“Past Liberal policy made Canada rely on foreign countries for military equipment. The Conservatives invested in F-35 fighter jets, which helped Canadian small businesses. Now the Liberals are delaying that project. I want the member to tell us which side of this issue he supports.”

“Madam Speaker, I consider my colleague from Labrador a friend. I would just like to ask him a few things about his intervention. Under the Chrétien government, the Liberals came out with a defence white paper. It was about buying off-the-shelf technology, and that was, basically, relying on foreign countries for equipment. I heard my colleague say that put us in a bad situation, and we are reliant on foreign nations. Under a Conservative government, we invested on the ground floor of the F-35s, which included small businesses in Canada being able to gain from the contracts. Now the Liberals are dragging the puck on that. What side of the fence is my colleague on? If I get two Liberals in the same room, they are arguing between each other, and at some point one of them is going to win. Which one is going to win?”

“The government is far too slow at buying military equipment. After 11 years, we have only received two F-35 fighter jets, and the helicopters are delayed too. Nobody believes the government can fix this.”

“Madam Speaker, I feel like I am at Yuk Yucks. Honestly, on efficiency for the F-35, we have two that have been delivered after 11 years of the Liberal government, and it is not the first time it has done this. There are the Cormorant helicopters. It is unbelievable. Time after time after time, we are always waiting for equipment from the Liberal government. Is this an admission of it having bad policy previously and that it cannot get its act together? Is it trying to create some new way to expedite? Nobody believes the Liberals.”

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“I do not support this bill. It just creates more government bureaucracy for photo ops and announcements instead of getting real work done.”

“Madam Speaker, my colleague’s speech was very enlightening. We are talking about Bill C-40, the proposed strengthening Canada’s defence sector act, which would create yet another bureaucracy for the federal government to use as a vehicle for announcements, reannouncements and photo ops. I think of Build Canada Homes, which was going to build houses at a generational scale, and in the meantime, housing starts are down and nowhere near the 500,000 for replacement to bring back housing affordability. How would this bureaucracy be any different?”

“The government makes announcements but does not deliver real results for housing, pipelines, or the military. We waited 10 years for new fighter jets and only got two. Troops do not have the equipment they need, and this is why military recruitment is down.”

“Madam Speaker, the short answer is that it would not. When we look at the past record of how the Liberals have been operating in government, it is just boondoggle after boondoggle. Whether it is housing, the military or building pipelines, we have not seen anything. All we hear is the Prime Minister or ministers at the podium making announcements upon announcements. We have not seen anything. It is not tangible. It takes forever for the Liberals to come up with something. Canadians are so tired of waiting. We have been waiting 10 years for the F-35 fighter aircraft that we desperately need. We had two delivered just recently and the Liberals think they have a win. This is just another example of why recruitment is down in the military and why we cannot get people in. We are not setting goals or standards and giving people something to strive for. We are not making them feel good that they are being looked after, that when they are being deployed to Latvia, they have the equipment they need or that they are not using used equipment or washed equipment from a weekend so that reservists can do weekend deployment.”

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“More people are dropping out of the military. New recruits are joining without understanding what they are getting into. The government is not telling the full truth about what is happening with military recruitment.”

“Madam Speaker, I will be straightforward: There are more people washing out in the military. They are being thrown into recruitment centres and being told that they are going to become soldiers, sailors and infantry, and they do not even know. They just show up. I have talked to friends who are in the military, and they are asking, “What are these people doing here?” They do not even know what they are doing here. Do not tell me that recruitment is up when the full spectrum of what is going on in the military is not being given.”

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“Canada needs to fix how it buys military equipment, but this bill lets the government spend hundreds of billions of dollars without proper oversight from Parliament. Ministers must come to committee and explain how they will keep this spending open and accountable to Canadians.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am here today to speak to Bill C-40, strengthening Canada’s defence sector act. This enactment contains measures relating to production, procurement and investment with respect to national defence and national security. Part 1 deals with establishing the Canadian corporation for defence investment and part 2 would amend the Defence Production Act to, among other things: (a) extend the application of that Act to supplies and projects related to national security and to services related to national defence and national security; (b) provide that the Minister of Public Works and Government Services has the authority to acquire supplies and services related to national defence and national security... [with some] exceptions; (c) extend the purposes for which that Minister may engage in stockpiling to include national defence and national security, including economic security, and the defence and security of an associated government or other state; (d) provide that Minister with new financial authorities...; and (e) establish procurement rules..... Then part 3 gets into providing the necessary review of said acts. Everything I just said was extracted from the legislation itself. What does this mean in plain speak? Bill C-40 would establish a Canadian corporation for defence investment, a Crown corporation run by a CEO and a board of directors under the authority of the associate minister of defence for procurement. The extent that Treasury Board’s rules, however, would apply to this corporation have not been established. It is not part of the bill itself, but it is expected to be substantially less than before the defence investment act is enacted. The Defence Production Act would be renamed and amended to permit the minister to procure everything or anything that could have a national defence or security use. It would also allow the corporation to exercise powers under sections 15 and 16 of the newly named defence and national security production and procurement act, which would deal with the stockpiling, procurement and disposal of military equipment. Bill C-40 would also massively expand the number of categories under which the minister could carry out a sole-sourced procurement, 17 in total should this bill pass, and by virtue of that, decline to run a competition and would also allow any number of future exceptions to be written into regulation, not backed through legislation. It would also allow the minister to exclude anyone on national security grounds from a competition, and here is what I take issue with, without justification, oversight or explanation to Canada and to Parliament. Before I get into some of the other reasons that I think it is important that we revisit and revamp our procurement process, I am shocked that we are debating today under the threat of time allocation. To be fair, the government has not moved it, but a Liberal stood on Friday and threatened to move time allocation on a bill that is going to allow the government to spend literally hundreds of billions of dollars going forward and, at the same time, remove parliamentary oversight. I find it fascinating that we are on the second day of debate, not even through the first five hours of debate, and we are already under a threat of time allocation. I will provide a bit of my own background. I spent 25 years in the military, but 24 years ago I had the privilege of attending, on the army side, the land force technical staff program, a year-long course where I did nothing besides study defence management as it relates to the army here in Canada and how we procure equipment. I was shocked, to say the least, after learning the technical expertise, some of the skill sets associated with it and a lot of science and engineering type stuff too, how messed up our procurement system has been for decades. That is why I am all about seeing necessary changes to the way we procure equipment for our members of the Canadian Armed Forces. I want to give another specific example. After I did that course, I had the privilege of being posted at the infantry school in Gagetown. I had this weird title. I was the infantry corps technical adjutant. It was basically my job to read every statement of requirement for every piece of equipment that the army was procuring that could impact the Canadian Armed Forces and, specifically, the Canadian infantry. I remember having a debate and argument with the project director in Ottawa at the time around the purchase of our STANO equipment, our surveillance, target acquisition and night observation gear, specifically our monocular night vision goggles. We were doing something back then called whole fleet management. This was back under the Chrétien Liberal government at the time. I said this was not going to work, that we could not have equipment being procured for individual soldiers and expect to have it serviceable and ready when we need it, when we deploy on operations or to war. This was obviously post-9/11. We had troops in Afghanistan, but had not committed to the fight yet. I was shocked and I had something to say when I called up that project director in spring 2006, because now I am the priority of the Canadian Army, deploying to Afghanistan on combat operations, and I do not even have enough monocular night vision goggles or enough equipment to train in night fighting before we are going out the door and going to war. It was just very frustrating. If we fast-forward a bit, however, we see that we can do this right. The previous Harper Conservative government demonstrated during Afghanistan the ability to make massive procurements. They were to the tune of billions of dollars through a sole-source process. We got Chinook helicopters. We repurchased tanks. We got strategic airlift capabilities with the C-17s. There are many more examples I could provide. It can be done, but it requires leadership and political will. A previous speaker from my side of the House highlighted this. It is about political will. Accountability, transparency and parliamentary oversight are needed. This is what my concerns now relate to. Under the Liberal government, over the last 11 years, a number of defence procurement processes have been messed up. In previous speeches, we heard about the GlobalEye. Again, it was purchased before any substantial discussions with the Royal Canadian Air Force. There are still concerns about the operational capabilities of this platform to work in the north, in our Arctic. Let us talk about the F-35. The member for Winnipeg North got up earlier and said they are a great thing. I will remind everyone that the member ran under the Liberal government in 2015 when it said it was going to get rid of the F-35 and that there was no way it was going to purchase the F-35, which is completely contrary to procurement, government rules and the whole competition process. It is good to finally see those F-35s being delivered. The Liberals announced the Defence Investment Agency. It was announced during the Budget Implementation Act earlier and now through this new piece of legislation, Bill C-40. What may be part of the catalyst for this legislation is that the DIA’s own CEO reportedly wanted to resign. He has been so frustrated by the slow pace of government bureaucracy and lack of the current Liberal government making things happen. What is the government’s answer? It is to take away accountability and oversight. That is where my concerns lie. We are talking about hundreds of billions of Canadian taxpayer dollars being used without being transparent or having proper parliamentary oversight. The Liberals have stood up and are claiming that the accountability is going to occur through the new associate minister of national defence. However, at the same time, we do not see anything within the clauses of the bill itself that would provide mechanisms for that oversight and transparency. In principle, I absolutely support a massive rework of Canada’s defence procurement system. However, as I laid out in my speech, Canada can procure and has procured massive military procurement in the past. How was that done? As I said, it was done through leadership. It was done through leadership by the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence, by pushing things through, by making the claim to the Canadian taxpayer publicly and by reporting back to this chamber the necessary mechanisms so that the billions of dollars are going out for the right reasons and not just to Liberal insiders. It can be done. I am going to be listening intently. I am confident in stating that this bill will get to committee. I am looking forward to the testimony of the Secretary of State for Defence Procurement, the Minister of National Defence and the minister of procurement services. I am looking forward to them showing up and explaining how they are going to make sure that they are accountable and transparent to Canadian taxpayers and how they will make sure that members of the Canadian Armed Forces are equipped with the necessary equipment and systems they need to defend this nation.”

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“I want to know why the government is avoiding openness and oversight from Parliament. This bill involves hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, and we need to watch how it is spent.”

“Madam Speaker, I am not going to debate whether or not Crown corporations can possibly be very effective. I think there are examples of where they have been very effective. There are plenty of examples of where they have not been very effective or very efficient. We have had huge debates around Canada Post. There are still huge issues, as it is not actually functioning the way it needs to function properly. That said, why is the government, and this is the whole purpose of part of my speech, hiding behind transparency and parliamentary oversight? That is where my real concerns are when we are talking about literally hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.”

“The Auditor General has said that government-owned corporations have different rules than regular departments, which makes it harder to hold them accountable. How can we make these corporations transparent when these barriers exist?”

“Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound for his service in the military. In the public accounts committee, of which I am a member, we have had many occurrences where the Auditor General has said that there are different rules for departments versus Crown corporations, and how that is a problem for the Auditor General’s dealing with accountability and transparency with regard to the Crown corporations. Can the member speak to how he sees this transparency actually proceeding with these impediments?”

“The government is bending accounting rules by calling its spending an asset. Losing money, like Canada Post does, is not an asset. We must follow normal accounting rules and watch taxpayer money closely to make sure our military is properly equipped.”

“Madam Speaker, I think that is a great point. In fact, I encourage all Canadians listening to read the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s latest reports around the bending of the rules and the interpretation of how accountability and accounting are working with the government expenditures, with the Prime Minister and the Liberal government are trying to say that spending is somehow now assets. The parliamentary secretary talked about how Crown corporations are so good, but we have some examples. I mentioned Canada Post, which has been losing $1 billion every year. At the same time, how is that an asset? That is absolutely a liability. It is spending, not an actual asset going forward. I think we should be using the same rules we have always used to account for our budgetary spending of Canadian taxpayers’ dollars in this country. I think it is so important that the privilege we have as parliamentarians is used to actually provide that oversight, to ensure for Canadians that the members of our Canadian Armed Forces are being equipped properly with those very limited taxpayer dollars.”