Breaking the Procurement Logjam

By Nic Boisvert

Some people just don’t know how to accept help. Without actually reading the latest parliamentary defence committee report, Minister of National Defence Bill Graham dismissed the efforts of Senator Colin Kenny and his colleagues as “throwing cold water on attempts to rejuvenate the Canadian Forces.” All Kenny said is what everyone – including Graham – knows: the CF as presently constituted does not have the people or the equipment to perform all the tasks assigned to them under the government’s omnibus National Security Policy and Defence Policy Statement. No matter how one tries to bash the square peg of means available, it won’t fit into the round hole of ends desired. Maybe the $35 billion suggested by the Senators is a little rich (in reality probably not by much), but the $5 billion of truly “new” money in the Liberal’s recent budget will only stabilize the long decline of the Canadian Forces – and not until 4 years from now when the deferred funding finally all materializes.

Graham’s backbiting is unsettling, because he has been making such great progress touring the country courageously conditioning Canadians to the deadly challenges facing our troops. There is obviously greater work to be done, however, in growing the political backbone to actually build up our forces to a sustainable troop level and equip them with the tools to do the job. Kenny also observed that the past “decade and a half of cuts are going to produce at least a decade and a half of vulnerability.” That 15 years just happens to correspond to the typical acquisition cycle of major defence capital equipment – the ships, aircraft, and combat vehicles that Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier needs now in order to implement his plan to transform the CF. The need is indisputable, but what escapes public attention are the major impediments within government to the timely and cost-effective acquisition of military equipment. As Graham is learning, talk is easy; it will take real political courage to break the procurement logjam. For starters, Hurricane Katrina highlighted the critical state of the Navy’s aging supply ships. With neither of them available to sail, a brace of frigates were sent instead to deliver aid, giving spin-masters a chance to speak of “the flexibility of sea power”. However, the Joint Support Ship (JSS) replacement project will not see delivery of the first new ships optimistically until 2011, because just a few years ago Industry Canada effectively shut down the domestic shipbuilding industry. It is just plain incomprehensible that the same department should now be allowed to hold a major capital acquisition hostage to the need to re-establish the industry in order to ensure the spread of federal dollars to buy votes under the guise of industrial regional benefits (IRB).

The same IRB patronage boondoggle trend can be seen with regard to the other services. The Army’s switch from tracked fighting vehicles to the wheeled Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) series arguably has as much to do with keeping open London assembly lines as to an honest assessment of the urban and off-road combat environments of the “swamps” that General Hillier foresees us fighting in. Meanwhile, the Army is turning itself into a pretzel trying to rationalize the “transformation” of the dubious Low-Level Air Defence (LLAD) system into an even more questionable anti-tank Multi-Mission Effects Vehicle (MMEV), to the tune of nearly a billion dollars to be dispersed in the riding of St Jean.

The fixed-wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) replacement was hailed as a break-through two years ago, when the Air Force was allotted monies for a fixed period direct buy of the aircraft it had assessed as best fitting the need. Now it finds itself in the embarrassing position of having to return the funds unspent to Treasury Board because the supposed fast-track process got bogged down after the intervention of Liberal lobbyists to broaden the selection field to include the development of a Canadian contender. We have seen a similar hue and cry in response to the latest Air Force proposals for the untendered direct buy purchase of Chinook heavy-lift helicopters and new model C-130J Hercules transports.

The direct buy process can and does work – witness the recent acquisition of 155mm howitzers for use by our troops in Afghanistan, just when it had seemed that the move to “light” forces was going to relegate the artillery to field mortars. There are legitimate concerns with the direct buy process, and to gain acceptance DND must be able to demonstrate with unimpeachable transparency that any equipments thus identified by internal evaluation have not themselves been influenced by under the table sweetheart deals with industry “friends”. That after all was the intent of separating the tendering process from patronage politics. Surely it was never the intent that the Department of National Defence be a money-laundering racket for the Industry Department.

The government deserves credit for beginning to show some political courage in finally rising to a task it has ignored for the four years since Sept. 11, 2001: preparing Canadians for the occurrence of terror attacks here and the dangers faced by our troops on deployed missions. But in exposing those risks, the government also has the moral responsibility to provide the men and women of the Canadian Forces with the tools to do the jobs assigned. Does Cabinet have the political guts to forego the patronage instincts that make acquisitions such an endless process? Defence Minister Graham could begin by thanking Senator Kenny for adding to the mounting evidence that the logjam needs to be broken, and fast.

Nic Boisvert, a former public servant, writes on behalf of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21^st Century. Web site: www.ccs21.org

“FEEDING THE GOAT” – The government demand for reports and studies, for example, during the process to acquire new military equipment – can create tonnes of paper and few results… Acquiring new military equipment takes years of bureaucratic drudgery across several departments. As many as nine departments and agencies – all with their own interests, policies and ‘turf’ to protect – might be involved. The “process” is so slow that it is easier for defence officials to get tens of millions of scarce dollars from the government to keep ancient “operational junk” flying or on the road than it is to find the money to buy new equipment. -- Dr. Douglas Bland, Queen’s University.

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