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What the Admiral said Selected transcripts of the Standing Committee on National Defence Feb. 22/200739th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
Standing Committee on National Defence
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Lib.))
Hon. Denis Coderre (Bourassa, Lib.)
Mrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC)
Mr. Russ Hiebert (South Surrey—White Rock—Cloverdale, CPC)
Mr. Steven Blaney (Lévis—Bellechasse, CPC)
Hon. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.)
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ)
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster—Coquitlam, NDP)
Hon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Lib.)
Vice-Admiral D. Robertson (Chief of the Maritime Staff, Department of National Defence)
Commodore R.W. Greenwood (Director General, Maritime Equipment Program Management, Department of National Defence)
Mr. Terry Williston (Director General, Land, Aerospace and Marine Systems and Major Projects Sector, Public Works and Government Services Canada)
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
I'd like to welcome our guests. We have with us today, from the Department of National Defence, Vice-Admiral Robertson, chief of the maritime staff; Commodore Greenwood, director general, maritime equipment program management; and from Public Works and Government Services Canada, we have Mr. Terry Williston, director general of land, aerospace, and marine systems and major project sectors. We also have with us Mr. Edward Lam, director of the joint support ship project.
I'll just introduce our guests for the second session as well, if I may. Also from the Department of National Defence, we have Lieutenant General Leslie, chief of the land staff. We have with us Colonel Riffou, director of land requirements. We have with us Chief Warrant Officer Lacroix, land forces chief warrant officer. From Public Works and Government Services Canada, we have, as I mentioned earlier, Mr. Terry Williston, director general of land, aerospace, and marine systems.
I'd like to welcome you, gentlemen, and thank you for being with us today.
I think the normal practice when I was chairing was that the witnesses spoke first. Will all four of you be speaking, if I may ask? I just need to know for timing purposes.
Vice-Admiral D. Robertson (Chief of the Maritime Staff, Department of National Defence):
Do you mean in terms of an opening statement? I believe I'm the only one with an opening comment.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Good, so we'll allow ten minutes, then, sir, for your presentation, and then we'll start our normal practice with questions.
The floor is yours, sir.
VAdm D. Robertson:
Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen.
Thanks for providing us an opportunity to come here today and speak to you. Certainly we were encouraged by the active role that the committee is taking in the study of matters of national defence, and we look forward to this discussion of maritime procurement. I'm very pleased to be here with colleagues from Public Works, and with Commodore Greenwood, who I would characterize simply as the navy's engineer.
[Translation]
As Chief of the maritime staff and commander of Canada's navy, I am responsible for providing maritime forces to operational commanders who employ maritime power. This is what we call force generation, and it consists of providing commanders not only maritime forces that are equipped and trained for any mission, but also in establishing the policies, standards and doctrine that will translate into tactical excellence in maritime operations. This includes the setting of requirements for new or replacement capabilities that will ensure the continuing success of maritime operations.
[English]
The role military requirements play at the beginning of the procurement business has been introduced by previous witnesses, and I'd be pleased to discuss this further during the Q and A period. I'd like to focus my comments on those things that tend to make maritime procurement unique.
(0915)
[Translation]
The uniqueness of maritime procurement is attributable to the cost of maritime platforms, due to their complexity, and the timeframes over which they are acquired and employed. Delivering new or replacement capabilities takes longer than in the other environments because of the nature of warship design and construction—since warships are the most complex platforms the Canadian forces own.
[English]
Each of our warships is a self-contained entity that shouldn't be thought of as the equivalent of a fighter aircraft or a tank. In fact, as some of you have seen first-hand in visiting our ships, as a tactical platform each warship is more like parts of an army battle group or a flight of combat aircraft, as well as parts of the many assets that deploy and sustain those capabilities in theatre--strategic and tactical lift, combat support, combat service support, long-haul communications, intelligence, surveillance, force protection, and so on and so on--all rolled into one platform.
Virtually all these war-fighting and enabling capabilities are designed into warships from the keel up, and it's these organic and highly integrated capabilities that permit ships to operate globally for months at a time with the inherent flexibility to accomplish a range of different missions when deployed, as well as to seamlessly integrate into larger maritime formations when that's required.
All of this capability in a single package comes at an upfront cost that tends to create a little bit of a sticker shock among policy-makers, and that tends to delay maritime force recapitalization.
What's not often appreciated is the fact that despite the initial costs of maritime forces, the navy is the least expensive of the three services. This is the case when viewed across the entirety of the defence services program, which includes not only the capital costs for combat fleets, but also their ongoing sustainment costs, enabling infrastructure, research and development, and especially their personnel costs, and so on.
To that fact needs to be added the longevity of naval platforms and the timeframe measured in decades over which the initial capital investment in warships achieves effect. After all, the Iroquois-class destroyers were designed in the 1960s, commissioned in the 1970s, updated in the 1990s, and are still performing exceptionally well as both air defence platforms and command and control ships for the Canadian Forces, as well as for the NATO alliance and coalition forces.
And I have little doubt that any project to replace the Iroquois-class and Halifax-class will be very expensive, but our experience is that the replacement ships will serve from late in the next decade through until the 2050s or 2060s.
Nevertheless, the upfront costs of building or modernizing a class of ships is the largest challenge in military procurement that naval planners confront. That challenge has certainly made it difficult to proceed with capability replacement or creation. Even as the last of the Halifax-class frigates was delivered in 1996, we dealt departmentally with several project deferments or cancellations.
[Translation]
The real consequence of those deferment and cancellation decisions has been to increase the strategic risk that we will have diminished output in the middle of the next decade. Simply put, we will have fewer hulls available to respond to contingencies as we begin to modernize the Halifax class frigates.
[English]
Moreover, the later we introduce future surface combatants to replace our current ships, the greater may be the need to introduce them in a relatively compressed period of time, and that means we potentially miss an opportunity to break the boom-and-bust cycle that's long characterized naval procurement.
Previous witnesses have stated that the replacement of a warship class is one of those instances that favours a design-build approach to procurement, and there are a number of reasons for this.
First, ships are built in much smaller numbers than other fighting fleets, such as vehicles or aircraft. As a result, shipbuilding remains largely a made-to-order industry, despite the worldwide consolidation of maritime defence industries.
Second, national requirements have a major impact by virtue of the highly integrated nature of warship design. Embedded into ship design is the entire structure and philosophy of a navy's establishment, the concept of employment, manning, training and education, and maintenance, as well as conditions of service.
[Translation]
The design-build approach is exemplified by the Joint Support Ship project. As previous defence industry witnesses have noted, JSS has been more open during the pre-definition and definition phases than previous major warship activities. The project office is decidedly smaller than was the case for the Halifax class project, and it has made greater use of contracted engineering design support than was the case in the past. Commander Greenwood will be pleased to elaborate on these points in the questions and answers to follow.
(0920)
[English]
Ladies and gentlemen, with that, I'd merely emphasize that our ability to make long-term achievable and affordable plans over the life cycles typical for maritime forces creates the predictability that allows us to optimize our force planning, generation, and employment in the long term.
Mr. Chairman, thanks for the opportunity to make remarks. I'd be happy to take your questions.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Thank you very much, Vice-Admiral.
We'll go to our first questioner, Monsieur Coderre.
[Translation]
Hon. Denis Coderre:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Vice-admiral, thank you for being here today. Welcome to our committee. I have several questions to ask you, including one that may seem more policy-oriented.
We know that given climate change and the configuration of our country—our geography dictates our policy—we necessarily need a stronger Arctic policy.
As far as you're concerned, do you think you need to focus more on domestic needs than international needs? You are there either way to provide support, we know that, but in light of your forces' needs, do you not think we should focus a little bit more on the navy, to give you a bit more budget or redesign the Canadian Forces' budget overall to give a little more to the navy, given the fact that you have an important role to play from the geopolitical and geographical standpoint?
[English]
VAdm D. Robertson:
If I understand the question broadly, it's simply one of allocation of resources. Sailors are always happy to get more resources; previous folks have always noted that sailors never turn money back.
Hon. Denis Coderre:
That's a very good answer.
VAdm D. Robertson:
It is always a question of balance in building an armed force. What the last few of years since 9/11 have shown us is the absolute need to have balanced capability across an armed force, and not in any one area.
Hon. Denis Coderre:
Do you feel you're the poor cousins of the Canadian Forces? We Liberals believed, for example, that we wouldn't get involved in the C-17s. We felt we should have rented instead of spending $3.4 billion.
Because there's some domestic necessity, specifically I think we should invest more in the navy. It's all about reallocation, of course, but don't you think that in terms of what you live with in the field right now, you need more capacity than what you have, and that maybe we should internally put more emphasis on the navy than maybe the other forces?
VAdm D. Robertson:
Of course, like either of my two colleagues from the air force or the army, I would welcome additional resources for a variety of undertakings. Like any department, however, we have budgets to work within.
I'd go back to the fundamental point. When it comes back to building an armed force, that's what one has to do, rather than building an army, navy, or air force. The conception has to be about that balance.
Hon. Denis Coderre:
Thank you.
General Hillier, who is very outspoken, as we know, has said that requirements are like lines in the sand in this case. He has said what he wants, and he includes ships, airplanes, and helicopters.
How do you manage your own requirements? Do you give him a list of your needs? How does it work? What's the relationship with the CDS in the chain of command? How do you define your own requirements, your needs at the navy level, inside that chain?
VAdm D. Robertson:
At the navy level?
Hon. Denis Coderre:
At your level.
VAdm D. Robertson:
We look ahead at the future security environment, based on the work that we're doing today. Over the past year, we've had ships deployed with the alliance in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Africa. We have a ship that's just coming back from doing maritime security work with coalition forces in the Persian Gulf region. From all of those deployments, from our exercises, we make observations about where we think we should be doing things differently and where we need new capabilities for the future.
We also focus on what for most would seem to be the very long term, because naval capability is only delivered over a period of eight to ten years. We are always looking at what is likely to happen a decade to two decades from now. In terms of what can be put into warships or what new warships might look like, 2017 is almost tomorrow. In that regard, we watch what's going on around the world.
A decade from now, I would expect to see a variety of technological advances in the hands of coastal nations around the world, and those will require us to adapt over the coming decade. There would be several great examples, and I think the best would be the attack that Hezbollah put in against an Israeli frigate last summer. That shows the proliferation of capabilities to a terrorist organization.
A decade from now, we expect that terrorist organizations won't simply have a missile that travels at Mach 1; anyone could expect that surface missiles would be proliferated to travel at something of the order of Mach 2 or greater. We have to be able to work in the littoral region, and we have to be able to defend ourselves against that kind of capability.
Hon. Denis Coderre:
Mr. Williston, when I compare what's going on at the naval level to the army and.... Well, let's take the navy versus the air force. The naval level is really open and transparent. You don't have any ACANs. The industry knows in advance. By 2005 they were aware of the statement of operational requirements.
Why the difference between the air force and the navy? I would say the naval force is truly a model of transparent competition. Do you have the same definition of “transparency” at the air force level as they have at the naval end because they have a direct link with the industry?
Mr. Terry Williston (Director General, Land, Aerospace and Marine Systems and Major Projects Sector, Public Works and Government Services Canada):
I would personally think the level of transparency is relatively equal in all arms of the armed services.
One thing I would comment on is the comment that was made about the length of time it takes to develop naval requirements. I heard that 2015 is tomorrow, so I think there's a longer focus or a longer look to the future for those kinds of requirements. There's much more preliminary work done in the navy, perhaps, than in the other arms. From a procurement standpoint, though, I would think we offer the same level of transparency for all of the procurements we're attempting to proceed with.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Thank you, Mr. Williston.
We'll go onto Monsieur Bachand.
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ):
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the witnesses appearing before us this morning.
My first question is for Admiral Robertson. I don't know how you would proceed to weigh the value of the different projects. The government announced six projects costing a total of $20 billion. Of this amount, $16 billion are for the air force, $3 billion for the maritime forces and $1 billion for the land forces.
First, I would like to know what your reaction is to this. Do you believe the air force has such pressing needs that it requires 70% of the total amount allocated? Only 15% of the total amount would be allocated to the maritime forces. Do you support the breakdown of this amount between the three army corps in other words the marine, air and land forces?
[English]
VAdm D. Robertson:
If you were to go back over the last thirty years, and indeed if you were to forecast ahead over perhaps twenty or thirty years, you would see that the percentages allocated year by year fluctuate greatly, but that they tend to be relatively constant over time.
I'll give you an example. In the early 1990s, a huge investment was made in the navy that is continuing to pay off today, and that was the Halifax-class frigates, which were an upgrade over the Iroquois class. At that point, those two major crown investments were consuming a large portion of the available capital money, and there were people in the army and the air force who might have encouraged the same question to be asked about why the navy was being allowed to hog all of the armed forces money. So this does tend to go in cycles.
In the early 1990s, that was a function of the rust-out of the ships that we built in the 1950s and 1960s. We needed to make great change quickly. That was appreciated, so there was a reinvestment made.
That's not where we are today with the maritime forces, but there will need to be a reinvestment made in coming years. Again, it comes down to a question of balance. At this point, the air force absolutely needs reinvestment, and there will be a time to make a significant reinvestment in the navy in years to come.
(0930)
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand:
So, you say that over a prolonged period, it tends to even out.
I'd like to hear your opinion as to the importance of maintaining the supply vessel fleet. I'll give you an example. What would happen if, to pay for the aircraft, we had to decommission supply ships? Would you agree to that? That is the rumour we are hearing increasingly. According to me, if supply ships have to accompany a task force of ships and that we no longer have supply ships, we will have to ask for the Americans' help. If Americans are busy elsewhere, our ships and the task force will not be put to sea.
Would you agree to the department perhaps saying that supply ships would have to remain tied up at the dock until ordered otherwise because we've had to pay for the aircraft and there's no money left? What would your reaction to that be?
[English]
VAdm D. Robertson:
That question is based on perhaps an incorrect understanding of how the money is allocated. I should explain that the purchase of aircraft is capital money funded through one stream, as opposed to the ongoing maintenance of our ships, which is the ongoing O and M moneys that are given to the materiel group and given to the naval forces. I certainly expect that, for the reasons you cited—the importance of having those ships—we'll keep them running for several years to come.
At some period prior to receiving the first of the joint support ships, there will be a logical point when it will make sense to do what we have always done in the past. We typically decommission a serving ship some eighteen months or less prior to the commissioning of a new ship. We then take the crew and put them through all of the training required to operate the new vessel—in this case the joint support ship—so that the ship is effective on the first day.
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand:
All right. I will now move to Mr. Williston.
Mr. Williston, Dan Ross told us that the new way of operating, with respect to procurement within government, involves bringing together people from National Defence, Public Works, Industry and Treasury Board.
Do you agree with that?
[English]
Mr. Terry Williston:
Yes, I agree.
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand:
All right. In that case, you'll have to try to explain to me how you set your priorities. As I stated earlier on, the minister announced six programs and I would imagine this committee met to discuss the matter. So, the Defence department decided on the purchases to be carried out under these six programs. How did you set these priorities? Why buy C-17s first? Why buy the others at the end? Why are there adjudication contracts for some? Why letters of intent for others? Could you try to briefly explain this to me, unfortunately I have very little time left.
(0935)
[English]
Mr. Terry Williston:
The interdepartmental committees that I had mentioned before talk about projects specifically. So once a project has been approved, we meet as a group, as a senior project advisory committee, to determine the requirements for that particular project, the procurement strategy, and all the other parameters surrounding it.
When it comes to priority-setting at the departmental level, that's for the Department of National Defence to do and to answer to.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Merci.
Ms. Black.
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster—Coquitlam, NDP):
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for appearing at our committee today. I think you went through quite extensively the cycle of renewal of ships, and that was helpful.
A lot of people have suggested that we in Canada should make a long-term commitment to a steady production of ships, every 20 years or so. How do you, or the Canadian navy, see domestic shipbuilding capacity? Do you see that as a strategic asset in Canada?
VAdm D. Robertson:
I'll start, and then I'll ask Commander Greenwood to add slightly more.
Absolutely, we need a domestic shipbuilding industry for construction and ongoing maintenance of our vessels, and I think the same applies to the other government fleets. So the degree to which we can provide predictability certainly helps the shipbuilding industry.
If I use the example of a joint support ship, the openness and transparency that has characterized the project has allowed the industry to stay ahead of our requirement and to make sure they have the capacity ready when the time comes to take on the job.
Certainly one of the things that is offered by a steady shipbuilding program is that predictability that allows industry to make efficient investments and allows us to maintain a steady output of government fleets as well, rather than having the dips in output that are typical when one is engaged in batch—that is, very short-term—upgrading or construction.
Commodore R.W. Greenwood (Director General, Maritime Equipment Program Management, Department of National Defence):
Following on from that, one of the important aspects of having a domestic shipbuilding industry is that it helps to maintain the skills in the industry, both in terms of the hand skills in the trained labour, but also in the systems integration skills, which are so necessary to be able to upgrade and modify the ships in service, and that's certainly a requirement domestically.
So from a point of view of ongoing construction, it is of advantage to the navy to be able to forecast steady-state naval requirements, to look ahead at replacing the classes of ships, not so much as an individual class-by-class replacement, but look at it strategically as a replacement or an ongoing renewal of the navy as a system.
Ms. Dawn Black:
I think what you're saying to me is that you do see domestic shipbuilding as part of a strategic asset for Canada.
I grew up on the west coast, and I remember the Burrard dry docks being a very busy place at one time. They're not any more. I worry about the decline in Canadian capacity to fulfill the needs of shipbuilding as an industry in Canada, but to fulfill the needs of the Canadian navy as well, in the long-term, both on the east coast and on the west coast of Canada.
Cmdre R.W. Greenwood:
Certainly taking a long-term strategic planning view makes it easier for industry to be in a position to respond to the navy's needs.
Ms. Dawn Black:
Okay, thank you.
What, in your opinion, holds up the procurement process in Canada? Do you think it's the bureaucracy, or is sometimes the fact that governments and cabinets and ministers...? There seems to be this spread of responsibility in this whole process that I'm trying to understand and find out who is finally accountable on all this. What do you believe holds up this procurement process, which can often take a very, very long time?
(0940)
Mr. Terry Williston:
Well, I'm part of the procurement process—that's for sure. We'd like to think we operate the pieces that we're responsible for to the maximum efficiency possible. I think, as Mr. Ross indicated when he was here, a lot of the time taken in procurement is in the deciding stage. Perhaps a lot of time is spent either deciding or redeciding on many of these priorities and projects. I would tend to think that takes the longer piece of that whole procurement timeline.
Ms. Dawn Black:
What do you think is an acceptable timeframe for procurement? What do you think that goal should be?
Mr. Terry Williston:
It's project- or asset-specific. As was mentioned, on the shipbuilding side we tend to design to specific Canadian requirements--a design-and-build concept--that take much longer to procure involving Canadian industry, rather than some of those other types of procurements, which we talked about, that involve just procuring things off the shelf.
For example, to talk to your other question as well about the strategic interest or importance of shipbuilding, we host a marine procurement outlook conference annually where we bring together the departments that are involved in requiring ships--RCMP, Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans, and DND. They lay out their plans and programs for the next five and ten years in front of an industry audience, and the industry audience has the opportunity to understand what's coming down the pike, so to speak, and to prepare for those procurements. We'd like to think that helps us to better plan and manage the whole procurement process and the volume of procurements that are required in the Canadian shipbuilding industries.
Ms. Dawn Black:
In terms of the purchase of the joint supply ships, does the navy foresee any need in the future for a change in that doctrine?
VAdm D. Robertson:
With respect to the employment of the ships?
Ms. Dawn Black:
The purchase.
VAdm D. Robertson:
The manner in which they are purchased? I'm not sure I....
Cmdre R.W. Greenwood:
I'm not quite sure I understand your question. Is your question whether the navy sees a need for a change in the design-and-build approach?
Ms. Dawn Black:
In the doctrine of how the process works, I think is what I'm asking you.
VAdm D. Robertson:
No. In fact, I think the joint support ship project is a bit of a template for how we'll move for future acquisitions. As I noted earlier, I guess it would start with the long-term forecasts to industry in general and the specific information associated with any individual ship like the joint support ship. Getting it out early is what allows industry to coalesce their capability around the requirement and become efficient. In fact we're already using it as the template for future acquisitions.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Thank you very much.
We'll go to Mr. Hiebert.
Mr. Russ Hiebert:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for being here this morning.
Admiral Robertson, I have a quick question. Based on your experience of maritime acquisition, what's your greatest concern, as it affects the navy?
VAdm D. Robertson:
The greatest challenge is always in recapitalizing the fleet. That's an enduring challenge in all navies, because of the two points I mentioned earlier, one being the long time it takes to procure warships. Since it takes a long time, there never seems to be a sense of urgency, because a decision today only generates effect seven, eight, nine years from now. Delay is almost always possible in making decisions, because they won't cause an immediate effect. That's one challenge based on time.
The other is based on cost. Naval platforms being expensive, there is always an issue of fitting them into a program. The cost coupled with time means it's always easier in some cases to push things off just a little bit. That's why sailors tend to value a long-term plan that regularizes the acquisition, since it makes the coming to terms with a decision today for something that's going to generate effect a decade from now easier to deal with.
(0945)
Mr. Russ Hiebert:
Recently, the Chief of Defence Staff explained that the Canadian Forces lost a lot of talent in the 1990s. I think he referred to it as a decade of darkness. In light of this admission, is there sufficient maritime expertise in terms of further procurement of fleets?
VAdm D. Robertson:
I'd break that into two parts. The first would be the seagoing ship's officers, as opposed to the seagoing engineers, who are required to drive for any project. In this case, relatively fewer are required than the number of engineers required for a new project. But we still need a number of seagoing ship's officers to deliver any project. And in our case, it's just a matter of priority. We have to have a future fleet; therefore we have to invest in any project to see it through. Consequently, it's just a matter for us of reallocation of talent.
It's a different issue for the engineers because of the size of these projects. I'll let Commodore Greenwood speak to that.
Cmdre R.W. Greenwood:
I think the question also comes, though, back to this issue of strategic planning. With a long-term look ahead, we can plan the requirements we need, and we can also look at how the different recapitalization projects overlap and how the different demands of the different phases of a project intersect.
We're also working, as was mentioned with respect to the JSS project, on new ways of doing business and ways of engaging industry earlier and in a more open and partnership fashion, which also serves to mitigate the issue of expertise and to balance it between requirements for internal expertise and external expertise.
Mr. Russ Hiebert:
I understand that the Canadian patrol frigate project came in on time and on budget. I'm wondering if there are some lessons that this committee could take from your successful experience with that procurement?
VAdm D. Robertson:
Yes. Actually, I'd start merely by saying not only on time and on budget, but it delivered a world-class product. It is still, 15 years later, operating around the world and will be for decades to come, and certainly today it is a platform that other countries are envious of.
Cmdre R.W. Greenwood:
Certainly it demonstrated that Canadian industry can coalesce around requirement, where we'd had a hiatus in shipbuilding before that, between the building of the Tribals and the building of the Halifax class. So industry was able to coalesce around requirement. It illustrated to us the benefits of contracting out on a performance-based requirement, specifying the operational performance requirements rather than the fine details of how that performance would be delivered. Those have certainly been lessons that have been brought forward into subsequent shipbuilding programs, such as the Kingston class and currently the JSS.
One of the things that it did also illustrate, though, was that when we delivered 12 ships within a four-year period—they were all commissioned between 1992 and 1996—that then has continued the issue of boom and bust that the admiral referred to earlier. So that has also been a lesson that indicated to us that we wish to try to—again going back to the expertise question—phase out our deliveries in order to provide more of a stable demand on industry that they can plan for and work ahead to.
Mr. Russ Hiebert:
So if I hear you correctly, you're suggesting that the application of a performance-based specification worked well.
I've also heard you mention in earlier testimony that doing a technical specification is also a big part of identifying your requirements because of the size and enormity of the platform. Could you explain that a bit more, how it's a combination of both technical specifications and performance-based?
Cmdre R.W. Greenwood:
It is a balance. There are a number of national requirements that we have to meet: environmental requirements; health and safety requirements, which tend to be national-specific; there are some national-specific operational requirements, such as ability to operate in cases in icy waters. So one of the things we try to do is concentrate on what are national requirements but not dictate how the solution to those requirements is to be delivered.
(0950)
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Thank you very much.
We'll go to our second round now. It's five minutes.
Mr. McGuire.
Hon. Joe McGuire:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sharing my time with Mr. Martin, so I'll get right to it.
The joint support ships that were ordered and funded during the decade of darkness, at what point are we in the tendering process?
Mr. Terry Williston:
We have just recently awarded two project definition contracts to two consortia, and they will have a 14-month window in which to prepare the designs for the ships. We'll be looking at the product of their work in 2008.
Hon. Joe McGuire:
There are two firms left that are still...?
Mr. Terry Williston:
Yes.
Hon. Joe McGuire:
How long is this process? When did it start, and when do you anticipate that it will finish?
Mr. Terry Williston:
Well, it is a multi-stage process. We started off with a pre-qualification stage that began in June 2005. The RFP closed in September 2006, with the contracts being awarded to the two consortia in December of 2006.
As I say, that product is meant to be available for our review in 2008, with the first ships to be delivered in 2012.
Hon. Joe McGuire:
Are there any holdups in the process here? Can we make that process faster? Are there any kinds of anxiety about getting the ships onto the water?
Mr. Terry Williston:
There have been attempts around the edges to make the process faster. For example, we shaved a little off the amount of time given for the project definition work. But even within industry, there is concern that if they try to shorten timelines too much, they won't have sufficient time to pull their teams together, do the work that's required, and deliver a quality product. So we think the timelines that are out there right now are agreeable not only to us from a procurement perspective and from a delivery of product perspective, but also to industry.
Hon. Joe McGuire:
My last question is whether the admiral is getting his fuel for his ships now so he can participate in NATO exercises. Is that all straightened out?
VAdm D. Robertson:
I think you're referring to trying to manage within this fiscal year to get the effect that we need. And yes, the ships on both coasts are conducting the training that's required for the balance of the fiscal year.
Mr. John Cannis:
Mr. Martin, you have two and a half minutes.
Hon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Lib.):
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Admiral Robertson, Commodore Greenwood, Mr. Williston, and Mr. Lam, for being here today.
I'd like to ask just three very quick questions.
First, I'm hearing some disturbing reports that the subs are going to be scrapped in order to pay for other infrastructure. Is that true or false?
Second, can you give us some indication when the RFPs for the Iroquois replacement will be started?
Lastly, it was my understanding that our current supply ships will be mothballed two years prior to the new ships coming online. Can you tell me if that's true or false? If it's true, don't you think we ought to keep our current supply ships afloat in order to make sure that our navy has the supply required for them to exercise the duties that they do so well?
Thank you.
VAdm D. Robertson:
With respect to the supply ships, as I think I indicated earlier, in the normal process of decommissioning one ship to commission a new ship, we would naturally tend to decommission something like a year or a year and a half prior and then conduct the training to be able to take on the new ship upon commissioning. That's a ship-per-ship issue. What we would certainly try to do is, having come up with a plan to transition into the lead ship of the JSS, keep one of the older supply ships running so that we would always have an operational capability, if we could.
Actually, until we move to the next stage of the joint support ship process and actually award a contract and have some confidence in the delivery time, we won't finalize our plans for that transition work between the old and the new.
With respect to the Iroquois-class replacement, the navy at this point is working to define the requirements for a new class of ship. So that's internal work that's going to go on for some time, yet before we're prepared to go to industry.
With respect to the issue of submarines, I've certainly heard nothing at all that would indicate that. We're pressing full ahead to deliver operational capability with the boats.
(0955)
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Thank you very much, Vice-Admiral.
Monsieur Blaney.
[Translation]
Mr. Steven Blaney:
Thank you, Mr. Cannis.
Chief of the defence staff, commodore, Public Works and Government Services representative, welcome to you all this morning.
I appreciate this conversation. I am seeing that on the one hand you have to be able to plan the maritime forces' long-term needs and on the other, Ms. Black clearly referred to the fact that it was also in the industry's interest, because for decades, like over the last, dockyards have, practically speaking, been on life support.
I believe this should be one of our committee's recommendations. Surely, there would be consensus among Canadian members that, regardless of the governments in power, there needs to be a long-term policy with respect to the marine industry, so as to strike a balance between the equipment you need and production.
This leads me to the question I have for Mr. Williston.
You mentioned that not only are needs being felt by the navy, but also by other industry sector stakeholders. When will the meeting that you mentioned take place, the meeting between those who have to get these ships built, the coast guard etc.?
[English]
Mr. Terry Williston:
I've talked about two different kinds of meetings.
I talked about a marine procurement outlook conference that happens annually. At the conference, we bring together representatives from the RCMP, the Canadian Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans, and DND, and they lay out their long-term requirements for a period of five to ten years. We can get an understanding of the total government requirements. Industry can feed back to us on whether or not they're able to carry out those requirements and can give us some ideas with respect to specific projects. We welcome that kind of feedback.
With respect to what I talked about before on the senior project advisory committee, it generally happens as a project is moving through the approval process. For example, for the DND project, they've decided they want to move forward on the particular project. They'll call an interdepartmental meeting wherein we can review the intentions or objectives of the project and some of the specifics related to those high-level performance requirements. We can collectively discuss the appropriate procurement strategy that will ensure competition to the greatest extent possible and the other socio-economic considerations around any project that any of the departments do.
They're two separate types of meetings.
[Translation]
Mr. Steven Blaney:
At what time of year does the first meeting, the interdepartmental one, take place?
[English]
Mr. Terry Williston:
We usually convene in the summer period. For example, it was in June last year. We generally move it around. Last year it was in Halifax. I believe the year before it was in Quebec City, and the year before that I believe it was in Vancouver.
We like to make sure we move it around so that the various industry representatives from large and small companies have the opportunity to participate. We generally have somewhere between 125 and 150 industry participants who come to hear the government's plans for the next decade.
[Translation]
Mr. Steven Blaney:
In my riding, of course there is the Lévis dockyard. When I visited the site, I noticed a scale model with ramps for submarine building. In the end, unfortunately for our industry, these submarines were not built in Canada.
Could you tell us, general, where things stand with respect to the submarines? When do you think they will be operational? Which ones are?
[English]
VAdm D. Robertson:
We've had a very successful past 12 months with submarines, with two operating simultaneously on the east coast over the course of the fall. The submarines participated in a variety of fleet exercises with Canadian and American forces over the past year. In addition, we had training done with the army Pathfinders by one of our boats.
For both the insertion of special forces into the submarine delivered by aircraft and the insertion from the submarine into a coastline, all of the training was conducted quite successfully back in the spring.
(1000)
[Translation]
Mr. Steven Blaney:
Are the four submarines currently operational?
[English]
VAdm D. Robertson:
As you know, the Chicoutimi is awaiting eventual repair when we have the capacity to focus on Chicoutimi. Victoria is undergoing an extended work period on the west coast as part of the normal life cycle of submarines. As I've indicated, the other two were operational on the east coast.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
We have General Leslie outside, waiting. The first round was to end around ten o'clock. We've done very well, considering we had the motion. I'd ask that we suspend for a couple of minutes.
I want to thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations. We're trying to squeeze in as much as possible.
I have one quick question, if I may. Because shipbuilding is very important to us as a country with our rich tradition and history, when you put out these contracts, is it competitive internationally for bidders, or are they built in Canada? Many of us are asked these questions by our constituents.
Mr. Terry Williston:
In fact we have a shipbuilding policy in Canada that says where competition exists we will have a competition within the country for the ships to be built in Canada.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
But shipbuilding is a very changing industry. We did the review on shipbuilding, and it's very important, maybe not for me where I come from, the city of Toronto, but I know for other Canadians.
We had the technology. Is it not being competitive? Can you shed any light on that? Is it technology? It's a niche we don't want to lose--if anything, build on it.
Mr. Terry Williston:
The shipbuilding industry is extremely important to us as the procurement arm of government, because without it we will not be able to have successful tenders to deliver the product. Without a viable industry, we'll have difficulty obtaining the pricing we're looking for as well.
I can't speak specifically about the state of the Canadian shipbuilding industry, but I'd like to think that with some of the programs that are coming out of the Department of National Defence and with the Canadian Coast Guard fleet renewal program, there should be some stability in the future for the shipbuilding industry.
I would let them tell you about the exact state of their industry.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cannis):
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for being here and sharing your knowledge and information with us.
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