Linda Lapointe

“Mr. Speaker, it truly is a privilege to rise today to speak to Bill C-40, the defence and national security production and procurement act. In the wake of the tragic events at CFB Wainwright just over a week ago and the launch of the Royal Canadian Legion’s national poppy campaign this past weekend, we are reminded of the service and sacrifice of our Canadian Armed Forces, both past and present, and the importance of the debate we are having here today. Turning to the bill, it pains me to say that here we go again. This is the Liberal government’s third attempt to deliver defence equipment to our Canadian Armed Forces in an efficient and timely way. Perhaps three times is the charm. It was just one short year ago that I spoke to the Liberal government’s budget implementation act, Bill C-31, when the government made the case that its recently created Defence Investment Agency needed to become a stand-alone entity outside of both the departments of PSPC and National Defence. Bill C-40 proposes to turn the Defence Investment Agency into the Canadian corporation for defence investment. The Defence Investment Agency was launched to accelerate defence procurement, but it has failed to deliver a single piece of new equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces. Instead, the government points to signing ceremonies and preferred partnership announcements, pretending that this is the same as actually delivering. After a decade of neglect, what our sailors, soldiers and aviators need is a procurement process that equips them for the modern threats we face today. The brave men and women of our armed forces deserve the equipment they need to defend Canada and keep Canadians safe. Above all, they should be able to count on procurement processes that are efficient and accountable. As I was contemplating my remarks for today’s debate, I reflected on the question of accountability and trust: Do I trust the tired old Liberal government to do the right thing with respect to defence procurement? Let us look at its track record. One’s trust would be misplaced on so many fronts, but it is especially the case when it comes to trusting the Liberal government to do the right thing on procurement. I have had the honour of serving in this place for almost two decades, so I want to remind some of my colleagues who have not been here that long of a very sad saga. Canada joined the joint strike fighter program under the former Liberal government in 1997. That is almost 30 years ago. In 2010, under the leadership of a Conservative government, Canada finally selected the F-35, a fifth-generation fighter jet, to replace our aging fleet of CF-18s. Then, in a twist of overt political opportunism, former Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau, at the time the leader, campaigned on a promise to never purchase the F-35. This kicked off approximately seven years of Liberal stonewalling, obstructionism, foot-dragging and delays. The Liberals even concocted the silly idea of buying old jets from Australia. Then, in 2022, the same old Liberal government ended up choosing the F-35 as the CF-18’s replacement. I guess we can always count on a Liberal government to break a promise. However, this saga did not end there. In 2025, the same Liberal government once again put the F-35 procurement under review. Military procurement should be in the best interests of the Canadian Armed Forces and Canada’s national security and should not be politicized, which leads me to another area of concern with this proposed legislation, that being the potential erosion of parliamentary oversight and transparency. This seems to be a pattern for the Liberal government. In order to fix and speed up the broken defence procurement system, the Liberals created a special agency and appointed the Prime Minister’s friend Doug Guzman, who has no background in national defence but asked for a job. He was handed the position of the first CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, with a salary greater than the highest paid federal public servants on the payroll. Four months later, the government announced the need for the agency to be a stand-alone entity, and before that could happen, it introduced legislation to convert the DIA into a Crown corporation, overseen by an associate minister with unprecedented powers. The changes contained in Bill C-40 could remove much-needed parliamentary oversight from the DIA, creating the inevitable mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and waste the government is known for. With billions of tax dollars at stake, Conservatives have serious concerns that the Liberals are increasing the opportunity for political interference and decreasing accountability. I am sure members will recall the revelation of a potential conflict of interest, which still exists, surrounding the Liberal government’s Alto rail boondoggle and the finance minister. The prospect of the finance minister making decisions as part of the federal government’s budgetary process, which presents distinct benefits and advantages for his partner and her employer, and acting and voting in Parliament to give those effect, is deeply troubling. We can consider the Prime Minister’s most recent pre-Thanksgiving announcement to subsidize heat pumps. Brookfield has a big stake in the retrofit and heat pump business via Enercare and Trane, and the Prime Minister has a lot of deferred shares, options and carried interest. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that the DIA or the Liberals themselves may have already decided on Saab’s GlobalEye as the preferred supplier for the airborne early warning and control platform without proper consideration or consultation with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Political interference seems to be second nature for the government. I raise these examples to remind Canadians why we cannot simply trust this Liberal government and to make the case for the need to ensure strong oversight and transparency. To be clear, Conservatives are on the record. We support one point of accountability for defence procurement, not adding layers of bureaucracy to an already bureaucratic system. This is why the rules around sole-source procurement and other reporting requirements must be strong. Conservatives believe that the powers conferred to the CEO by the new associate minister should be scaled back when it comes to decisions to sole-source a procurement, and the government should be required to disclose when it uses national security exceptions to allow for sole-sourcing procurements, including which subsection was supplied. This is not currently a requirement in Bill C-40. I am concerned that the measures proposed in the bill are not strong enough. Instead of taking the politics out of procurement, the bill would ensure that Liberal insiders would benefit from contracts with no transparency, accountability, Treasury Board oversight or sufficient reporting to Parliament. In conclusion, this tired Liberal government’s first and second attempts to reform defence procurement have not proven successful. Like Build Canada Homes or the Major Projects Office, the DIA is just the latest new Liberal bureaucracy delivering bottlenecks instead of progress. As a result, it is only logical that members of Parliament should have concerns about this third attempt to fix defence procurement. Defence procurement is a matter at the heart of our sovereignty and our security, but after a decade of Liberal neglect, our military has been left unprepared for the threats we face. The world is changing. Symbolic announcements do not build or buy the equipment the Canadian Armed Forces require. Faster procurement does not require less accountability. The CAF needs swift action to procure equipment, and Canadian taxpayers deserve transparency and accountability for those expenses. These two requirements are not in conflict, even though it seems like the government wants to promote that view. As a result, my concern is that the lack of transparency in the process being proposed by this bill is a design feature, not an unintended flaw. Bill C-40 would not deliver the equipment our forces desperately need, nor would it protect taxpayers from Liberal corruption. Conservatives will be opposing Bill C-40.”