Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I rise today simply to object to Bill C‑40. Before going further, I first want to say that I have always supported the idea of finding a way to fix our military procurement system. I was a soldier myself for a time. Later on, and since my election, I have seen the full extent of the ineffective management plaguing Canada’s defence procurement. Yes, that needs to change. We have models to guide us. Other countries, like Australia, for example, or Great Britain, have different ways of doing things. Today, unfortunately, the government is heading in a completely different direction. In presenting the bill as a way to speed up defence procurement, the government is prevaricating. In reality, this is not a plan to provide the Canadian Armed forces with equipment. It is a blatant attempt to create a secretive bureaucratic structure. The government is asking for a $1-billion blank cheque to circumvent parliamentary oversight and line the pockets of Liberal insiders. The facts are clear. I am not making this up; the information comes directly from official Department of National Defence reports. In 2026, we have warships that are rusting away, military equipment that is worn out and fighter jets that are obsolete. More than 40% of our core naval fleet is unfit for training or operational missions. Half of our core army vehicles are out of service. The situation is even worse in the air, where 57% of the fleet is unusable. Why are we in this situation? The answer is not complicated. The government has systematically underinvested in national procurement, allowed personnel to become exhausted and accumulated nearly $10 billion in allocated defence funding that was never spent. My colleagues heard that correctly: $10 billion earmarked for defence—that is, defence investments—has not been spent and has not been used. It has sat idle, gathering dust on a shelf in the Liberal bureaucracy. The situation has gotten so bad that, last May, members of the Canadian Armed Forces were asked to return basic gear like rucksacks and tactical vests because of a severe shortage of equipment. That is serious. We are being forced to tell soldiers to bring back their rucksacks either because we do not have enough for new arrivals or because soldiers are deploying somewhere and there is not enough equipment. Members are also being asked to return their tactical vests. As I said, I served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 22 years. Of course, we have already lived through what is known as the decade of darkness, under Jean Chrétien. It was terrible. That is why seeing this sort of thing happen again in defence management is almost like post-traumatic shock. This is a national disgrace. While soldiers are short on flak jackets and rucksacks, what are the Liberals doing? They are creating ministerial positions, adding more administrative structures and appointing their friends in high finance to positions with huge salaries. What is more, Bill C-40 also establishes the Canadian corporation for defence investment. This is the third time. It is the third time in a year that the Liberals have changed their minds about the structure of the agency. First, it was supposed to be an agency within Public Services and Procurement Canada. Then, four months later, the Liberals introduced Bill C-31. They decided to make this body an independent agency. Now, with Bill C-40, it is becoming a Crown corporation with unprecedented powers under the responsibility of an associate minister of national defence. When we ask the Liberals why they have done this once, twice and now a third time, we get no answer. They cannot explain it, but we understand. We understand perfectly well what they are trying to do. By turning the agency into a Crown corporation, the Liberals are freeing themselves from Treasury Board procurement rules. It is deliberate. Crown corporations have their own rules. By creating a Crown corporation, the government is no longer accountable to Parliament. It is no longer accountable to anyone. It is not subject to the same rules. Bill C‑40 would create a Crown corporation that would allow the person in charge to spend up to $1 billion at a time without any accountability. I repeat, it is $1 billion, not $1 million. This is taxpayers’ money that can be spent without any accountability. The rules are not the same. It does not work the same way. There will be no accountability or transparency to Parliament. I am not making this up. The Parliamentary Budget Officer made this clear in her report dated October 20. She said that the government’s extensive and growing reliance on Crown corporations since 2016 amounts to creative accounting designed to conceal the government’s true debt picture and obscure the country’s fiscal sustainability. This is just another Liberal scheme. It is nothing new; it dates back to 2016. The Liberals think that if they create this organization or that Crown corporation, they can do things behind closed doors and keep everything hidden. When it comes to defence, rather than having transparency, proper equipment and investments like we want, the Liberals are going to hide all that in a Crown corporation. That is why we oppose this approach. What is more, who did they choose to head up this body that will spend public funds in a non-transparent manner? They did not choose a retired general, a recognized military procurement expert or someone who knows the needs on the ground. No, instead they chose Doug Guzman. Who is he? Doug Guzman is a very close friend of the Prime Minister. Their friendship dates back to when he was working at Goldman Sachs. This person told the Prime Minister that he would really like to have a sweet government job, and the Prime Minister told him that he would appoint him to be the CEO of a Crown corporation for defence procurement and that that would be the best thing that he could do for him. We, on this side of the House, spoke out against that. The Conservatives questioned this approach that involved appointing a guy from Goldman Sachs to be the CEO of a Crown corporation. What is more, he will be able to do what he wants. He will be able to spend however he wants and he will be paid very handsomely to do so. I heard my Bloc Québécois colleague ask this same question earlier. This person will be paid a salary of $679,000 a year and, even worse, he will receive bonuses. As we know, even when people in government are not doing a good job, they still get bonuses. We see it all the time. People are getting bonus after bonus even when they are losing money. With bonuses, this CEO could be earning up to $900,000 a year. That is the highest paying job in the Government of Canada. By way of comparison, the Prime Minister of Canada, who is responsible for the whole country, earns $435,000 a year. The chief of defence staff, who leads the entire Canadian Armed Forces, who is ultimately responsible for the lives of our soldiers and the security of our country, earns a maximum of $329,000. Once again, some well-connected Liberal insider figures that his friend the Prime Minister might be able to land him a sweet job in this new outfit, so they put him there on a salary of $600,000 a year, plus bonuses, and put him in charge of billions of dollars. He will be able to do whatever he wants. No one will ask him any questions. Who would not want a job like that? Once again, this shows exactly where things are headed: a very Liberal way of doing things, opaque and unaccountable, with someone who has no known qualifications for the job being paid an enormous salary. Speaking of pay and compensation, CEO-8 is the highest executive classification in Canada. There are people in some of the most senior positions in the country, with extensive expertise and experience, who do not earn that much. Once again, we are dealing with a bill that began with a good idea: changing the way things are done in Canada. Unfortunately, the Liberal agenda has once again taken hold. This will, once again, ensure that Liberal cronies make money. We do not know where the money will go. There is a glaring lack of oversight. Will operational requirements be met? Will the real needs of the armed forces be met, given that we have already seen announcements like the one about the GlobalEye? To everyone’s surprise, an aircraft was announced that, from a tactical and technical standpoint, does not meet those requirements. Unfortunately, we have not seen the last of this.
