There are fewer and fewer military housing units where families can stay. Forces members are increasingly being asked to transfer when it is not necessarily justified. That is one of the issues we can address. That being said, the entire veterans file is obviously important. My colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles does a lot of work with francophone veterans on the processing times for their claims, which are much longer than average.

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Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)

Apr/5/22 11:35:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what a magnificent speech. I am captivated. If I did not know the hon. member for Saint-Jean, I would ask her for her phone number. Fortunately, we know each other well. She referred several times to a regional distribution of benefits. I am from Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, which has the largest military air base, where the aging CF-18s are kept. However, I would like to point out that we did not receive the promised drones, which will probably go to another military base. I would ask my well-informed colleague if, in her opinion, Quebec is receiving its fair share of military investments.

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Ms. Christine Normandin

Apr/5/22 11:35:55 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question that unfortunately I cannot answer, because, around 2014, the federal government abolished the regional aspect of industrial and technological benefits. As a result, we no longer know where the money goes. We can guess that it goes where it is more helpful for election purposes. What we are hearing through the grapevine is that, since then, Quebec has not been doing anywhere near as well, although it accounts for 50% of aerospace production.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Apr/5/22 11:36:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to cite a Latin proverb. My Latin is not very good, but long live Astérix. Si vis pacem para bellum, which means, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” I never liked this proverb, but I have to say it is still necessary, even in 2022. I hope that one day we will manage to live in a world where conflicts will be resolved through diplomacy, intellectual skills, open-mindedness, collaboration and consensus building. National defence is a means of ensuring not only our own security and safety, but also the security and safety of populations under threat, whether those threats are natural or political and human. Today, we are talking about fulfilling our commitment as a NATO country to devote 2% of our GDP to national defence spending. My colleague eloquently explained that the Bloc Québécois agrees, but we still need to know how to manage our groceries. I was trained as a teacher, and I like to make things simple, to explain complicated things using simple words. When I say that we have to know how to do our groceries, we must know what we have in stock, see if it is still good, and then determine what we need before we go out shopping. According to the Auditor General's report 3, released in the spring of 2020, National Defence does not know exactly what it has in its inventory and does not know how to account for it. There is a lot of confusion. As my colleague stated earlier, National Defence returns more than $1 billion per year to the central budget as a result of underspending. That is problematic. The commitment was made in 2014, but we have yet to meet it. We must ask ourselves questions. What is military spending? What should it include? Military procurement is fraught with problems. What is going on? There are other problems we must examine as well, because it is all interrelated. What is considered military spending? Naturally, it includes arms, which my colleagues spoke about at length. That said, we need arms and military means of transportation that are up-to-date and functional. For example, the CF-18s are outdated. They require more than 30 hours of maintenance for every flight hour. How much maintenance do the Australian F/A-18 Hornets need? It is difficult to know. I asked the question several times in committee and did not get an answer, so I do not know how many maintenance hours are required for every flight hour on the F/A Hornets. It would be nice to have helicopters that do not crash and submarines that do not catch fire. Our submarines spend more time under repair than under water. Canada ordered six Arctic and offshore patrol ships, but they cannot go to the Arctic in the winter because the ice is too thick, so they patrol the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. If they are called “Arctic” ships, maybe they should be able to patrol the Arctic. We have “polar” ships instead, except that two polar ships for all of northern Canada is not a lot. The government bought C6A1 machine guns, first introduced in 1958, for $28,000 each. We have Browning Hi-Power pistols, first produced in 1935, which was before the Second World War. Our anti-tank weapons are not much better. Canada has the Carl Gustaf 84 mm and the M72, both of which have an effective range of approximately 300 metres and fire straight, right at where tanks are best protected. That 300-metre range is not much compared to other countries' anti-tank capacity. Our radar systems are also outdated, and I could go on. All of this falls under procurement. No one is checking and upgrading the equipment. I remember hearing about how, a long time ago, our soldiers were sent into battle in the desert with green uniforms. That is also something to be considered with respect to procurement. How about training, which is also part of the 2%? Training needs to be done with new equipment. We need to ensure that our students are training with the same equipment they will be using, not with outdated equipment. Retention also involves ensuring that our soldiers can use the equipment they were trained on. Young people these days are very tech savvy. They want technology. They cannot get enough. I am sorry, but they will not be interested if they are given technology from 1935 or 1958, no matter how noble the mission may be. As I said, military procurement is fraught with problems. The military does not know what is in its inventory and is unable to respond to emergencies, even during training and exercises. The Auditor General of Canada wrote about this in report 3 from the spring of 2020. The military does not always seem to know what it has in stock. The report also mentions requests submitted to a warehouse that turned out not to have the equipment in stock. It was requested from another warehouse but was not available there either. It had to be purchased. Imagine the delays. There are men and women waiting for training, and they need this in order to be up to date. The request was even marked “urgent”. In one case, the request involved parachutes. How can someone train to jump out of a plane if they have no parachute? Urgent means urgent. The delays are unbelievable. The tracking systems are as outdated as the equipment. If defence spending is to be increased to 2%, it must include a major overhaul of both the supply systems and the supply sources. The challenges of knowing where the equipment is and making it available also create other problems, including not being able to use the military's equipment transportation system and being forced to ask private carriers to do the military's job. This adds to costs, and I have not even touched on the mistakes of dithering over the F-35s and the national shipbuilding strategy. Another problem with procurement and obsolescence is recruitment. I mentioned this briefly. Another recruitment problem has to do with the Canadian Armed Forces' reputation when it comes to its treatment of women and certain minorities and genders. That needs to stop. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of someone who is being harassed and touched against their will. Imagine this is happening to a member of Parliament or one of their children. This cannot be tolerated from members of the Canadian Armed Forces, no matter how much stress they are under. I want to get back to the obsolete technology, which is something we hear all the time. I am not a fan of the Latin expression Si vis pacem para bellum, which makes me uncomfortable. However, we are behind in terms of our technological and industrial defence capabilities. This means that not only are we unable to defend those who need it most, but we also cannot defend ourselves. This investment will yield returns because it involves training in engineering, welding, shipbuilding, aircraft manufacturing, information technology and more. We have the brains here, and the government needs to stop calling on Silicon Valley. Let us invest for ourselves and for others. Most importantly, let us improve our procurement system, which might as well be from the Middle Ages.

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Mr. Ron Liepert (Calgary Signal Hill, CPC)

Apr/5/22 11:46:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think it is no secret that Thursday's budget is going to give the Liberal government quite a windfall on the revenue side because of increased oil and gas revenues, corporate taxes and personal taxes, all from the oil and gas sector, which every member of the House outside of the Conservative opposition is trying to phase out. Because of this windfall the government is going to be receiving, an unexpected windfall, would this be the right time to meet the objective that has been laid out in this particular motion?

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

Apr/5/22 11:47:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the oil industry will completely disappear. I think that there are some things we will always need. However, the oil industry must be drastically downsized if we want to maintain our environment for future generations. Yes, the industry brings in money. Part of this money could be used to achieve the 2% target. It is up to us to decide as members of Parliament. Reducing our oil consumption can only help, maybe not us, but our children and grandchildren. A real statesperson thinks about the future and future generations, not about the next election.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/5/22 11:48:21 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, here we have a Conservative motion. I find it very fascinating for the simple reason that, when I was in the opposition back in 2013, the Conservatives' spending as a percentage of GDP was actually less than 1%. That was in 2013. Now, we have advanced considerably further than that, and we will wait and see what takes place in the budget. Does the member not agree that there is a bit of irony there, with the Conservative Party saying 2%? Back in 2013, when the Conservatives were in government and I sat in the opposition benches, their spending was actually at less than 1% of the GDP.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

Apr/5/22 11:49:11 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I began my speech with proverb. I will now begin my answer with another proverb: Only fools never change their mind. That being said, when we make a decision, whether it is personal, general, political or governmental, we choose one of the best solutions at the time. It may not be the best decision in hindsight, but, under the circumstances, it was the best choice. Today we are realizing that we made a mistake that we need to correct. Let us not be fools; let us simply correct it.

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