Discussion · Government Orders
James Bezan Conservative
“The Liberals took a full year to bring this budget bill forward. Part of this bill sets up the Defence Investment Agency, but another bill would cancel that and turn the agency into a Crown corporation instead. That will just reduce oversight and give more power to the prime minister's friend who runs it. The agency has delivered announcements instead of actual military equipment. I want the section creating this agency removed from the bill, and I want the government to properly equip our armed forces.”
“Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise this morning to talk about the report stage of Bill C-31, part 2. For everyone watching out there, Bill C-31, part 2, is the budget implementation act from last year. We are talking about 12 months ago when this budget was actually presented to the House. We are only now dealing with it because the Liberals continue to drag their feet. This is not a priority for them in bringing this forward. They can sit there and heckle all they want, but if the truth be told, Bill C-31 was brought into this House six months ago and we are only getting to report stage now. The Liberals have control of the legislative agenda. If this was a priority for the government, the Liberals would not be here talking about the budget implementation act for budget 2025 when we are just about to hear about budget 2026 later this week. This is just bizarre for the financial planning for our country. The government holds it at such a low priority that we are dealing with legislation that is over 12 months old. We are at the end. We have to keep in mind that the fiscal year for the Government of Canada is April 1 to March 31. The fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, is what this budget actually deals with. We are dealing with a part of a budget that was already passed and dealt with six months ago, so it is just bizarre that here we are, more than six months after the fiscal year has ended, talking about the budget implementation act at report stage. I am going to target most of my comments around division 16 in the budget implementation act, which establishes the Defence Investment Agency. It is completely contrary to what the Liberals are now doing through Bill C-40, which makes the Defence Investment Agency a Crown corporation. As colleagues know, the Conservatives have always supported the Canadian Armed Forces. We have supported our sailors, our soldiers and our aviators with the equipment and support that they have needed, going back since the world wars. What we have witnessed after 11 years of these Liberals is that the Canadian Armed Forces was neglected during that entire time. The way that they have tried to pad the numbers and do creative accounting, which I will dig into as we go forward, really does talk about how the government is all about being performative. If we look at the Defence Investment Agency, which has been operating now for over a year as a part of PSPC, it is all announcements and no deliveries. It is all flash and smoke with no actual fire. We have not seen any kinetic equipment being delivered into the hands of the Canadian Armed Forces since it stood up the Defence Investment Agency. We do not know why the government moved from Bill C-31 and establishing the Defence Investment Agency as a stand-alone agency under Bill C-31 to where now it needs to have Bill C-40 to establish the Defence Investment Agency as a Crown corporation. What has happened in the last six months since this bill was tabled in the House in May earlier this year? I can tell colleagues that this really does come down to Doug Guzman, who is the CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, and a BFF of the Prime Minister. They both worked at Goldman Sachs. They are both investment bankers. Here is an individual who has had little to no experience in national defence or defence procurement and is now the CEO. He was frustrated having to deal with the bureaucracy and frustrated with not having the power he enjoyed in the private sector. He was not happy with the checks and balances, and how the Defence Investment Agency had to go through the Treasury Board and cabinet to get approvals for purchases. He threatened to rage-quit. All of a sudden those stories came out and all of a sudden we got a new bill before the House called Bill C-40. I think it is important to note that clause 47 of Bill C-40 says that if Bill C-31 passes before Bill C-40 does, which is now at the defence committee, division 16 of Bill C-31 will be deleted. It will be repealed even if it is brought into force by the government through the Governor General. If Bill C-31 and Bill C-40 pass, Bill C-40 being dealt with at committee now and having its first meeting on it on Thursday, unless the Liberals continue to slowly drag Bill C-31 through the legislative process, division 16 will be repealed. Why we are still dealing with Bill C-31 and division 16 is beyond me. I do not know why the government would not have been proactive on this and just removed division 16 from Bill C-31 on its own. It had a chance to do it at committee and now at report stage, and, of course, it has not done that. We have one concern about Bill C-40. As I mentioned, the CEO and the Secretary of State for Defence Procurement are not happy about dealing with the checks and balances that exist within our parliamentary process. The way the government is supposed to act and protect the taxpayer to ensure that the dollars are being spent wisely is that all industry and competitors are allowed to bid on projects and to procure from all the players in Canada and around the world the equipment that we need to defend Canada and work with our allies. Bill C-40 would bring more power to a single minister responsible for the Defence Investment Agency, power that can be transferred to the CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, whom we assume would be Doug Guzman, which would increase the risk of more political interference and, because it is a Crown corporation, make it less transparent and less accountable to us as parliamentarians. We have a fiduciary duty and responsibility to the taxpayers of Canada. Yes, we want to buy more equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces. We have to as we live in a dangerous world, but we also need to ensure that we are protecting taxpayers. We have to make sure that we are getting the right equipment, and that means we have to listen to the Canadian Armed Forces. The Liberal government procured equipment that has not been in the best interests of the Canadian Armed Forces. I am talking about the Kingfisher CC-295s, which were sole-sourced by the Liberals before they had the Defence Investment Agency. Because they kind of fumbled along in the replacement of our search and rescue fixed-wing aircraft in B.C. and across the country, they ended up buying a plane through a sole-source agreement that is not fit for purpose. That plane is still not certified as operational. Not all the planes have been delivered, even though this contract goes back several years, and the Canadian Armed Forces is making do with our old equipment, including some of our old Hercules, to get the job done to protect Canadians when we have to do search and rescue operations. The other one is the GlobalEye. The Defence Investment Agency in May of this year at CANSEC advised the Prime Minister, when he was speaking at CANSEC, to go ahead and purchase the GlobalEye without having a competition. We have three options. All three of them do not necessarily meet the operational shortfalls of the Canadian Armed Forces, but we should have run a competition to see what was in the best interest of industry, Canadian jobs and making sure we have the right platform for the Canadian Armed Forces to do the job it does. Again, there was political interference in sole-sourcing a product that is not necessarily useful to protecting Canada. We are also seeing political interference from the government on buying F-35s. It is reviewing it and reviewing it. We just learned last week it is putting a pause on buying Black Hawk helicopters for our special operations forces. Every time it does this, it makes Canada less safe. The Liberals like to talk a good game on national defence, but at the end of the day, they have not delivered. They have done creative accounting to come up with the numbers to meet the NATO target. Their actual expenditure is based upon the Library of Parliament. It was only at 1.05% in the last year under Justin Trudeau. When we look at the last three years of Trudeau, we see that he cut the defence operation budget by $2.7 billion and we know that the government today, despite saying it was spending more on national defence, is actually cutting the operational budget by 10%. That reduces our readiness. That equals over $2.9 billion out of the budget of the Canadian Armed Forces. That has to stop. We need to make sure we properly equip, train and increase the readiness of our forces.”
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise this morning to talk about the report stage of Bill C-31, part 2. For everyone watching out there, Bill C-31, part 2, is the budget implementation act from last year. We are talking about 12 months ago when this budget was actually presented to the House. We are only now dealing with it because the Liberals continue to drag their feet. This is not a priority for them in bringing this forward. They can sit there and heckle all they want, but if the truth be told, Bill C-31 was brought into this House six months ago and we are only getting to report stage now. The Liberals have control of the legislative agenda. If this was a priority for the government, the Liberals would not be here talking about the budget implementation act for budget 2025 when we are just about to hear about budget 2026 later this week. This is just bizarre for the financial planning for our country. The government holds it at such a low priority that we are dealing with legislation that is over 12 months old. We are at the end. We have to keep in mind that the fiscal year for the Government of Canada is April 1 to March 31. The fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, is what this budget actually deals with. We are dealing with a part of a budget that was already passed and dealt with six months ago, so it is just bizarre that here we are, more than six months after the fiscal year has ended, talking about the budget implementation act at report stage. I am going to target most of my comments around division 16 in the budget implementation act, which establishes the Defence Investment Agency. It is completely contrary to what the Liberals are now doing through Bill C-40, which makes the Defence Investment Agency a Crown corporation. As colleagues know, the Conservatives have always supported the Canadian Armed Forces. We have supported our sailors, our soldiers and our aviators with the equipment and support that they have needed, going back since the world wars. What we have witnessed after 11 years of these Liberals is that the Canadian Armed Forces was neglected during that entire time. The way that they have tried to pad the numbers and do creative accounting, which I will dig into as we go forward, really does talk about how the government is all about being performative. If we look at the Defence Investment Agency, which has been operating now for over a year as a part of PSPC, it is all announcements and no deliveries. It is all flash and smoke with no actual fire. We have not seen any kinetic equipment being delivered into the hands of the Canadian Armed Forces since it stood up the Defence Investment Agency. We do not know why the government moved from Bill C-31 and establishing the Defence Investment Agency as a stand-alone agency under Bill C-31 to where now it needs to have Bill C-40 to establish the Defence Investment Agency as a Crown corporation. What has happened in the last six months since this bill was tabled in the House in May earlier this year? I can tell colleagues that this really does come down to Doug Guzman, who is the CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, and a BFF of the Prime Minister. They both worked at Goldman Sachs. They are both investment bankers. Here is an individual who has had little to no experience in national defence or defence procurement and is now the CEO. He was frustrated having to deal with the bureaucracy and frustrated with not having the power he enjoyed in the private sector. He was not happy with the checks and balances, and how the Defence Investment Agency had to go through the Treasury Board and cabinet to get approvals for purchases. He threatened to rage-quit. All of a sudden those stories came out and all of a sudden we got a new bill before the House called Bill C-40. I think it is important to note that clause 47 of Bill C-40 says that if Bill C-31 passes before Bill C-40 does, which is now at the defence committee, division 16 of Bill C-31 will be deleted. It will be repealed even if it is brought into force by the government through the Governor General. If Bill C-31 and Bill C-40 pass, Bill C-40 being dealt with at committee now and having its first meeting on it on Thursday, unless the Liberals continue to slowly drag Bill C-31 through the legislative process, division 16 will be repealed. Why we are still dealing with Bill C-31 and division 16 is beyond me. I do not know why the government would not have been proactive on this and just removed division 16 from Bill C-31 on its own. It had a chance to do it at committee and now at report stage, and, of course, it has not done that. We have one concern about Bill C-40. As I mentioned, the CEO and the Secretary of State for Defence Procurement are not happy about dealing with the checks and balances that exist within our parliamentary process. The way the government is supposed to act and protect the taxpayer to ensure that the dollars are being spent wisely is that all industry and competitors are allowed to bid on projects and to procure from all the players in Canada and around the world the equipment that we need to defend Canada and work with our allies. Bill C-40 would bring more power to a single minister responsible for the Defence Investment Agency, power that can be transferred to the CEO of the Defence Investment Agency, whom we assume would be Doug Guzman, which would increase the risk of more political interference and, because it is a Crown corporation, make it less transparent and less accountable to us as parliamentarians. We have a fiduciary duty and responsibility to the taxpayers of Canada. Yes, we want to buy more equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces. We have to as we live in a dangerous world, but we also need to ensure that we are protecting taxpayers. We have to make sure that we are getting the right equipment, and that means we have to listen to the Canadian Armed Forces. The Liberal government procured equipment that has not been in the best interests of the Canadian Armed Forces. I am talking about the Kingfisher CC-295s, which were sole-sourced by the Liberals before they had the Defence Investment Agency. Because they kind of fumbled along in the replacement of our search and rescue fixed-wing aircraft in B.C. and across the country, they ended up buying a plane through a sole-source agreement that is not fit for purpose. That plane is still not certified as operational. Not all the planes have been delivered, even though this contract goes back several years, and the Canadian Armed Forces is making do with our old equipment, including some of our old Hercules, to get the job done to protect Canadians when we have to do search and rescue operations. The other one is the GlobalEye. The Defence Investment Agency in May of this year at CANSEC advised the Prime Minister, when he was speaking at CANSEC, to go ahead and purchase the GlobalEye without having a competition. We have three options. All three of them do not necessarily meet the operational shortfalls of the Canadian Armed Forces, but we should have run a competition to see what was in the best interest of industry, Canadian jobs and making sure we have the right platform for the Canadian Armed Forces to do the job it does. Again, there was political interference in sole-sourcing a product that is not necessarily useful to protecting Canada. We are also seeing political interference from the government on buying F-35s. It is reviewing it and reviewing it. We just learned last week it is putting a pause on buying Black Hawk helicopters for our special operations forces. Every time it does this, it makes Canada less safe. The Liberals like to talk a good game on national defence, but at the end of the day, they have not delivered. They have done creative accounting to come up with the numbers to meet the NATO target. Their actual expenditure is based upon the Library of Parliament. It was only at 1.05% in the last year under Justin Trudeau. When we look at the last three years of Trudeau, we see that he cut the defence operation budget by $2.7 billion and we know that the government today, despite saying it was spending more on national defence, is actually cutting the operational budget by 10%. That reduces our readiness. That equals over $2.9 billion out of the budget of the Canadian Armed Forces. That has to stop. We need to make sure we properly equip, train and increase the readiness of our forces.