44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 5, 2022 10:00AM
- Apr/5/22 10:32:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for working alongside my friend on the Standing Committee on National Defence, where we usually get along very well.
The 2% is a pledge we made, and we should meet our commitment. We should be moving toward it and we should meet it. We have already semi-committed to the F-35s, although the minister said in the House that they are still working on it and the other minister said it is a done deal, so I am a little confused on that file. What I do know is we are in desperate need, and my friend knows this as well, being on the defence committee. We are understaffed and underequipped, and we need to fix it now.
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- Apr/5/22 10:44:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention today. I know that when he and I were on the defence committee together a number of years ago, I believe it was in 2016 or 2017, the defence committee had brought forward a report that had a recommendation in it. It was the opinion of the committee at the time to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP, notwithstanding the fact that there can be a lot of complications with respect to that 2%, because not every country calculates it the same way.
Can the member comment on what, if any, work the committee has done since my time with him on that committee in terms of making any further recommendations around this issue?
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- Apr/5/22 10:44:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.
I am no longer a member of the Standing Committee on National Defence, so I am not completely up to date on all the reports that have been produced over the past five years, but the fact remains that the 2% issue keeps coming up. Something tangible needs to be done. The budgets have been lacking the past few years. For example, there is the “Strong, Secure, Engaged” policy. The committee can say what it wants, and it makes recommendations in its reports that are often quite good, but the government never follows through.
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- Apr/5/22 10:47:07 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles has missed a couple of things. I know he was only elected in 2015, so he missed the fact that the Conservatives let defence spending drop to its lowest level since the 1930s while they were in government. He seems to have missed that the NDP has voted for every increase in military spending since 2016. He also seems to have missed that the NDP changed its policy on NATO nearly 30 years ago.
I wonder if the hon. member would like to explain how the Conservatives have gone from taking defence spending to its lowest level ever to now endorsing an arbitrary doubling of defence spending.
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- Apr/5/22 10:49:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Don Valley West this morning.
I rise in the House to talk about the progress we have made in implementing Canada's defence policy of Strong, Secure, Engaged. When we first released SSE back in 2017, we provided a comprehensive list of capital projects, policies and procedures to ensure that our military could meet our biggest defence and security threats now and into the future. To help fund these items, SSE also forecasted a steady increase in defence spending from $18.9 billion in 2017-18 to $32.7 billion in 2026-27. That is an increase of 70% to our defence spending. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine and the myriad of other defence and security challenges we have faced over the past five years, we were already on track to increase defence spending by more than 70%.
While SSE remains our main guide for making sure CAF members are well supported and well equipped, the evolving global security environment has underscored just how important and urgent our investments in defence are. That is why, as both the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence have indicated, we will be further increasing our investments in defence, including a comprehensive spending package going toward continental defence.
With that in mind, I want to give the House an update on the progress that DND has made in implementing this policy so far, and on the work that we are doing to safeguard our country and continent and support our allies and partners in good times and in bad. Key to these efforts is having a well-supported, resilient workforce that feels safer coming to work every day. When DND launched SSE in 2017, it included several critical initiatives aimed at supporting CAF members and their families throughout their entire careers. This included developing a total health and wellness strategy with the goal of supporting defence team members' mental and physical well-being at all times.
I am pleased to note that National Defence launched this strategy earlier last month. Over the next several years, it will invest more than $950 million to enhance health and wellness programs and services for defence team members, including expanding the Office of Disability Management by adding more regional offices across the country, providing personalized support services to injured, ill and impaired public service employees, and improving care for Canadian Armed Forces members who are recovering from an illness or injury. Through SSE, National Defence has also done important work expanding the services offered to military families through military family resource centres, and has helped address the challenges that come with a life in uniform through the seamless Canada initiative, which helps to address gaps in service when military families are posted across the country and must navigate new school systems, careers and health care settings.
These are just a couple of the initiatives in SSE aimed at supporting defence team members and their families. We know that Canada's position in the world and our safety and security here at home come down to the well-being of those who serve in it. All that we do, from procurement to health care to cultural change, must be focused on the people who put service before self, the members of our Canadian Armed Forces.
At the same time, we know that our people in uniform need the right equipment to do the difficult jobs that we ask of them. They need state-of-the-art fit-for-purpose tools that can meet the challenges of modern warfare across all domains. In SSE, National Defence outlined over 300 capital projects critical to our military success and our continued interoperability with allies and partners for decades to come. While the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly contributed to project delays and supply chain disruptions, we remain committed to delivering on these projects, providing the very best equipment for our people in uniform while ensuring Canada's economy benefits from our defence investments.
Despite the challenges of the past few years, we are making progress. In fact, since 2017, 75% of the policy's capital projects, which is 258 projects, are in the implementation phase, near completion or completed. Several high-profile projects kept moving forward even as much of the world shut down.
Just last week, the Minister of Public Service and Procurement and the Minister of National Defence announced that Canada was moving into the finalization phase of the future fighter competition with Lockheed Martin and the U.S. government. If an agreement is successfully reached, Canada could see initial aircraft deliveries as early as 2025. This is the most significant investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force in over 30 years, so we have been taking the time. We need to get this right and ensure that we are purchasing the right jet with the right value for CAF and Canadians.
We have taken the same careful, considered approach to building our fleet of Arctic and offshore patrol ships for the Royal Canadian Navy. The first of these ships, HMCS Harry DeWolf, has already participated in missions like Operation Nanook and Operation Caribbe, and has transited through the Panama Canal. It also recently completed a circumnavigation of North America, the first Royal Canadian naval ship to do so since 1954. The second ship, HMCS Margaret Brooke, has completed the ship's icebreaking and Arctic environmental trials and will return to Arctic waters to participate in the maritime portion of Operation Nanook this summer. The third, fourth and fifth AOPS are in various stages of construction, with the construction of the sixth AOPS expected to begin later this year.
As we deliver on these critical projects for our navy and air force, we are also delivering on our promise to provide the Canadian army with a fleet of 360 armoured combat support vehicles. These vehicles have been designed to replace our current fleet of LAV II Bison and M113 tracked LAV fleet. They are more mobile with longer operational range, better equipped to conduct operations at night and in bad weather and safer for our people in uniform, offering improved protection against weapons and explosives. The first of these vehicles are expected to be delivered to the Canadian army later this year.
The investments under Canada's defence policy ensure that we deliver the equipment, infrastructure and innovation to help our military advance our national security objectives and interests. However, they are also critical to our national prosperity, resilience and economic well-being. As the largest federal employer, National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces have a significant presence in every province and territory, so investing in defence also means creating more jobs and generating economic benefit for communities from coast to coast to coast. These investments also mean that we are better positioned to support our allies and partners across the globe, including those under threat from Russian aggression.
Through SSE, we are committed to remaining engaged in the world now and into the future. We are supporting Ukraine in its fight for freedom and self-governance, standing shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies on Operation Reassurance and Operation Impact, both of which we recently extended, and deploying wherever and whenever CAF support can make a difference. In times of global uncertainty, we know that our mutual relationships are even more important, and our SSE investments will help us remain effective and a reliable, stable partner within NORAD and NATO for decades to come.
When we launched Strong, Secure, Engaged back in 2017, we made sure that it was flexible enough to deal with a rapidly evolving defence and security environment. This means that while there are certain challenges that DND and CAF could not have anticipated, chiefly the global pandemic, they have remained ready to respond and had the flexibility to adjust timelines accordingly. As we continue discussing ways to increase defence spending, this policy will remain our government's road map, enabling us to strengthen our defences here at home and help uphold peace and security across the globe.
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- 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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- 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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- Apr/5/22 12:33:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the world before February 2014 was a very different one. We had the peace dividend as a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many NATO members significantly reduced their defence budgets in the view that Russia no longer presented a threat to the safety and security of Europe. That changed after the Sochi winter Olympics, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Prime Minister Harper understood the world had changed, which is why Canada agreed to the Wales Summit Declaration of 2014.
We need to understand that the world has changed since then and since the invasion of February 24 of this year, and that Russia now presents a direct threat to the safety and security of this country, as does the People's Republic of China. We need to respond accordingly with an increase in the defence budget.
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- Apr/5/22 1:08:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak in today's debate and I want to thank my colleague for South Surrey—White Rock for having put forward this very important motion. It is a very timely motion that I will support.
I have been calling for quite a long time for defence spending to be increased. I believe that it is something we owe to the men and women of our Armed Forces, to make sure that those brave men and women who fight for Canada, who devote and sacrifice their time and their family lives so that our country is well defended here and abroad, have all of the equipment, services, support and training they need to flourish.
I do not believe that Canada's military should be anything less than a great military organization. We have the 10th-biggest GDP in the world. We should have a fighting force that is equipped and ready to fit that representation of a country that has the 10th-biggest GDP in the world. For me, this is a very important motion to recognize that while it is true that we have increased the spending on the military, we still need to do more to meet our NATO target of 2%. In 2013, our spending was about 1%, compared with about 1.37% today.
To remind us of that, I appreciate that. I also appreciate it being done at this time. Canadians, for the first time in my political career, are actually beginning to recognize the importance of spending on our Armed Forces with this conflict in Ukraine, and the Russians' horrible aggression under the very, very bad Vladimir Putin. He is definitely a war criminal. What he and his henchmen and his military have done in Ukraine by starting a war in Europe, the first major war since the Second World War, is something that Canadians have looked at by seeing the images on TV. It is different from the Second World War, when people received news from newspaper reports days later. They saw things on film, but they did not see things instantaneously on television. Canadians are rightly horrified by what is happening. They are saying that Canada really needs to be part of defending Ukraine.
I have been proud of what we and our NATO allies have done. Our NATO allies and Canada have really stepped up to the plate, whether by sending humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, sending military assistance to Ukraine, or providing training over the years for over 33,000 troops in Ukraine who have helped Ukrainians on the ground to counter Russian aggression. With respect to the assistance we are going to be providing to those Ukrainians who want to come to Canada, whether temporarily or permanently, I think Canada has really stepped up. The fact that we are sending the HMCS Halifax, a second frigate, to Europe to join NATO military forces is really important.
What we are doing in Latvia is also really important. The Aurora maritime patrol that has been transferred to NATO command is important. The fact that we are commencing our next rotation of NATO-enhanced air policing in Romania is important. The extension of our commitment is important, and 3,400 Canadian Armed Forces are on high readiness in case they need to go to Europe. That is important. I want to again thank those men and women of our armed forces for all of the incredible work they do.
I also want to thank our veterans. I met veterans for the first time when I was elected to be a councillor. I was very young, just 23 years old. We had a legion full of Second World War veterans. When they came back, they built communities in my riding such as the city of Côte Saint‑Luc, where I served as mayor; the town of Hampstead; and the town of Mount Royal, the part of Montreal that I represent. They were very brave veterans who left Canada, Montreal and Quebec when they were 18 years old to go fight in the Second World War. They came back, they did not complain, they volunteered, they created our communities. Every year, crowds of people came out to parades. Nowadays, there are very few people from the Second World War left in the parades. They cannot do it anymore. We have to remember what they went through.
I also want to take this opportunity to talk about how important it is to provide substantively equal services to veterans in both official languages. What I mean is that processing time for complaints and documents submitted in French should be the same as for those submitted in English.
That is one thing I will continue fighting for.
I appreciate the way the House has treated this topic in a non-partisan way, because there are a lot of things we can argue about. I heard the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent say that before. There are a lot of things we can argue about, but defending our country is not one of them. The support for our armed forces is not one of them. The support for our veterans is not one of them. I have been so heartened to see this House's unanimous support for Ukraine, and the fact that there were no dissenting voices in imposing sanctions on Russia or on all of the actions we have taken to support Ukrainians in this terrible battle that Russia and Vladimir Putin have started.
This motion also importantly reflects the new geopolitical realities in the world. Although it has been a threat for a long time, we are now at a time where Russia is finally seen to be the true threat that it is, whether it is in cybersecurity or our Arctic. We are a neighbour of Russia. We need to be prepared for that Russian threat. Russia is pushing China, as well, in this regard. China is watching carefully, in terms of Taiwan, what Russia is doing in Ukraine to see if it can get away with something. We need to be prepared, as NATO allies and as Canadians, to stand true.
The final thing on that point is that, when it comes time to look at our geopolitical realities, we also have to look at whether we can always depend on the United States and NORAD to defend us. I want to particularly thank President Biden, because the United States is the world's strongest democracy. It has the strongest armed forces in the world. We rely, as do our NATO allies, on U.S. leadership when it comes to taking on a worldwide nuclear power such as Russia. The United States' Secretary Blinken and President Biden have consulted with us and with NATO allies. They have done all kinds of things to show the leadership that was missing in the previous Trump administration.
What I saw during the Trump administration was that we could not necessarily rely on the United States, under a president like Donald Trump, to step up and defend Canada in every single way. Canada needs to be prepared more than we have been to defend ourselves. We hope we will always have our best friend and ally, the United States, in our corner, but we need to make sure that we not only step up to the plate to share the responsibility to defend our continent with the United States, but that we are prepared even if they are not there for us.
This motion says we should increase the percentage of defence spending to meet those NATO targets. Although we are on track to improve, I want to say that it is so important to get to that 2% and make sure that we are properly equipped and properly trained, and it is important that all the men and women who have given so much to Canada, whether in the past or today, get exactly what they deserve: the best support possible from all parties in the Canadian Parliament.
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- Apr/5/22 1:33:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I suppose his indignation is justified with how the Liberals have failed so miserably on the defence file.
Let me list a few of the successful procurement projects that existed under the Harper government. There was the purchase of five C-17 Globemaster transport planes, the 17 CC-130J Hercules transport planes, the 15 Chinook helicopters, the Leopard 2 tanks, the modernized CP-140 Aurora surveillance planes, the modernization of the Halifax-class frigates and the acquisition of the Asterix auxiliary oil replenishment vessel, which is a contract the Liberals tried to cancel despite Admiral Norman's objections.
I could go on, but let me look back a little further. The amount of work Stephen Harper did to rebuild our military after the decade of darkness that I hear about every single time I—
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- Apr/5/22 2:55:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government has been ill-prepared and found wanting too many times on the national security front. It has embarrassed Canadians by its response to Ukraine and by the state of the Canadian Forces. The NATO spending goal is 2% of GDP. We are at 1.38% and number 25 overall.
Will the defence minister commit here and now to increasing defence spending in this budget by buying F-35s and moving forward with NORAD modernization?
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- Apr/5/22 2:55:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it unfortunate that the member opposite is characterizing the views of our Canadian Armed Forces as being ashamed. On the contrary, at the top of my mandate letter is making sure that the Canadian Armed Forces have the equipment they need to defend our country.
I am focused on delivering results for the Canadian Armed Forces. We are increasing defence spending by 70% over a nine-year period beginning in 2017, including for NORAD modernization and our commitments to NATO.
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- Apr/5/22 3:14:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, NATO allies' response to Russia's aggression has also accelerated NATO's transformation as it adjusts to a more dangerous strategic reality, including through the adoption of the next strategic concept at the NATO leaders summit in June. Canada is unwavering in its commitment to the NATO alliance, to the defence of Euro-Atlantic security and to the rules-based international order.
I would also say that as Canada, we understand the need to invest in defence to be agile and adaptable in the space of evolving threats. In 2017, Canada released its current defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, which considerably increased defence spending and put in place—
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- Apr/5/22 3:16:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, NATO allies' response to Russia's aggression has also accelerated NATO's transformation as it adjusts to a more dangerous strategic reality, including through the adoption of the next strategic concept at the NATO leaders summit in June. NATO will further develop the full range of ready forces and capabilities necessary to maintain credible deterrence and defence. These steps will be supported by enhanced exercises with an increased focus on collective defence and interoperability.
Canada is unwavering in its commitment to the NATO alliance, to the defence of Euro-Atlantic security and to the rules-based international order. We also understand the need to invest in defence to be agile and adaptable in the space of evolving threats. In 2017, Canada released its current defence policy, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, which considerably increased defence spending and put in place a plan to equip the Canadian Armed Forces for the rapidly changing security environment.
Canada will exceed the aspirational guideline of spending 20% of defence budgets on major equipment. This does not include expenditures associated with NORAD modernization and continental defence or the planned purchase of 88 next-generation fighter aircraft.
The steps we are taking to ensure the security of our alliance and of the Euro-Atlantic area will require adequate resources. Canada is substantially increasing our defence expenditures, and we continue our efforts to fulfill commitments to the defence investment pledge.
Canada is also clear-eyed about the potential threats in the Arctic and has committed to enhancing situational awareness in this domain. We will increase training and joint exercises with our Arctic allies and partners while promoting intelligence sharing in the Arctic, including with NATO.
Our contributions to NATO demonstrate Canada's unwavering commitment to the alliance and to strengthened allied capacity to respond to the evolving security environment. Our contributions maintain and strengthen the transatlantic bond.
In conclusion, Canada, Europe and NATO—the entire transatlantic community—is speaking with one voice. We will continue to engage the broader international community to maintain strong condemnation and pressure on Putin. The Russian leadership will answer for Russia's horrifying attacks on Ukraine. We will continue to work with our allies and partners in NATO, the G7, the OECD, the UN, the EU and the international community to support Ukraine as it fights for its country, democracy and freedom.
We call on Russia to withdraw all of its troops from Ukraine and its illegal invasion and turn to fact-based diplomacy and dialogue. Ukraine has the right to be free and secure, and every Ukrainian deserves the right to dignity and peace.
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- Apr/5/22 3:48:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is very knowledgeable and I will not engage him in the “who loves 2% more” game that has been going on for a while, because it is kind of a useless exercise.
I too want to pick up on the member's comments about the peace dividend during the Cold War, which is critical to our understanding of the Canadian government's casualness toward defence spending. We have enjoyed the peace dividend that is provided primarily by the American umbrella and we need to change our attitude toward defence spending.
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- Apr/5/22 3:51:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first and foremost, the world changed in 2014. As for the investments in the Canadian Armed Forces, without continuing to rely upon the peace dividend after the end of the Cold War, it was time to start making those major investments. That is why Prime Minister Harper signed on to the Wales Summit pledge that we would hit that 2% of GDP. It took the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to get there now.
We have to fix the procurement system. That is the only way we can ensure we get equipment delivered faster, and we can get the kit that is required. We need to use the Defence Production Act as much as possible and ensure that there is not a misappropriation of dollars in things like defence procurement. A lot of the things that we are talking about, including NORAD modernization, are going to require us to buy off the shelf. A lot of companies around the world make it and that is the way we are going to get the best kit for our troops.
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- Apr/5/22 4:05:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a brief response. I cannot even pretend to get into all the nuances and complexity of what the member is asking. I spent a year on an army defence procurement project. In my experience throughout my military career, the biggest challenge we had, and I think this probably exists in a lot of departments, was that we felt that if we did not spend it, we would lose it. The member's idea of carrying forward does not truly work, definitely not within DND.
When it comes to these defence procurement projects, the real challenge is the political interference. I believe this so much, and I do not mean they do it on purpose. It is because we can get into this idea of why this project is what we need. We can look at previous parties during different elections, with different campaigns and how they ran on certain things, but ultimately they need to get out of that. That is why I believe in non-partisan or bipartisan defence policy and foreign policy.
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- Apr/5/22 4:07:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, it is not an easy answer, but it is all of the above. We need to invest in our recruiting. Almost a decade ago, I tried to write a master's paper, and I failed miserably at that too, specifically about why we need to invest our best people within the Canadian Armed Forces into the recruiting system so we have that flexibility to recruit the best. As we all know, the huge labour shortages the country is facing, it is a shortage across most of the western world, so we have to get those right people.
The other key aspect the government could do to help fix this is on the procurement side. One of the things that we are actually lacking within the government, in my opinion, is enough expertise within defence procurement alone. If we can invest more to get those quality people into that, it would allow the procurement cycle to improve. By investing in training, investing in support for families and investing in our members, we can never go wrong.
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- Apr/5/22 4:08:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, this is not an easy answer. It is justified, from my opinion, and we are obviously supporting putting 2% into our military, because as I explained in my speech, the world is a volatile place and people dying around the globe. I am not trying to take away from dental care or pharmacare, which are primarily provincial jurisdiction, but the point is that national defence is a federal jurisdiction issue, and it is what we should be focused on in the House.
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- Apr/5/22 4:19:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite clearly understands the importance of making vital investments in our national defence to get up to our NATO commitments. It is also clear from the debate today that the government's partners in the NDP simply do not. They have an ideological opposition to making the investments that are required in defence and they do not understand that investing in our security is fundamental to anything else that we want to do as a country.
I asked the foreign affairs minister at committee whether the agreement with the NDP involved any commitments with respect to foreign policy or security policy, and she said no. That is good news, I think. It also shows that the NDP is not as engaged in these issues as it should be. However, then I asked the minister if she was confident that the agreement between the government and the NDP would hold if the government chose to increase defence spending, and she could not answer that question.
I am concerned that the NDP agreement with the government will limit our capacity to invest in defence spending and will hold the government back in doing the things that it needs to do. Does the member share my concerns that the partners that the government has in the NDP are going to put those required investments at risk?
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