THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, DEFENCE AND VETERANS AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, November 17, 2025
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs met with videoconference this day at 5 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on defence procurement in the context of Canada’s commitment to increase defence spending.
Senator Mohammad Al Zaibak (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Before we start, to support the smooth operation of committee proceedings, the following guidelines must be observed by all participants to help prevent audio feedback.
Please consult the cards placed on the committee tables for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents. Keep earpieces away from the microphones at all times, and microphones must not be touched. Activation and deactivation will be managed by the console operator. Please avoid handling your earpiece while the microphone is active. Earpieces should either remain on the ear or be placed on the designated sticker at each seat. Thank you for your cooperation.
Good afternoon, everyone. I am Mohammad Al Zaibak, senator from Ontario and deputy chair of this committee. Our chair, Senator Yussuff, is away today. I am joined by my fellow committee members, whom I welcome to introduce themselves.
Senator Kutcher: Senator Stan Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
Senator Ince: Senator Tony Ince, Nova Scotia.
Senator Dasko: Donna Dasko, senator from Ontario.
Senator McNair: John McNair, senator from New Brunswick. Welcome.
Senator M. Deacon: Welcome. It’s great to see you today. I’m Marty Deacon, a senator representing Ontario.
Senator White: Judy White, senator from Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Claude Carignan from Quebec.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. Today, we are meeting to begin our study of defence procurement in the context of Canada’s commitment to increase defence spending. We have the pleasure of hearing from three panels of witnesses, including experts in the defence industry, from civil society organizations and with a perspective from Canada’s Arctic.
For this first panel, we welcome David Perry, President, Canadian Global Affairs Institute; Gaëlle Rivard Piché, Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute; and, by video conference, Richard Shimooka, Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Thank you all for joining us today.
We will begin by inviting you to provide your opening remarks, to be followed by questions from our members. I remind you that you each have five minutes for opening remarks. We’ll start with Mr. David Perry.
David Perry, President, Canadian Global Affairs Institute: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Members, thank you for the invitation to appear today. I look forward to the results of your study.
I’ll keep my opening remarks short and touch on five different issues throughout. I’d be happy to come back and expand.
The first thing I’d note is that in the past several months, we are finally seeing the kind of political prioritization of defence and defence procurement that has been sorely lacking. It is something we will seek to sustain as we move toward spending 3.5% of GDP on core defence needs by 2035.
The signals the government is sending by providing defence the funds needed to spend 2% of GDP on defence this fiscal year, as well as the creation of the Defence Investment Agency, or DIA, are unambiguous and much needed if the government genuinely wants to see better procurement outcomes.
Second, the government’s vision for the Canadian defence industry will be in tension with their desire for more rapid procurement unless there is very strong coordination of the Defence Industrial Strategy with future defence acquisition plans. We have seen a laudable effort to better support a long-neglected sector of the Canadian economy, and a pillar of defence capability, with the initial funding commitments we saw provided for the Defence Industrial Strategy in the budget a few weeks ago and the discussion of the strategy to date.
As has been noted in that conversation, however, we do not currently have the defence industrial base we need, which means we cannot source domestically everything we want to, at least not immediately. To minimize the tension between speed of acquisition and greater domestic sourcing, we need to be as intentional, specific and pragmatic as possible about the impacts of refocusing our acquisitions to source more within Canada.
Third, we’re proposing some very consequential changes to our approach to acquisitions overall, and it’s going take some time for those to come to fruition. We need both patience in the short term and other actions to improve the system while we wait. For the new structure and strategies to mature, we can take initial steps that would be beneficial irrespective of how the investment agency and the industrial strategy unfold.
We could use greater and more consistent prioritization across all parts of the acquisition ecosystem of our projects to ensure that the currently insufficient resources are focused where they’re most needed. Similarly, we would benefit from a greater delegation of authorities and decision making down closer to the working level. We have built a very top-heavy structure of government, where only at the top of the executive structure are people empowered to take decisions. Delegating closer to the working level would help better cope with the rapidly increasing volume of work.
Fourth, if we want meaningful, dramatic change, we need much better data about defence procurement of all types, as well as the structure and composition of the Canadian defence industrial base and a wider commercial ecosystem. That way, we can better understand what is working, what isn’t, where the problems are, what best practices should be replicated and where the opportunities for private sector growth really lie. If we want to make effective change, we need effective data to be the starting point.
Finally, we need to see significantly more transparency from the government about where this significant increase in spending is going. Far too many conversations about Canadian defence and defence procurement occur in a near information vacuum, and that work is too important to be done silently, behind closed doors. We need much greater detail from the government about where Budget 2025’s incredibly significant defence funding increase will be directed to fully understand the impacts on procurement. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Perry. Next, we will hear from Gaëlle Rivard Piché. The floor is yours.
[Translation]
Gaëlle Rivard Piché, Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations Institute: Mr. Chair, honourable senators, thank you. I’m delighted to be here today.
[English]
It’s my pleasure to appear before you today. Before I proceed, I would like to note that although my presentation will be in English, I am happy to take questions and engage in French afterwards.
My remarks today will focus on the opportunities created by Canada’s recent commitment to increase defence investments, the structural challenges that continue to slow the delivery of military capabilities and the strategic risks Canada faces from prolonged procurement delays, particularly given the threats posed by China, Russia and other state actors intent on undermining the rules-based international order.
To begin, the investments announced in Canada’s Budget 2025 are welcome and urgently needed steps to modernize our forces. Budget 2025 proposes to provide $81.8 billion over five years on a cash basis to the Canadian Armed Forces, funding that aligns with the 2035 objective of devoting 3.5% of Canada’s GDP to core military capabilities. This investment reflects a recognition that the global security environment has fundamentally shifted, that Canada faces significant challenges at home and abroad and that we must be prepared to deter and defend against a wide range of threats in an evolving landscape.
However, increased funding alone does not resolve the core issues facing Canada’s defence and procurement systems. Absorption capacity; personnel recruitment and retention; and certainty and sustainability in funding remain pressing challenges.
But what concerns me most is the pace at which these investments will translate into real, deployable capabilities. In today’s threat environment, where both conventional and emerging operational domains are shaping modern conflict, speed is not simply a matter of efficiency; it is essential to defending our nation’s sovereignty and strategic interests.
Russia has demonstrated that it is willing to use force to redraw international borders and challenge Euro-Atlantic security, including that of NATO countries. Despite heavy losses and a prolonged war in Ukraine, Russia’s military reconstitution is expected to be completed by 2029. Likewise, China is rapidly expanding its military capacity, projecting power across the Indo-Pacific and increasingly threatening the sovereignty of Taiwan, with public estimates forecasting a potential invasion as early as 2027; that is just 16 months away.
The timelines on both fronts are uncomfortably close.
By contrast, many of Canada’s procurement projects are not expected to reach full operational capacity until well into the 2030s, timelines that might be too slow to meet deterrence requirements within NATO and prepare against threats that are already materializing.
That is why the government’s commitment to establishing the Defence Investment Agency is encouraging. If designed well, it could accelerate equipment acquisition, strengthen partnerships with allies and address some of the long-standing inefficiencies that have burdened the procurement cycle for decades.
However, if the same risk-averse and bureaucratic processes take hold within the new agency, there is a real possibility that old problems will simply persist under a new name. The importance of delivering major capabilities at greater speed was underscored last week by Vice-Admiral Topshee, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, when he expressed a preference for adopting an existing class of submarines rather than designing a bespoke Canadian model. His message was clear and applies across the Canadian Armed Forces, or CAF: Reinventing the wheel takes time, and time is a luxury Canada does not have.
More broadly, Canada faces widening capability gaps as legacy fleets age faster than their replacements can be brought online. Our fighter fleet transition has taken decades, and we are still awaiting the government’s decision on whether it will proceed with the full F-35 acquisition, the only fifth-generation aircraft available.
The National Shipbuilding Strategy is essential, but its timelines now extend into the 2040s, meaning some Halifax-class frigates will operate well beyond their initial 30-year lifespan, with mounting maintenance costs and growing deficiencies.
Those gaps are among the many factors undermining the CAF’s operational readiness.
Meanwhile, Canada’s allies are moving quickly. Whether through traditional partnerships, such as NATO and NORAD, or through new security arrangements with the European Union, Poland or South Korea, the message is consistent: Canada will be unable to contribute meaningfully if it does not possess the right capabilities at the right time.
The government has made important commitments. Speed is now of the essence. The challenge now is to ensure that these commitments rapidly translate into timely, tangible capabilities so Canada can preserve, reinforce and ultimately maintain its strategic advantage over adversaries in concert with our allies.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Ms. Piché.
I would now like to acknowledge that Senator Cardozo and Senator Youance have joined us.
You may begin when you are ready, Mr. Shimooka.
Richard Shimooka, Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, as an individual: Mr. Chair and other honourable senators, thank you for providing me with the privilege of speaking with you today to discuss what I believe is a critical topic at this juncture.
In terms of understanding defence procurement in the context of Canada’s commitment to increasing overall defence spending, I want to focus on the political sustainability of the current defence policy, considering the current geopolitical situation that our country faces. On the face of it, one might ask how this is even in question. But there are a number of worrying signs that make me question how solid it might be in the future and its impacts on procurement.
The root of this uncertainty is that successive Canadian governments have found it politically advantageous to underspend on defence. They do this while communicating to the populace the resourcing allocated was sufficient. This divergence has led to highly unrealistic expectations among the public as to what is necessary for our defence while allowing for a 50-year atrophy of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Canadian society generally seems quite supportive of spending on defence. Various polls conducted over the years show a support for increased defence spending and Canada carrying a fair burden to maintain the rules-based international order. However, they have no idea what that means. They’re divorced from the realities of defence and foreign policy. Rather, they look toward the political centre for leadership on these issues.
Early in the Cold War, Canadian political views on defence were roughly in unison with those of our major allies, but that diverged in the late 1960s as governments started to refocus spending on domestic priorities. These trends became particularly pronounced after the end of the Cold War, once the peace dividend was realized.
Yet, as we now know, the “end of history” did not come, and over the past decade, the stability of the international system has started to fragment again. Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, followed by the NATO Summit Wales, should have been catalysts to increase spending and modernization. Yet Canada did not seize the initiative and failed to follow through on its promises. As a result, the entire procurement enterprise — the people and structures that actually deliver capabilities — did not develop sufficient capacity or adapt to new technological realities. This will now hinder the current’s government’s ability to deliver on its ambitious defence spending targets.
The watershed moment, however, was the 2022 invasion of Ukraine proper. Canada’s allies responded rapidly, increasing spending and embarking on a major modernization program. At the time, I thought it would push our government to follow suit, but it did not — quite the opposite. Our government refused to accede to the 2% guideline or fully commit to a military modernization that was desperately required.
Instead, what seems to be motivating the current increase in spending is twofold: First is a knee-jerk response to the comments of President Trump about Canada joining the United States, and second is a desire to obtain broader economic benefits for Canadian society.
My concern is what happens after Donald Trump’s second term and the Ukrainian war ends, particularly in light of this country’s declining fiscal and demographic situation. Will Canadian policy-makers continue to judge defence a critical priority?
To be clear, the threats will remain after those events, if not becoming even more acute. Also, the technological and procurement landscape has changed, and there is even greater risk involved in procurement programs that might sap political support.
The problem goes back to political leadership, being clear-eyed about threats and communicating them to the public. If we compare our political and strategic discourse to that of our major allies, it’s unrecognizable. The language used by our allies’ political leadership clearly identifies China, the Russian Federation and other actors as threats to their security, which then justifies defence expenditures and procurement to meet those challenges. However, in Canada, our government seems generally hesitant to do so and has historically tried to avoid procurement risk altogether.
Political insecurity on defence spending is problematic because our military’s modernization is so delayed. Our North, Strong and Free from 2024 arguably should have been the defence policy paper of 2017. While it modernizes some of the major pillars of CAF capabilities, like the F-35 or the River-class destroyer, its language and approach barely acknowledge the major revolutions in military capabilities that are ongoing surrounding space-based systems or networked autonomous capabilities that are operating with advanced data systems. Such systems are critical for our future security. They require novel defence procurement strategies in order to acquire and utilize them effectively, but they are technically risky and require sustained new investments that are not currently realized in either policy or the budget. I hope we can discuss that further during questions.
Without this honest and clear-eyed annunciation of the threat environment and what it takes respond, I worry about the sustainability of our current defence spending. The public needs to understand what is required in order to provide a durable foundation for our future defence activities. If it can do that, we might be able to respond effectively to the geopolitical moment that our country currently finds itself in.
With that, I’m happy to take any questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Shimooka. We will now proceed to questions. Colleagues, this panel is with us until 6 p.m. As always, we will do our best to allow time for each member to ask their questions. With that in mind, four minutes will be allotted for each question, including the answer. I ask you to keep your questions succinct in order to allow for as many interventions as possible.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: I would like to hear your thoughts on the time frames between the decision and its implementation in terms of expenditure procurement.
Couldn’t this process be cut down to the bare essentials? Take the example of the 14 Boeing surveillance aircraft purchased ready to go. That decision was made in December 2023. It’s simple. These aircraft already exist. No aircraft have been delivered yet. The delivery is scheduled for 2026. We had Bombardiers that were supposed to take longer. However, the American army received the Bombardier aircraft faster than Canada received the Boeing aircraft. Bombardier was supposedly in its early stages and at an experimental stage and Boeing was ready to go. Everything is slower.
Could you provide some guidance on how we could speed up the process? Also, are calls for bids always the right approach for defence investments? Shouldn’t we simply make faster purchases or minimal calls for bids and draw inspiration from the Canadian Commercial Corporation’s approach? You’re familiar with this Crown corporation, which makes government-to-government purchases in order to send assistance abroad. Shouldn’t we, at the very least, draw inspiration from the CCC? My question is for the three witnesses.
[English]
Mr. Perry: Thank you. I would offer a couple of things. That is a great example of how our system can move quite quickly when it’s focused and clear. The issue that we have is that it’s not consistently focused and clear. Something else you can take from that is when we are clear about where we want to aim regarding a balance between mature systems or newer systems — it’s generally a continuum where we have to choose where we want to fit — we can move quickly.
The other thing to take from that example is that when we’re coordinated and prioritized across government, we can align things in a very effective way. When there is a lack of clarity about which of the dozens of different projects need to move forward quickly, things tend to become more complicated. When you can’t easily align different government objectives about industrial priority or capability and speed of acquisition, you run into difficulties.
We have seen that the more coordinated and focused we can be, the faster we can move. More broadly, one of the things I hope the government is thinking about in the industrial strategy and the new investment agency is trying to have more coordination, focus and coherence overall in their approach.
[Translation]
Ms. Rivard Piché: I think that we need to keep in mind that, in this particular procurement project, because Canada is placing small orders, we sometimes fall to the end of the line. That’s one of our constraints. We need to develop more innovative approaches, particularly with our allies and partners, especially if we’re moving away from American technology or American platforms. We’ll need to assess this. We should also work with the industry as early as possible to assess our needs for the various platforms. This will ensure that the integration into the development of requirements is carried out in partnership with the industry as quickly as possible.
[English]
Senator Cardozo: I want to pursue the issue you have raised in terms of the defence industry and industrial policy, so this is to both Mr. Perry and Ms. Piché.
I’m looking at building the defence industry. It has at least four components. These include building the companies and manufacturing as much as we can in Canada, creating good jobs in Canada, creating and keeping IP and hopefully getting to the point where we are exporting Canadian-made products. I wondered if you would share your thoughts on building the industry. Are those the components we should be looking at? Maybe I’ll ask Ms. Piché first.
Ms. Piché: Those are important, but they shouldn’t be primary elements. We need a defence industry so we can be more independent and autonomous when it comes to the capabilities we have, but we shouldn’t let economic incentives or objectives get in the way of the capabilities that we need.
Once we start producing capabilities at home, we will have to be very careful. Yes, it is important and key to economic security, but we also need specific capabilities to face the current environment and the threats that are present within it.
First, capabilities should be based on the threats we are facing and how we actually develop a competitive edge against our adversaries, and then how we do it at home or with our partners to make sure there are economic benefits.
Mr. Perry: I would echo that. Largely, the defence industry’s production is equally divided between consumption domestically and export. Certainly, the export component that you raised is very important, but as my colleague indicated and I would add is we need an articulation of what it is that Canada wants to obtain domestically that we currently do not. We do have a significant industry; it just doesn’t make everything.
We need more specific direction regarding things that we don’t make and want to make more of, as well as things that are made here but our own Armed Forces don’t buy. We want to see the Canadian military buying specifically.
The elements you touched on are certainly part of that mix. One additional consideration right now is the way that our industry is structured, the largest number of firms are smaller companies, but the bulk of the actual sales and economic activity are Canadian parts of large multinational companies. Some of them have their headquarters in the United States, with others in Europe. We need to think intentionally about what we want the composition of our industry to look like in the future. We need to see more from the government about what the objective is there.
Mr. Shimooka: Another wrinkle to add to the reality of defence industrial supply chains is that they’re extremely complex. They’re no different than in civil society or economy where you have many different countries that are involved, suppliers and whatnot. It’s really difficult to disaggregate some of these manufacturers from that supply chain.
The idea that you would be able to create some sort of defence autarchy or reshore large portions of the defence industrial base is not realistic. On top of that, the nature of defence capability development is integration. It is bringing together large numbers of drones, manned platforms and so on into an integrated whole.
In a lot of cases, when you try to bring these programs into a domestic sphere, you potentially lose some of the military benefits of interoperability because you are building them bespoke for a Canadian market.
I would end by saying that if we are going to look at how we develop the defence industrial base, it has to be economically feasible but also militarily appropriate to ensure the Canadian Armed Forces obtain the systems they need going forward.
Senator Kutcher: This is to all of you. I could be wrong, but I think our F-35 procurement process started in the 1990s. Harper announced 65 planes. Of course, we see them on the ground and in the air. Anita Anand, just last year, announced 88.
Has there been any independent third-party audit of the procurement process in Canada to show us why we have such problems doing things quickly? And if not, why not? Would it be beneficial? Will this new Defence Investment Agency have performance measures and an open audit so we can see how fast things are moving?
Mr. Shimooka: In terms of an overall audit, there hasn’t been much. There are various studies this committee has done, and certainly the House Standing Committee on National Defence has done studies as well.
To some degree, some of the issues have been long known. The fact that we have too many groups involved in defence procurement at any one time, whether they are in the various departments. There’s a lack of authority and accountability on these issues, and a lack of spending. These aren’t unknowns.
I think what isn’t well understood overall, though, is how the technology environment has changed on defence procurement. We can look at the current Secretary of Defense in the United States, who last Friday announced sweeping reforms to their acquisition system. This is after a decade of major reforms. Canada hasn’t really moved on any of these areas. The DIA is probably the first real effort since 2014 where Canada has made any sort of significant reforms in this area. It’s sorely necessary.
There hasn’t been as many audits and so on, but I think the problems have been known but haven’t been addressed over the years.
Mr. Perry: I have two things. We haven’t had many comprehensive audits that looked at the entire acquisition system. I think that’s something that still needs to be done, to get a comprehensive assessment, holistically, of how the entire system functions.
Second, going back to my opening comments, what we tend to have had are studies into a number of highly visible, highly problematic projects that represent, quantitatively, a small fraction of the entire defence portfolio. Currently, National Defence has well over 300 different projects registered in its investment plan. There has really only been focus on probably a dozen, maybe two dozen at the most. You have a small sample size that is not comprehensive and representative in the analysis that has been done to date. I think it would be beneficial to have that broadened to be a more representative sample of what we’re trying to do as a whole.
Senator Kutcher: Neither of you answered the question on whether the Defence Investment Agency would benefit from having an independent audit, maybe on an annual basis, with clearly set performance measures put in place so that we could find out whether they are moving along the path they are supposed to be.
Mr. Shimooka: I would say yes, absolutely. I think that is probably one of the significant failings of our system, that we don’t have that clarity on the current procurement enterprise overall. Having some metrics that can actually address how quickly the DIA is going to operate would certainly be welcome.
I will point out one thing: I believe the DIA’s current coverage will only be about 8% of existing defence procurement. It’s certainly not going to cover the vast majority of operations. In some ways, it reflects Mr. Perry’s comment on that, that it’s a narrow area.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here in person or virtually today. This is important testimony, but we’re anxious about converting to action when it comes to procurement and the work in this area.
My first question concerns this Defence Investment Agency. Out of the gate, it was announced that it would only handle big-ticket items costing over $100 million. This immediately excludes 90% — as you mentioned a moment ago — of DND’s yearly contractual value, including such items as drones, counter drones, sensor systems, satellites and software. We have some of the best in the field manufacturing these items in Canada.
Do you think this is the right thing to do? Do you think it was a quick decision or perhaps a bit of a mistake? Should the DIA handle all of Canada’s defence procurement, or is that just too much to take on with this new agency?
I’ll ask Mr. Shimooka first. Thank you.
Mr. Shimooka: Regarding reforming the procurement enterprise — it’s not just defence. In some ways, defence has some pretty unique legalities involved that make it a difficult department to reform. This was an effort to sort of begin a procurement approach, especially given that you have a very large procurement upcoming, which is the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project.
It’s intended, from what I gather, as an initial shortcut to springboard new reforms and be covering the largest ones that allow the government to deal with this area, with the thought that there may be further reforms.
In my view, absolutely, there is going to be more required. The two areas I would say is that with the DIA construct, it’s kind of an interdepartmental team that is supposed to mitigate or break up some of these issues that are currently afflicting defence procurement. There are six groups involved at any one time in a defence procurement.
At the same time, our defence enterprise requires a complete reform to address the great complexity that you’re starting to see in defence capabilities. It’s not just about getting drones. You think about the cybersecurity aspect of it. You think about the industrial aspect of ensuring they have a supply chain behind them for support, as well as training and so on.
Yes, it may be an initial start, but we require so much more to get capabilities into service and to spend the monies that have been allocated by the government to these ends.
Senator M. Deacon: I guess the other part is kind of keeping me awake at night. This is a lot of money for spending quickly, $81.8 billion. I’m wondering, at the front end, does Canada have a strong handle on what shape we want the Canadian Forces to be in? What is the intent? What is our service? Structure, function and metrics are all very important. Will we need to be tooled more for foreign engagements, or should we focus more on what we’re seeing with issues at home like natural disasters? Has the time been taken to determine what we want the next 10 years to look like before we take a look at this next step? Thank you.
Mr. Perry: I would say that if that’s been done, it hasn’t been shared.
Similarly, to go back to the prior question that I didn’t answer, I don’t think it’s clear what performance metric the government would use to apply an audit to the agency. I think more transparency on these measures would be quite useful. We don’t have a good understanding of where all those extra dollars are going to go.
Senator McNair: I apologize to the witnesses for being cut off so quickly.
Mr. Perry, you used particular words in your opening comments: “pragmatic,” “patience,” “open” and “transparent.” On the open and transparent aspect, what would you recommend that the DIA do to streamline and accelerate defence procurement to adequately ensure transparency in the process? That’s a question for all three of you.
The second part of it is this: What international best practices could also contribute to the DIA’s effectiveness if adopted? What countries would you say are the models we should be looking at?
Mr. Perry: Maybe starting with the models, I think it’s difficult to do is cross-national comparisons because, at least in my observation, the Canadian system writ large functions like an ecosystem. It’s difficult to just look at someone else’s procurement agency without understanding how it fits within their armed forces construct, how you do defence policy and planning and how you do industrial strategy to the extent that you do. There is a tendency to look at a procurement instrument without considering how, in that host country, it works with other constituent parts.
To come back to your question, though, I think part of the transparency that would help shape the other elements is having a clearer sense of what the actual acquisition plan is, to come back to a prior question. We don’t actually know, for example, what projects that new agency is focused on yet, aside from the comment about one of them. If it’s a number under 10, surely, that’s relatively easy to convey to people. If we can also get better clarity about how it’s going to actually tie into industrial priorities, such as what things the Government of Canada wants to see purchased in Canada, I think that is an important direction for that agency to have. The more we can have clarity about objectives at the front end, the easier it is to structure some of the other elements and then provide performance assessment later.
Ms. Rivard Piché: There is also a job of public relations that must be done around procurement. Not all procurement projects have failed. Some of them have been successful.
Going back to the previous question, I think the big ones, the multiyear ones that include millions for complex platforms like the F-35s, they are systems of systems. It’s a platform with multiple capabilities, such as with the River-class destroyers and frigates.
There are other levels of capabilities that have worked well in terms of procurement. I think we need to rethink things a bit. DIA can help with those big projects that have failed over and over again. Then, when we talk about smaller projects, minor cap projects are delivered every year but are kind of the unsung heroes of how we provide certain capabilities to our military. Those don’t necessarily need to go to DIA but should be presented, studied and reproduced. For example, I’m looking at the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command that has really found ways to accelerate its own procurement by understanding the rules and ensuring that, across the line, things are prepared in the right way and timelines and demands are respected.
So there are different ways we can get better at that.
Mr. Shimooka: I will answer the second part.
The Americans are certainly quite far ahead in this area. For over 11 years, they have been undertaking a series of significant defence reforms. The speech that occurred last week is basically the capstone of a lot of these efforts.
I’ll highlight three areas that are pretty important.
First, they have identified that the nature of integrated defence capabilities requires portfolio management. It’s no longer about a single program that has very strong structural boundaries; it is about capabilities as a group or networked system, then devising policies around that. In some ways, they actually disaggregate programs; they have smaller programs below that reduce risks on any single portion.
The current way we do defence procurement does not allow for this whatsoever. The Treasury Board rules are inflexible regarding the ways to do it.
The second part regards adaptive acquisition approaches, which means they have different pathways and approaches for specific kinds of technologies —
The Deputy Chair: Apologies, Mr. Shimooka, but we have to move on.
Senator Dasko: Welcome, witnesses. You are the first panels on our study of procurement. It’s great to have you with us.
We are clearly ramping up because of the geopolitical situation in the world, especially regarding Ukraine, Russia and our commitment to NATO. We are ramping up because of that and the pressures we’re getting from those sources.
It seems to me we’re facing problems we have had in the past — the problems around acting slowly — but there are potential problems around acting quickly. I want to talk about the latter for a moment.
We are ramping up the defence budget for this year from $40 billion a year to approximately $60 billion. Ramping up by so much seems to be a recipe for disaster, especially — as Mr. Perry said — since the government is not focused or clear on what they want to do and what their goals are. I presume that’s what you were referencing: their goals, what they are looking for and what they see the needs as.
So if you’re ramping up by so much and don’t know where you’re going, how do you deal with the problems around going quickly? How do you do this, and what are the chances of success or failure? They are putting themselves in a position of making very bad decisions, I would say, in that process. I would like the opinions of all the witnesses here on that.
Mr. Perry: My presumption is that the government does have a plan; they just haven’t shared it. When they put together the funding package that went into the budget, my assumption is that it didn’t come from thin air and they have actually built out a set of different spending priorities and more details, but those are not publicly accessible at a level that is commensurate with the amount of money they are putting forward.
Coming forward with more details around what they have built internally would be a key part of that.
On the rapid increase in the rate of spending, for any big organization, it’s very difficult to ramp up your resource spend line that quickly. We’re pushing to have a year-over-year spending increase of almost 40%. That’s a huge year-over-year change. In the past, we have struggled to absorb increases that much.
They have been smart about apportioning at least the in-year increases this year, with funding going toward personnel, projects that have shortfalls, increased maintenance spending — places that have both the need and a relatively easy ability to absorb extra money.
But they are looking to keep ramping that up extensively. It will be a significant challenge to absorb that amount of funding. The more clearly they can share their plans, with industry, for example — because industry must be able to align to what the government wants to do, especially if they want to move quickly — the better. Transparency would be good for a number of reasons.
The Deputy Chair: Please respond within 30 seconds.
Mr. Shimooka: I will be very quick.
Historically, Canada’s four structures have trended toward what our allies have done. Our NATO capability guidelines dictated a fair bit of what we bought in the past. Clearly, that will probably continue.
I would argue that there are significant risks. We are under capacity in the department to actually execute on these programs; some programs have only 50% of the staffing they need. That will cause issues around identifying options.
At the same time, we also need to be good on new technologies, which will be risky. That also has to be communicated to and accepted by the public, because that’s the reality of how new capabilities are being developed today.
Senator White: Thank you to the witnesses.
I’m trying to understand how we manage speeding up defence procurement and increasing spending while ensuring that we “buy Canada”? Is Canada ready? Do we have a foundation? Are we biting off more than we can chew?
Ms. Rivard Piché: First, I would like to push back respectfully on the idea of “buying Canada.” I think having sovereign capabilities is really important, but “buying Canada” could be dangerous because we don’t necessarily have the required technologies.
I see a twofold strategy, if you like. There are certain capabilities we require now that we should buy off the shelf. It shouldn’t be about building them and having them delivered in 5 or 10 years. We are a lame duck when it comes, for example, to integrated air defence systems in Canada. We cannot defend ourselves. In the case of a major conflict, we won’t have the means to protect ourselves at home while deploying abroad, so we would not be a good ally moving forward.
I think what my colleague was aiming at with his presentation, and which you pointed to, is the long term. We can invest in developing the base for capabilities that are not necessarily required urgently over time. To me, this requires a little more sophistication in terms of the strategy that we’re going to adopt in terms of increasing our defence investments and capacity to defend ourselves.
Mr. Perry: We are in a strange situation where we have existing Canadian production that we’re not buying. We have had a need, for three and a half years, for increased acquisition of ammunition because of the war in Ukraine and our donations. However, for three and a half years, we haven’t been able to sign contracts with the Canadian suppliers that currently make our ammunition.
There are many things we could buy — and could buy today — if we could get contracts in place, but in a number of areas, for reasons that are very difficult to understand, we do not yet have contracts in place to buy more bullets.
Mr. Shimooka: To quickly add to that, there is a third option here. It’s not just binary of “buy Canada” or “buy abroad.” There is joint production. A senator talked earlier about Bombardier’s work in ISR — or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — platforms and intelligence-gathering systems. They have done extremely good work for the U.S. Army on what is called the HADES program, which is a highly advanced system that allows battlefield vision deep into an opponent’s territory. These are programs Canada can buy into, especially if they get in on them early through joint development; before they are in development, get our supply chains into them. That’s an option. Again, these are complex supply chains.
There is very few that are actually binary. Munitions is one, but even drones require vast supply chains and cannot all be done in Canada. In some ways, that’s a path that we should be looking at, as well.
Senator Ince: Thank you all. This is very important. My question dovetails with the end of that last question.
What are the main trends and challenges concerning major defence procurement projects in Canada and perhaps even around the world?
Mr. Shimooka: Integration is probably the key trend that we’re watching right now. In some cases, the reality is that when we have vast information systems. With an aircraft like the F-35, it’s no longer about being a fighter that can aviate and navigate, that can fly around and fire missiles, but actually being part of a dense network of capabilities that are drawing space-based or ship assets together to allow for quicker decisions. That’s also supported by AI and other systems.
That’s the reality of where warfare is going. Drones are a part of that as well. The autonomy side is a big part of that — that you have attritable systems. Those trends are all working together.
Canada, in its current purchases, is certainly hitting some of the pillars with the F-35 and the River-class destroyers. However, what we’re seeing our allies buying more of are ancillary capabilities, such as collaborative combat aircraft — which are unmanned systems that fly beside an F-35 or an F-22 — or unmanned vessels that all network together.
That is a real challenge because you have to get the networking and the industrial side right to produce these at scale when required. You will see a bloom-bust cycle on a lot of these capabilities. You will buy a few and do nothing until a conflict starts, and you will have to spool that up quickly. That industrial side is a big challenge that a lot of countries — not just the United States but also the United Kingdom and Australia — are looking to address.
Mr. Perry: Just to build on that, you’re seeing a bigger ratio of information communications technology attached to the aluminum and steel that goes into traditional platforms. The technical complexity has gone up a lot, particularly in the West. At the same time, part of what we’re seeing with the conflict in Ukraine is that we need to be able to make things at large volume to have the scale of supply.
We haven’t been in the business of procuring assets for any kind of real conflict scenario. We keep building and acquiring very complicated pieces of equipment with no real plan to have many of them lost in conflict. We need to change some of the framework to be able to think about not just what we would buy and start a war with, but what we would be able to continue to produce, to finish and have replacements for — additional stocks, spare parts and so on.
Ms. Rivard Piché: There is also the pace at which technology is changing and becoming obsolete. We need to change our procurement cycles and processes for technology that within a few months is no longer operational or useful on a battlefield. We need to have the ability to rapidly acquire technology that will also become obsolete.
The Deputy Chair: We have very limited time for the second round, and the first question goes to Senator Carignan. I understand that Mr. Shimooka wanted to answer your question but didn’t have a chance to do so in the first round.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Yes, you can finish. I understood a part of your response that you slipped into another comment. If you would like to finish your response, I’ll have another question afterwards.
[English]
Mr. Shimooka: I’ll be quick. Regarding making things occur faster, moving authorities downward and allowing program managers at lower levels, the current threshold is far too low for procurement that has to go to a broader competition. If we were to allow individuals for maybe procurements under $100 million or something similar, it would not require the same level of regulatory or process overhead that really slows down a lot of these procurements.
This would go back to the previous point that my colleague made on the need for technology insertion. New capabilities require constant adaptation. We see this in Ukraine every day. There is always a better mousetrap being built. That flexibility is not within our system whatsoever. Undertaking things more quickly or more rapidly addressing these new threats requires that flexibility.
That is the one area I hadn’t mentioned with respect to your question.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: I have a quick question about submarines. In Brussels and at NATO, we’re told to ensure that aircraft are interoperable and to avoid South Korean aircraft. Yet we’re about to issue a call for bids for German and South Korean submarines. Aren’t we putting our foot in our mouth, particularly in terms of interoperability?
Ms. Rivard Piché: The choice will also affect the location where we want to use the submarines. From a strategic point of view, choosing South Korean submarines shows a desire to operate or use them in the Indo-Pacific region, while opting for submarines from the German-Norwegian consortium means a direct contribution to a NATO and Arctic operation. One of Canada’s dilemmas is its obligation to remain a credible NATO ally while also being able to address the clear challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. Yet we’re a Pacific country. The choice will be difficult. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.
Senator Youance: I would like to thank the witnesses. Your comments are quite insightful.
My question concerns the balance between equipment, both F-35s and submarines, and personnel training. Between the two, we’ve discussed production here in Canada, procurement in various countries, different uses of equipment, but also how quickly some equipment becomes obsolete.
How will Canada manage to train its personnel to deal with these various factors and remain fully operational?
Ms. Rivard Piché: This is a key challenge raised in discussions about a mixed fleet of fighter jets versus a fleet consisting solely of F-35s. We can’t have the same pilots or technicians working on the same fleet. If we want a mixed fleet, we’ll also need two mixed personnel lines, mixed warehouses, mixed hangars and mixed runways. We can’t put these systems side by side. It’s not like two models of cars.
The decision to move forward with a mixed fleet of fighter jets comes with staggering costs. These costs may fall within the 3.5% of the gross domestic product. However, these resources could ultimately be allocated to other places, in an environment where we face enormous demands in various areas of operation.
[English]
Mr. Perry: One of the other dynamics was because we underinvested for a very long period. We have also had procurement delays. We are trying to do a huge number of recapitalization projects at the same time. That’s exacerbating some of the issues my colleague talked about. We’re very stretched. Ideally, if we are now going to be getting to a different, more stable funding level, hopefully we can have a smoother process and apportion some of these big procurements in a more systematic way so we’re not trying to replace almost the entire air force in the same five-year period.
Mr. Shimooka: I would argue that the personnel limitation is probably the biggest one currently slowing down adoption of new fleets. We do not have enough pilots in the tactical fighter force. Even with the transition to the P-8 Poseidon from the CP-140, there are not enough crews. This is delaying our ability to modernize the force.
On top of that, in some specialist areas such as cyberwarfare, which are critical to making these capabilities run in the future, you have far too few people undertaking these same areas.
Look at our allies. Poland, for example, is undergoing a massive increase in defence spending, going to 5%. With a lot of capabilities, they are able to transition much faster than we can.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. That’s all the time we have for this panel. This panel has been very popular. There are many other questions we could not attend to today. Thank you, Mr. Perry, Ms. Rivard Piché and Mr. Shimooka, for taking the time to meet with us today. We greatly appreciate your contributions and the time you took to share your knowledge with us.
For those joining us live, we are meeting today to open our study on defence procurement in the context of Canada’s commitment to increase defence spending.
For the next panel, we are pleased to welcome Ms. Peggy Mason, President, Rideau Institute; and Mr. Steven Staples, Policy Analyst. Thank you both for joining us today. We will begin by inviting you to provide your opening remarks, which will be followed by questions from our members. You each have five minutes for your opening remarks. Ms. Mason, we will begin with you.
Peggy Mason, President, Rideau Institute: Thank you very much for inviting me to testify.
My focus is on why Canada should not participate in the strategic ballistic missile defence, or BMD, elements of the Golden Dome project mandated by President Trump’s January 27 executive order. Instead, Canada should focus on its major commitment to upgrading NORAD’s surveillance and early warning systems, including a space-based satellite surveillance component.
My reasons for urging Canada to once again — as it has done twice before, in 1985 and 2005 — forgo participation in America’s strategic BMD program are as follows: It is technically infeasible and fiscally unsound; it is destabilizing and will undermine, not enhance, North American security; and its weaponization of space will put at risk civilian systems upon which life on Earth today literally depends.
The Trump executive order effectively revives Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, which called for a multilayered defence system to intercept and destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles during all three phases of their flight — boost phase, mid-course and terminal phase. But it goes further, aiming not only to protect America from nuclear attack but also conventional missiles — including hypersonic and cruise missiles — and aircraft attacks. As with Reagan’s SDI, a prominent aspect of the proposed Golden Dome system is the inclusion of space-based weapons, including warhead interceptors.
As I said, my focus is on strategic BMD, not strategic defences against conventional air-breathing threats.
Strategic BMD is technically infeasible. There is an avalanche of congressional, scientific and expert reports summarizing the technological challenges to and the failure of the two-decades-long, US$250-billion effort to develop just one aspect of SDI: a reliable, effective ground-based ballistic missile defence system designed not against nuclear peers — Russia or China — but to intercept in mid-course a limited ICBM attack by a rogue state, namely North Korea.
Golden Dome is the massive expansion of an unsound system, requiring a mega-constellation of orbiting satellites in low Earth orbit carrying interceptor missiles. These satellites would be enormously vulnerable to relatively cheap missiles or manoeuvrable satellites — anti-satellite capabilities that Russia and China both already possess.
It is fiscally unsound. The $175-billion Golden Dome price tag cited by the U.S. President is widely considered unrealistic. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the proposed space-based elements of the current Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, program against only the North Korean threat could exceed $500 billion over 20 years.
Strategic BMD is profoundly destabilizing and undermines global security. Bearing in mind that any offensive ballistic system is much easier and cheaper to mount than the defensive systems that try to stop them, the simplest way for an adversary to respond to a strategic missile defence system is to overwhelm it with more offensive missiles.
The mere possibility that U.S. ballistic missile defences might someday work sufficiently to undermine its capacity for a retaliatory nuclear strike — upon which nuclear deterrence depends — has incentivized China to move beyond its “minimum deterrence” posture and engage in a major expansion of its nuclear arsenal.
Both China and Russia have also turned to new technologies like hypersonics to get around missile defences.
The likely result of Trump’s proposed vast expansion of America’s strategic ballistic missile defence program will be to provoke a further surge in the nuclear arms race currently underway, as well as to seriously undermine any efforts to revive arms control among nuclear weapon states.
Weapons in space — contrary to long-standing Canadian policy — would undermine the security of vital civilian satellites by creating debris fields, interfering with operations or causing direct physical destruction. These actions would threaten essential global services like communication, navigation, finance and environmental management.
Rather than wasting C$99.5 billion on this dangerously misguided project, Canada should focus its resources and expertise on its major commitment to the modernization of NORAD’s surveillance and early warning systems, including a space-based satellite monitoring component. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Next we will hear from Mr. Staples. The floor is yours.
Steven Staples, Policy Analyst, Author on Canada’s defence policy, as an individual: Thank you, Senator Al Zaibak, and thank you for the invitation, senators.
Good afternoon. My name is Steve Staples. I have been a policy analyst on defence, foreign policy and other issues for over 25 years. I am delighted to join my colleague from the Rideau Institute, former ambassador Peggy Mason, on this panel. I would also like to give a shout-out to the senators from New Brunswick, being a New Brunswicker myself.
As you know, Budget 2025, announced by Prime Minister Carney’s government, is accelerating investments to meet the NATO target of 2% of gross domestic product this year and put Canada on a pathway to meet the NATO Defence Investment Pledge of investing 5% of GDP in defence by 2035.
Budget 2025 proposes to provide $81.8 billion, as we heard in the first panel, over five years to rebuild, rearm and reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces.
However, it has very few details on how this money will be spent, on what capabilities and for what purpose. This should be of great interest and concern to senators, and I heard people asking very good questions about that in the first panel.
It’s clear that priorities for defence spending are being driven by what I feel are rather arbitrary targets set by NATO. In my view, this is not the manner in which Canada’s defence budget should be determined.
Defence spending decisions should be based upon our legitimate security needs, not the size of our economy or gross domestic product. The steps by which Canada sets defence spending should go like this: First, we should determine the threats to Canada; second, we should define what capabilities we need to address those threats; and, third, we should set the budget accordingly. That seems like common sense.
Instead, the government has reversed this process by first setting the budget at 5% of GDP, then rushing out to spend the billions on largely undefined priorities. And it’s fair to say that the Prime Minister has not clearly articulated what threats Canada faces that require a quadrupling of our defence spending by 2030.
For instance, we currently operate a fleet of four submarines. The government has announced it is tripling the size of the fleet to 12 submarines with an estimated cost of $60 billion. And that’s just the purchase price. Once you add service and support, it will double. Yet there has been no explanation of why we need a fleet three times the size of what we currently have.
Let’s take a moment and consider the NATO target of 5% of GDP for defence spending, including infrastructure. You may not know this, but NATO measures defence spending using three different methods. The first is as a percentage of GDP, which is the one we are all familiar with. Another is in real dollars — how much money you are actually spending. And the third is via per capita spending based on the population of the member country.
You might be surprised to learn that Canada is seventh highest in NATO in actual dollars, behind just the United States, which spends as much as almost the rest of the alliance combined — the U.K., Germany, France, Italy and Poland. Poland is an interesting new player; their defence spending has increased quite a bit. Then there is Canada at number seven.
NATO tends to put the focus on its members’ level of defence spending as a percentage of GDP because it prioritizes burden sharing, so each member, including Canada, can spend as much as it can afford. This contradicts an approach to defence spending where the budget is set at what you legitimately need for defence.
I’d ask you to consider, senators, what you think is the best way: Is it the most you can afford or the amount that you need?
In conclusion, I would suggest that you would not be wrong to be concerned that the rush to reach the NATO 5% GDP goal leaves the public purse open to waste, abuse and excessive secrecy. The government has not been asked basic questions about its plans to spend the billions and how these plans address real security threats faced by Canada. Why 12 submarines when we have 4? Why 88 F-35 fighters when the Harper government only wanted 65? Why 15 River-class destroyers when our current fleet of frigates is only 12? Why overturn decades of policy supporting peaceful uses of space and agree to contribute to President Trump’s Golden Dome program?
Canadians deserve to be part of the discussion and decisions regarding the use of public dollars, including with respect to national defence. Back in the 1990s, the government led a thorough public review of Canada’s defence and foreign policies at that hinge moment, to borrow a term from the Prime Minister, at the end of the Cold War. Are we in a similar hinge moment now? Some might say we are. I think even the Prime Minister would agree with that.
Is now a good time to go back to the public, explain what the threats are and hear from them in a public discussion of defence and foreign policy? Now is the time to engage Canadians in that public review.
I look forward to talking about defence spending issues and the Golden Dome. That will be a topic of discussion, one that I wrote a very slim book on a number of years ago. Thank you very much.
Senator Cardozo: Thank you, witnesses, for being here. Ms. Mason, you have a long history of very important work in this area. You have been Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament to the United Nations. You talked about the Golden Dome but said we should preferably put our money into NORAD. I hear your point very clearly in terms of the Golden Dome; earlier witnesses referred to preferring a “Maple Dome.” You also talked about the Reagan period.
First, is the threat more real, with the large number of satellites we now have circling the globe these days, as opposed to 20 or 30 years ago? Second, where would you rather spend our resources, whether it’s NATO, NORAD or these other aspects of defence equipment?
Ms. Mason: Thank you very much. First, it is really important to emphasize that my objection to the Golden Dome, which is a vast enterprise that covers defences against short- and medium-range missiles, of which Canada has some and is already developing. However, it also includes strategic defence against ballistic missiles, and that’s the problem area.
Other aspects of it that would involve NORAD may be very challenging. Trying to develop defences against hypersonic and cruise missiles is a very daunting task. However, that doesn’t involve the same global destabilization as the strategic ballistic missile defence initiative, which goes to the heart of, attacks and undermines nuclear deterrence and incentivizes adversaries like Russia and China to build more offensive weapon systems.
There are many aspects of the Golden Dome not dealing with strategic ballistic missile defence, and Canada is already doing that kind of work — though it is not called the Golden Dome. Another important factor is that Canada has pledged to enhance our aerospace monitoring, and has put a lot of money into doing so. NORAD gathers that missile warning monitoring information now, and it is shared with U.S. Strategic Command, which deals with strategic ballistic missile defence. That sharing of information is going to continue. I’m urging Canada not to get involved in — and we haven’t heretofore — the active development of strategic ballistic missile defences. They don’t work and are terribly destabilizing.
Senator Cardozo: You laid it out very clearly, Mr. Staples, but, Ms. Mason, can you comment on whether disarmament helps to build up our defences? Should we be increasing our defence spending in various areas? I get the point that Ms. Staples made about not going about it the right way.
Ms. Mason: Without diplomacy, building up your defences just leads to the other side building up their defences. This is the security dilemma, with everyone having spent a lot of money and being left no safer. You need, as an essential part of your defence-strengthening strategy, your diplomatic effort, which in this case is arms control.
[Translation]
Senator Carignan: Thank you. To continue the discussion from the previous panel, I would like to talk about submarines. This is a great example of an upcoming procurement. I’m wondering about the strategy and the goal. We’re ruling out French submarines. These submarines would be particularly well suited to the Arctic, which includes our NATO allies. Instead, we’re looking at South Korean vessels. Some witnesses said earlier — and other experts have said the same thing — that if we want to prioritize the Indo-Pacific region, South Korean aircraft might be a better choice. However, if we want to prioritize the Arctic, we should purchase German-Norwegian aircraft instead. Yet it seemed quite clear that the announcement referred to prioritizing the Arctic.
I would like to hear your thoughts on these conflicting positions. Is this just a strategic approach to negotiating a better price with the Germans, or are we seriously considering purchasing South Korean aircraft for deployment in the Arctic, with all the necessary adaptations to ensure the protection of the Far North, commitments to NORAD, missile installation and interoperability with NATO? This option doesn’t seem to make any sense. I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
[English]
Ms. Mason: I must apologize. My French is rusty, and the translation is not —
[Translation]
It’s terrible. I can’t keep up with the comments in French right now. The interpretation isn’t working. Steven can start and I may be able to add some information. I’m sorry.
[English]
Mr. Staples: Thank you very much. I can speak a little bit about the submarine program. The submarines that we have now were British built, not French. You know the whole story: They were left in the water for many years. They are sort of the lone ships. There were only four of them built for the British, and they were acquired kind of bargain basement. There was a terrible tragedy where a sailor died during transit from Scotland over to Canada on the Chicoutimi. It’s an awful story. Basically, one is functioning now.
Let’s be clear: These submarines are very interesting. I would suggest reading Peter Jones’s article in The Walrus. He is from the University of Ottawa and wrote a good piece on this.
These submarines are interesting. They will have an air-independent propulsion system, which has been around for a long time. It was thought we might be able to adapt the current submarines we had to add that system, but that was never done; it was just too expensive.
It will have an under-ice capability. The key here is that what the forces are looking for is a submarine that keeps us in the submarine game so that our allies need to share information with us. It’s going to help us actually monitor our allies’ submarines in the Arctic, not just our opponents’, because they are not supposed to bump into one another. Once you have submarines floating around up there, you have to tell your allies where the others are. How do you explain why French and British nuclear submarines collided underwater a couple of years ago? I don’t know. Anyway, that’s the gain.
These submarines add new capabilities to our current one. They have vertical launch tubes, which I was not aware of until very recently. Vertical launch tubes, if you haven’t already studied this, allow you to have land attack capabilities. We do not have those now. Those submarines are currently only firing torpedoes. They can be used for intelligence gathering and monitoring. They can be used for transporting special forces and things like that. However, we have never had the ability to launch a cruise missile straight out of the water and attack the land. That is what the military is planning for these submarines. It’s a completely new capability. We don’t own these missiles now. We don’t have anything like them. I don’t think these missiles are included in the price tag of these submarines. Why are there 12?
While the submarines could be used in the Arctic, their real point is as an offensive system, not a defensive one. They will be used to put other countries at risk through them not knowing whether one of our submarines might be loitering off the coast and able to undertake land attack missions.
Senator White: Thank you to the panellists. My question is for Ms. Mason.
I’m wondering if you could discuss or help me understand the upcoming changes to defence procurement in Canada and the government’s renewed commitment to defence spending as it relates to the United Nations and the peace and security perspective. What I’m asking specifically is this: In your opinion, is there a way for Canada to actually increase defence spending while also maintaining our commitment to the UN principles on peace building?
Ms. Mason: Thank you very much for that question. One immediate way that Canada can bring the two together — and a very important area of UN work — is, of course, UN peacekeeping and stabilization. That’s needed more than ever. But the UN is facing a terrible, massive budget crunch, mainly because the U.S. is not paying its peacekeeping dues and regular dues. UN peacekeeping has also suffered from a lack of sufficient Western forces with sufficient modern equipment.
Canada can respond to that immediately by demonstrating its commitment to doing more, not just by saying that we will participate, but by reinstating what was once a premier Canadian international peacekeeping training centre, the Pearson Centre. It is where we trained forces from developing countries. It had a global reputation and was allowed to languish for lack of government funding. I think that is most appropriate and something that can be done immediately, for Canada to reinstate an international peacekeeping training centre under civilian leadership, as UN peacekeeping missions are, but focusing on all of the civilian and military aspects of UN peacekeeping missions.
I thank you very much for that question. The final point is there should be no contradiction, as I mentioned at the outset, about how diplomacy is absolutely fundamental if we’re going to strengthen our defence and want to actually make ourselves safer and prevent wars. So is a commitment to the UN. I gave the example of the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre because it would be defence spending that would qualify, and it would have a positive impact on international peace and security. Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here today. I will direct this question to Mr. Staples. It concerns the DIA. It has been touted as a means to fast-track procurement. You’ve heard that. It has historically been fairly glacial, quite slow, in this country.
At the same time, many in the government have been promoting the domestic economic benefits of this historic level of defence spending. This is despite some mention that a lot of this procurement, in order for this to work, will come from outside Canada. I am looking at the kinds of things we’ve talked about this evening.
Does Canada have the capacity to keep a significant amount of the spending within the country, or are we setting ourselves up for a bit of disappointment and failure in the eyes of Canadians by trying to tie the two together?
Mr. Staples: Thank you very much. It’s a great question. There is a little bit of a catch there in terms of what kind of investment we want to see from that procurement.
First, open, competitive processes clearly always generate the best value and the best equipment. I was colleagues with the former director of operational test and evaluation at the Pentagon, Phil Coyle. He told me this. He has testified before these committees as well. He has passed now, but he always said that is the best way to go.
The delays come when people start adding caveats. It is sometimes called “gold plating,” when they start adding other elements. You heard the head of the navy the other day saying we should not add a bunch of requirements on these submarines because he obviously wants to get them quickly, and that would start delaying them. When you start rigging competitions and things like that, that’s where a lot of the delays come from.
Let’s talk about how Canada can benefit from that. First, I don’t think we want a big defence industrial base in Canada, and here’s why: What happens when those production lines end? They are good for a while, but then they come to an end and there are only two options left for those companies: first, come back to the Canadian government and get another contract to keep building things that we may not even need; and, second, exports. If you’re going to attempt exports, most of the countries in Europe also buy local and have their own tank producers and things like that, so that becomes a problem. Or you might end up making deals with other countries like Saudi Arabia. As you know, we have a very well-known contract with Saudi Arabia that’s highly questionable in terms of how those vehicles are being used.
The best thing is using a non-defence investment. We used to have what was called a dollar-for-dollar requirement, where for every dollar we spent on a defence contract, the company or country would invest an equal dollar back into Canada. That doesn’t mean that it has to be part of that procurement, like building a wing for a plane. These companies often build all kinds of things, so it could be a civilian or commercial investment in Canada, like engine overhaul and repair for commercial planes or something similar.
We can still benefit as long as we have that dollar-for-dollar requirement. It’s a very complicated point system. I will point out the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program was based on the condition that you couldn’t do that. That’s why there are problems and why two unions — the machinists and the auto workers — were opposed to it 10 or 15 years ago, back when I was at the House Defence Committee: because the F-35 program specifically prohibited that kind of dollar-for-dollar investment requirement in Canada. That’s why you have Griffin coming in with an offer to make a big investment here. In that case, I think they would be building military aircraft in Canada, not making similar investments.
However, you have options to avoid having a big-government or export-dependent military industry. Build up our commercial capabilities and our green technologies. There are all kinds of ways you can take that military spending and make it work in your economy, just not through defence production.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you both for being here with us today. Russia’s war in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated to those of us who have had our heads in the ground that rapid development of essential combat technologies is part of the current aspect of what happens on the military front. Drones being the primary force at the front lines was unheard of five years ago.
It’s very hard to predict what these technologies will be in the future. How does the reality of the rapid change in military technology, which is necessary for combat — and I emphasize “necessary for combat” — affect our procurement strategies today? Is the Defence Investment Agency properly set up to allow us to ensure that we are able to move quickly and with great agility as new technologies become available?
Ms. Mason: Thank you very much for that question. First, I would caution that countries not at war are not going to and should not seek to replicate the kind of learning and development that is taking place in those nations that are in conflict, and I would use the example of Afghanistan. When Canada was engaged in Afghanistan, we ramped up our own capacity —
Senator Kutcher: With all due respect, Ms. Mason, that’s not the question. I am not interested in Afghanistan, and the relationship of Afghanistan to Ukraine is not a reasonable comparison. I wonder if you can answer the question about how our procurement agency will be able to be agile enough to deal with emerging technologies that are combat-tested technologies.
Ms. Mason: Thank you. I would have to repeat something that was emphasized a number of times in the previous panel and that is very fundamental: Treasury Board guidelines have to change. Under our previous defence budget, over the past 10 years at least, we lapsed on average between $1 billion and $2 billion a year, unable to spend it. It went back into the defence budget, because Treasury Board would literally have had to have been sitting seven days a week. This is a foundational step that has to be taken. What we mean by loosening the guidelines is moving the authorities downward for smaller projects — “smaller projects” in quotation marks — but that has to be done. That would be my starting point for answering your question.
Senator Kutcher: That’s excellent.
Mr. Staples: I would agree. I think the DIA will have to follow the procurement process and the capabilities that the military brings forward. My understanding is that there will be some capabilities identified by the Department of National Defence, and then the agency will be responsible for going out and procuring those capabilities.
Let me deal a little bit with Ukraine. Absolutely, it has changed the game. It is an awful conflict. It is completely illegal and reprehensible conduct by Russia regarding that invasion. My heart goes out to the people who are trying to defend themselves there. However, there are some important lessons here. How do you protect your ships against drones and missiles? Look at what happened to the Russians. Look at what happened to the Moskva. It’s at the bottom of the Black Sea. That was the head of the fleet. Their key ship was taken out by two missiles made domestically in Ukraine. That’s remarkable. They joke and call it the Russian underwater fleet because so much of it is at the bottom of the Black Sea.
What does that say about our ships? What utility do surface combat ships have anymore? Is that being informed in the River-class ships now? Yes, we do have some missile defence capability on those ships, but I would imagine the Russians did on the Moskva too, and it didn’t seem to be sufficient for them.
You mentioned drone technology. These drones are appearing over airports in other countries, unexplained. It used to be that we would train Ukrainians in Western countries. It’s now reversed. Western countries are going to Ukraine to see how they are using drone technology. The human toll from drones is unreal. It’s a challenge. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Dasko: Thanks to the witnesses for being here today. Mr. Staples, you suggested that what we should be doing is determining threats, determining what is needed and setting budgets, but instead, we have done the reverse. I understand that you are suggesting that we have maximalist budgets. Are you saying that we have chosen to put maximalist budgets toward defence, budgets we don’t need, given proper analysis, and which we should have done differently? What do you think the correct budget should be — or what should the correct range of a budget be given actual threats and what you feel we need?
Mr. Staples: Thank you very much for the question. I think there has to be a balance. We have to know what the threats to Canada we’re trying to address are. Otherwise, the problem is that we set this large amount, and we have the money in the budget, so everybody rushes to the table with whatever pet project they want to have. We get problems with gold plating. Everybody’s trying to get in there. These procurements start being delayed, and we end up with a bunch of things that do not work in the current context — as the previous question referred to — and lessons are coming out of Ukraine and elsewhere. It’s a real danger. Why so many planes? Why so many ships? Are these really just to get spending up?
There is a problem of transparency here. As the previous panel mentioned, we think the government has a plan for this spending, but it wasn’t in the budget. I noticed Minister of National Defence McGuinty made reference to it on CTV on Sunday, saying that there is a plan, but that it was not in the budget and will perhaps be shared later. That is not the way to go.
I was shocked, for instance, when we learned about Canada’s involvement in the Golden Dome. Whom did we learn it from? President Trump. I nearly fell out of my chair. The world heard he was doing the Golden Dome, and in the same sentence, he said Canada is part of it. We still haven’t heard about how much it is going to cost. Whom did we hear about the cost from? President Trump again, who put out two figures — first $61 million, and then he upped it to $72 million after leaving Kananaskis on Air Force One. We don’t know how much it’s going to be, what protection we’re going to get for Canada or what kind of control we will have over the system. Is it going to be the finger of the U.S. on the button? Is it going to be ours? They have always kept those systems to themselves. They have never let Canada in. That’s why the current system is run by U.S. Strategic Command and Canada is in NORAD. They are separate. We have never been in the room for it.
I think we need to look at the legitimate threats. Obviously, we have to spend money on defence, and there are threats. For instance, we had a hijacked plane buzzing around Vancouver International Airport. What a potential threat that was.
The Rideau Institute wrote a paper 10 years ago that recommended ensuring we have aircraft based closer to cities in the wake of 9/11 to ensure we could address something similar. But what happened? We had to rely on the Americans to send a plane up to Vancouver to protect the city from this hijacking. Fortunately, it turned out okay.
We need to look at what the real threats to us are, figure out the capabilities that we need, go through the process, through the DIA or whatever fair process we have, and then get the budget to do it.
Canadians will support that. That’s why I think we need to go to Canadians with it.
[Translation]
Senator Youance: My question concerned the same topic as Senator Dasko’s question. I wanted to talk about threats. I’m glad that you brought up the September 11 attacks. We knew that the Twin Towers were vulnerable and that the threat struck, but at the weak point.
I’ll move on to another question. A Rideau Institute report discussed smart defence. Smart defence is based on burden sharing. From Canada’s perspective, what are the risks of somewhat relying on other countries’ industries, on the United States’ contribution and on the American industry to meet our current defence needs? You just spoke about Canada’s participation in NORAD. How much does the lack of American funding put us at risk in terms of collecting the basic data and information needed to make the correct defence decisions?
[English]
Ms. Mason: Thank you for the question.
The first point I want to make with respect to NORAD is that the United States didn’t agree to this binational command because they wanted to be nice to Canada. It’s because they need the early warning, and now we’re focusing on the upgraded missile warning that Canada does. We play a vital role in the defence of North America through NORAD.
With respect to the question about the dependency — it’s a very good one — we clearly can’t go it alone, but we have now had some very clear reasons why we should be concerned about being overly dependent in any area on the United States. That would also apply in the defence area.
I would like to highlight one example where I would be very concerned. It’s interesting that this hasn’t been raised yet, but I’m very glad that the Carney government is still reassessing the purchase of 88 American F-35s, because the F-35 is a node in an extraordinarily complex American battle-management architecture. Canada can’t go it alone in any sense of the word with respect to the F-35.
It was marketed as being for close ground attack missions, but, turning to the important lessons from Ukraine, we have learned that throwing these unbelievably expensive planes into that kind of a conflict is suicidal and drones and missiles are the way forward.
This is all to say that we need fighter planes for sovereignty, airspace, surveillance and control roles, and for some NATO missions, but we can do this with a far less expensive fighter and a plane that doesn’t put us completely at the mercy of the United States for the computer package, the operational management and so forth. Of course, the Swedish Gripen is the obvious one. That would be a practical step we could take to try to reduce this dependency.
The Deputy Chair: You have already responded to Senator Kutcher and Senator Youance, and my question follows the same line.
Given the current state and future evolution of the combat capabilities of drone technology, I am wondering whether the F-35 or other fighter jets would be of any relevance. This may render fighter jets of various iterations and generations obsolete and irrelevant. Do you have an answer to this question?
Ms. Mason: Thank you. I don’t know if I can go too far beyond what I have already said, because I think you’re pointing in a direction we can all see happening. There is no question that fighter jets are going to be important for airspace and play a fundamental NORAD function with respect to airspace surveillance. The non-strategic aspects of the Golden Dome will also certainly be using aircraft armed with short- and medium-range missiles.
I think you’re pointing in a direction that we have to be thinking about. It is just a matter of how long it will take. But in the meantime, I think we need fighter jets. We just don’t need the F-35.
Mr. Staples: You raise a great challenge: How do we defend against drones? In Ukraine, they have tried various things. They have put up netting around the roads to try to catch them coming in. They have tried shutting off the internet. To get over that, they now have drones that fly by wire. You see photos of the fields in Ukraine criss-crossed with fibre-optic cable like a web from all the drones that have been flying over. There are electromagnetic techniques that they can now use to try to disrupt drones by cutting off their communications. Again, it’s almost a form of asymmetric warfare, trying to keep up with this technology.
I want to come back to a point that former Ambassador Mason made. Your defence cannot be more expensive than the threat you’re trying to overcome, because that’s exactly what your enemy wants. If cheap drones fly in and you are firing million-dollar missiles, guess who is going to quickly win that race? The cheap drones will win. It is something that is going to be a challenge for our forces.
I would agree that we need some kind of defence against that kind of capability. I think they are still trying to figure out what that is.
The Deputy Chair: That is food for thought.
Senator Cardozo: I would like to go back to a question Senator White asked and take it a little further.
You have both been involved in the movement for nuclear disarmament and the peace movement. What is the state of those movements today? Are people listening to your message, given the threats that we face from Russia, China, and, perhaps, the U.S. and other places? What arguments are you putting forward today, and where do you see this leading?
Ms. Mason: Thank you. Of course, we don’t have the massive peace movements that we had during the Cold War. At the end of the Cold War, people rightly thought they could move on to other areas — for example, environmental challenges.
Interestingly, today there is very strong support in polling for nuclear disarmament, but there is also — as I think was mentioned in the first panel — support for defence spending. So it’s an incremental approach while trying not to make the situation worse.
Coming back to Ukraine, for nuclear deterrence, there is a very sobering and important lesson here: Look at this massive military capability that the United States has and the combined capability that NATO has. That has not been put at Ukraine’s disposal. NATO and the United States could not intervene directly to help Ukraine. Why not? Because of the fear of escalation to nuclear war and the understanding that nuclear war cannot be won and should therefore never be fought.
It is a very sobering lesson. Deterrence is working in Ukraine in deterring NATO from intervening, which is not quite what we think about with respect to nuclear deterrence. But it really underscores the point that more spending and an arms race to develop more nuclear weapons are not sane actions in any way. That’s another reason why the strategic ballistic missile defence elements of the Golden Dome are so concerning.
There is a lot we can do, and before we can move ahead on any steps toward nuclear disarmament, we have to stop exacerbating the nuclear threat.
Mr. Staples: This is a great question and one that keeps me up at night, trying to figure out how we can make people more aware of what’s going on. We need some realism here.
My friend Cesar Jaramillo from Project Ploughshares calls it “the deterrent ceiling.” In your hearings, you will hear a lot of retired generals and people like that talking about peer-to-peer planes to counter the Russians and things like that. But do you know what the number one concern of NATO was with respect to Ukraine? It wasn’t Ukraine winning. The number one concern was that NATO troops should never be shooting at Russians because the Russians will shoot back. That’s a very short timeline leading to nuclear escalation. Preventing escalation was the number one concern of NATO in Ukraine, and that is precisely as Peggy said.
Remember, President Biden said it was 50-50 nuclear war at one point. It was a coin toss — to borrow a line from a movie — to see whether there would be nuclear war just a few years ago. When we talk to Canadians, they are concerned about their kids, housing, pharmacare, dental care and how to afford to get their kids into school. Those are the issues that are top of mind for Canadians. It is up to other experts and folks to spend the time studying it. I would say that is a great role for the Senate, to provide that expert review of what the government is doing, because we need far more checks and balances around what is going on right now.
The Deputy Chair: This brings us to the end of our time with this panel. I want to thank you, Ms. Mason and Mr. Staples. We greatly appreciate your contributions and the time you took to share your experience and thoughts with us.
For the next panel, we are pleased to welcome Natan Obed, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, which means “Inuit are united in Canada.” Thank you, President Obed, for joining us today.
We will begin by inviting you to provide your opening remarks, to be followed by questions from our committee members. You have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please proceed when you’re ready.
Natan Obed, President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami: Nakurmiik. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having me here today. It’s always great to be here and to have these essential conversations regarding the future of the country and of Inuit Nunangat.
As was stated, my name is Natan Obed. I’m the President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. ITK was established in 1971 and is the national Inuit representative organization for Canada’s 70,000 Inuit. We have a democratic governance structure, and our work is directed by elected leaders of four section 35 rights-holding Inuit treaty organizations: the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, Makivvik and the Nunatsiavut Government.
We call our homeland Inuit Nunangat, and it encompasses 40% of Canada’s land mass and 70% of the country’s coastline. Inuit Nunangat is synonymous with the term “Arctic” and encompasses the entirety of Canada’s Arctic territory. The region is almost entirely homogeneous in the way in which Indigenous Peoples are served. We are not under the Indian Act. We are citizens of public governments, and our modern treaties or land claim agreements are really the template or essential relationship piece that holds all these constructive arrangements together.
Our people make up 86% of the region’s population, so we are not just living in Inuit Nunangat; we are the driving force of Arctic sovereignty for Canada. Inuit harvesters living in our 51 communities monitor tens of thousands of square kilometres of land and marine area, and we either own or co-manage the entire region with the federal government and provinces and territories.
Climate change, combined with advancements in technology, is leading to an increasingly accessible and threatened Arctic. Canada would not be an Arctic state without Inuit. Canada’s Arctic security and sovereignty are inseparable from Inuit socio-economic prosperity. Inuit legitimized Canada’s claims to the Arctic and are the foremost experts on the Arctic. The health of our communities is central to the region’s long-term sustainability and development.
This past summer, ITK published a paper outlining our vision for sovereignty, security and defence in Inuit Nunangat. We discuss how Inuit contribute to Canada’s sovereignty and security and how continued neglect of the region exposes the country to foreign interference and security threats. We focus on the need for Canada to invest more in the health and well-being of our people to retain and support Inuit as the region’s future and most important resource. We emphasize the need for Canada to enact a broader vision for bringing Inuit Nunangat into the rest of the country.
Sovereignty, security and defence is a focus area within the ongoing Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee that we established in 2017 with the Government of Canada. We have utilized the committee to discuss potential benefits to Inuit arising from broader defence and security policies and investments and to provide guidance to ensure defence activity support Inuit self-determination.
This committee’s sovereignty, security and defence work plan aims to recognize the strategic role and contributions Inuit have in Canada’s security and sovereignty by supporting Inuit access to federal defence procurement in Inuit Nunangat.
Promoting Inuit access to federal procurement is embedded in our Inuit land claim agreements. Canada’s renewed focus on Arctic security and sovereignty and the commitment to increase defence spending and reform defence procurement present invaluable opportunities for Inuit businesses to position themselves as important defence partners. We would like to access federal contracts, build capacity and improve our socio-economic well-being. Both Canada and Inuit communities would benefit from increased Inuit access to defence procurement. Inuit businesses are ready, willing and able to supply defence projects.
I look forward to the discussions today. Nakurmiik.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, President Obed.
Colleagues, President Obed will be with us until eight o’clock. We will do our best to allow time for each member to ask their questions. Four minutes will be allotted for each question, including the answer.
Senator White: Congratulations, President Obed — it’s great to see you again — on your recent re-election in September. I haven’t seen you since you have been re-elected. For the benefit of my colleagues, one of the representatives of ITK is Nunatsiavut, which is located in Labrador in the province that I represent, which I am very proud of. I just wanted to share that with my colleagues.
My question, President Obed, is, given the role that the northern Inuit organizations or communities have in safeguarding Canada’s Arctic, what changes specifically do you want to see in Canada’s defence procurement approach to ensure that meaningful investments support Inuit communities? You spoke about contracts and things like that, but is there anything specifically about the procurement, including surveillance, infrastructure, emergency response, and how they could be aligned with Inuit priorities, incorporate Inuit knowledge and generate long-lasting benefits for the North?
Mr. Obed: Thank you for the congratulations, and it is always great to see you, senator. I’ll have a two-part answer. The first is in relation to best practice. The North Warning System contract is a rather large one. It is one that is co-managed by Canada and the U.S. Nasittuq Corporation was the winner of that contract for an eight-year term. It also won a contract for the Alert defence structure as well for site services.
Prior to those going to tender, there were conversations with the Department of Defence, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and other rights holders about the general inclusion of Inuit land claim agreements and the obligations the federal government has to uphold them, as well as the way the request for proposal, or RFP, might be worded. So while we did not explicitly co-draft the opportunity, the Government of Canada tried its best to understand our agreements and how to uphold them in the way it did its procurement.
The other point I would raise is the most recent data that we could find is from 2023-24, and at that time, the Department of Defence was only allotting 2.5% of its contracts to Indigenous firms. There is an aspiration of 5%. Also, we don’t have any access to distinctions-based statistics regarding how much of that is First Nations, Inuit or Métis.
We need more clarity and understanding around where we are from the Government of Canada to be able to target our policy interventions and lobbying in a much more targeted way. First, we need more essential information to be able to understand exactly where the Government of Canada is in relation to its aspirations as well as, in a distinctions-based way, how well Inuit are doing in relation to First Nations or Métis within that 2.5%.
Senator Cardozo: I want to add my congratulations on your re-election. I also congratulate you on the budget announcement with regard to Inuit Nunangat University, which has been a project that you and ITK have been pursuing for a while. I was at the inaugural meeting when you made the announcement about a year ago at the Indigenous Peoples Space here in Ottawa, and to have $50 million provided in the budget is good news.
I want to ask you about the role of that university with regard to what we’re talking about in terms of defence procurement. The part of defence procurement I’m trying to focus on quite a bit is the skills development, training and jobs that come out of that for people. There are many aspects to it, of course — defence and different kinds of technology. But I want to focus in on how this once-in-a-generation spending will build the industry, employ people and train people. How do you see the university helping, and how do you see Inuit Nunangat being part of how this money is spent in the North?
Mr. Obed: Thank you for the question, senator. First, we were very pleased to see the allocation of $50 million in this budget for Inuit Nunangat University. This builds upon a $50 million contribution from Mastercard Foundation and also contributions from each of our land claim regions. We need about $160 million. We would love to open our doors by 2030, which isn’t that far away, considering the other things we have to do between now and then.
This is a transformative moment in our ability to self-determine within our homeland. Right now, we don’t have a place where Inuit can go to university within Inuit Nunangat. As far as matching the university program and its research priorities with the ongoing considerations of the Canadian government regarding defence and militarization, it isn’t being built explicitly for that purpose.
Senator Cardozo: I understand that.
Mr. Obed: But universities are communities, so the priorities of the community would end up being participation within government, within the military and within community. We’re hoping the research program and the academic program can have clear lines, with the types of investments that Canada wants to make to ensure that we have a workforce that is representative of the people who live there, in whatever field, but then also for the leadership. In the end, universities provide ways to build leaders within communities and within whatever fields they choose.
So I’m hoping that perhaps some of the future military leaders in this country who are stationed in the Arctic will be Inuit and will have received their foundation from Inuit Nunangat University.
Senator Cardozo: To what extent do you anticipate set-asides for Inuit companies or individuals to be part of how this money is spent, especially in the North but in the rest of the country too?
Mr. Obed: It’s interesting. In the United States, especially for Alaska Natives, they have had great success in winning defence contracts not just in Alaska but in the lower 48 states. That was explicitly through legislation that allowed for specific opportunities and consideration for Alaska Native corporations.
In this country, we don’t have similar legislation. There are no equity spaces. Building equity spaces for Indigenous businesses is perhaps something that we could consider. We don’t have a level playing field, and we don’t have a history of being major players within the defence industry. There is an aspiration for Inuit businesses to play more of a central role in any business opportunity across this country.
So, how do you build capacity? How do you get your foot in the door? Our land claim agreements have provisions for Inuit businesses, within each of our four agreements, and there are conditions within RFPs where if you are an Inuit business, you have specific opportunities for scoring at a higher rate.
I hope that the Government of Canada will consider taking the lead from our agreements in the way that they have built opportunities moving forward to enhance Indigenous participation within defence spending.
Senator McNair: President Obed, welcome again, and I will sound like a bit of a broken record, but congratulations on the re-election.
As the foremost experts on the Arctic, as you correctly describe your people, what role do you see for the ITK in the Defence Investment Agency and its efforts to speed up the procurement process?
I’m also curious to know if you had any conversations yet with the agency or the federal government around your expectations.
Mr. Obed: We have had ongoing conversations with the Department of National Defence at the deputy minister level and the senior technical level. I have not had a chance to speak with the minister since he came to Inuvik for our last Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee meeting in July, but I fully expect to be able to speak with him again very soon.
At the very least, our expectation is our land claim agreements will be upheld regarding any of the opportunities within our homeland. The amount of money being thrown around is in the tens of billions of dollars, generally for Canada, but there is also $1 billion over the next four years specifically for dual-use infrastructure in the budget. These are opportunities that are literally within our communities, and I hope that there can be — just as there was prior to the Nasittuq contract RFP being set out — conversations with Inuit rights holders so the Government of Canada can put out RFPs that are upholding Inuit treaties and the best possible intentions of the Government of Canada.
It has been common practice across this country, whether it be at the federal level or at the provincial or territorial levels, that RFPs for major scopes of work are curated toward one type of proponent. Inuit have never been the preferred proponent.
As I said regarding the last question, we are on the outside looking in with respect to this entire field, generally speaking. We have a couple of big wins, but we really need —
People have talked about economic reconciliation. This is the biggest opportunity that we have to show economic reconciliation from the federal purse over the next five years. I hope we take on this responsibility with all due diligence.
The Deputy Chair: Do you have follow-up question? You have time.
Senator McNair: Out of curiosity, as investing in and securing the Arctic become more of a strategic priority around the sovereignty, security and defence aspects you were talking about, are you expecting more funding for the Rangers, which is a group that is very close and dear to my heart?
Mr. Obed: Yes. This government has signalled that it’s going to spend more money on the Canadian Rangers. A paper that we released, An Inuit Vision for Arctic Sovereignty, Security and Defence, speaks about the Rangers, as well.
I think the key consideration here is that, in our 51 communities, there is one deepwater port. Most of our communities have gravel airstrips that are very short. This limits the ability for any sort of mobilization, whether for search-and-rescue or military purposes.
The Rangers have been asked to basically be a branch of the Canadian military with virtually no infrastructure to help them do their jobs well. And they do; they persevere. They mobilize however they can, but often in the summers without a dock in a community to launch a search-and-rescue operation, or with their own Ski-Doos in the winter or their own hunting equipment.
We need to invest in Inuit communities as a part of investing in the Canadian Rangers. It’s not just one or the other. I think it’s really important to note that an investment in Inuit communities is an investment in the Canadian Rangers.
Senator Kutcher: It is nice to see you again, Mr. Obed. If the Senate had an award for the person who has appeared at the most Senate committees, you would be the winner, hands down. I always find you to be incredibly well prepared on such a wide variety of topics. I am envious of your ability.
I enjoyed reading an article in the Nunatsiaq News from April 4, 2005, which I thought was beautifully titled “We are all butter, no guns.” The author went on to show that the federal government tended to make big promises for Arctic security during times of crisis, but that when the crisis passed, the promises seemed to evaporate. I remind my colleagues that, in 1987, the Mulroney government promised 10 or 12 nuclear submarines to patrol under the Arctic ice. Of course, they are all there now joining the four British submarines I used to see out the front door of my house, billowing smoke as they limped into the Halifax Harbour.
I have two questions. First, do you feel that this crisis that we’re now facing is substantively different than the ones before? If so, do you think that might propel the government to look at this differently?
Second, from your perspective, what defence and security products need to be brought into the Arctic, and will ITK have input into those discussions in the new DIA?
Mr. Obed: Thank you, Senator Kutcher. I’ll look forward to receiving my award sometime in the future. I always appreciate being here. I am a bit of a jack of all trades, but my studying skills from university have really helped me in my job now.
I’ll start by saying that this crisis is perhaps different, because between the 1950s and the 1980s in the Cold War era, when the U.S. military built a lot of the essential infrastructure in the Canadian Arctic — and which we still use for, basically, our hub communities, from Kuujjuaq to Iqaluit, to Rankin Inlet, to Cambridge Bay, to Inuvik — the ramp-up for either economic development or military in the Arctic paled in comparison to what it is now. Russia especially, with backing from China, is making the lion’s share of all investment in the Arctic. Canada is woefully behind in its spend.
The difference in this crisis is that other countries are putting their money into security, defence, economic development and sovereignty structures within their parts of the Arctic. They want to encroach upon Canada’s. We have not put the necessary funding into protecting our own sovereignty, especially with there being more and more ship traffic through the Northwest Passage and Russia’s claims over the pole area. There is also the United States’ lack of recognition of internal waters for the Northwest Passage.
We are in a different time when it comes to the spend and the allocations to really back up the political statements, which have perhaps been hyperbolic in the past. But we live in a much more turbulent time. I do not believe that this country really understands the comparative weakness of Canada’s position based upon its lack of investment.
As far as specific defence products go, again, sovereignty is undermined by a lack of infrastructure within our 51 communities. We need essential infrastructure in our communities to help us mobilize, such as paving airstrips, building deepwater ports and ensuring that we have a greater icebreaker fleet. These essential, foundational pieces of infrastructure lead us to better response times and more credibility on the world stage.
The number of submarines or icebreakers I’ll leave for other conversations. But just the essential piece of Inuit communities is the thing that Inuit feel has not been appreciated in the composition of the necessary tasks that we need to undertake.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Youance: Thank you, Mr. Obed, for your contribution to our discussions. My question will be a bit more basic. Inuit communities are often described as Canada’s eyes and ears in the Arctic. We’re really talking about monitoring vast areas of somewhat varying interest. These areas are isolated and not covered by the Canadian Armed Forces. How does the coordination with the federal government work? In other words, how do you report the information? Also, given the current situation involving the growing presence of China and Russia, how should this coordination process be changed or adapted?
[English]
Mr. Obed: Thank you for the question. There are informal and very formal parts of the way in which information is gathered and then disseminated. Our North Warning contract and the North Warning sites across the Inuit Nunangat allow the Government of Canada and the United States government to understand from a radar perspective any activity that happens over our homeland. That’s in real time, and it’s a contract that is administered by an Inuit-owned firm.
On the ground, as I referenced, Inuit families and hunters traverse almost all of our homeland over the course of a year, and anything that is amiss, out of place or exceptional is immediately reported back to the community. In many cases, it is reported to the Canadian Rangers. So that is an informal way that gets back into the military considerations within our homeland, whether it is ships running aground, unmarked vessels that are traversing through the Northwest Passage, weather balloons or anything like that. For sure, there are hunters on the ground, the people who use the land, who will be able to spot an abnormality and report it. I think the collaboration process can be more formal. I don’t know fully what it is. I’ll go back with my team, and if we have something more specific, we can send it to you in writing.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Colleagues, we’ll start the second round of questions.
Senator Cardozo: I want to build on the question from Senator Youance and talk about the Northwest Passage. Can give us a sense of what you and Inuit are thinking about and seeing in the North? What should we be concerned about? I say that in the sense that I guess in the South, we kind of don’t think that much about the North, but you do. Can you educate us a bit about what we should be concerned about in terms of the threats from Russia, China — which is claiming to be an Arctic nation now — or the U.S.?
Mr. Obed: Thanks. I would say there are three types of threat that Canadians should be a bit more concerned about. One is foreign investment, whether it is in mineral resources or through underwriting large projects. There are other countries that would love to underwrite Inuit infrastructure projects. If the Canadian government is not willing to provide opportunities for Inuit to build our own self-determination and essential infrastructure in our homeland, then I could imagine that you are setting the stage for foreign investment, which may or may not be friendly investment or only focused on economic development.
The other piece that is emerging is research. Other countries, either in the Arctic region or countries that call themselves “near Arctic,” are wanting to invest more and more in research and are especially considering access to the Canadian Arctic. Datasets that come from that research could be incredibly valuable for nation-states’ considerations for the Northwest Passage or the Arctic generally. That is an emerging threat to Canada’s sovereignty. And it is one where, again, Canada falls well behind other nation-states in its investment in Arctic research.
The third is the enforcement mechanism regarding any country or vessel that enters into the Northwest Passage in the summer or traverses in the winter. The ability for the Canadian government to intercept or to take action against these foreign vessels is limited. So the inability to enact enforcement leads to more brazen considerations from other countries, or individuals from other countries who may not feel like abiding by Canada’s administrative rules around access to Canadian waters.
Those are the early stages of the threat that we face, and there have been other overtones from other nation-states that I think we’re all aware of. But this is what we’re feeling today and understand to be initial threats to Canadian sovereignty or malicious considerations from other foreign state actors.
Senator Cardozo: I want to ask about Greenland. It would seem — and correct me if I’m wrong — that the Indigenous People in Greenland are somewhat ambivalent to remaining with Denmark but probably do not want to be bought or taken over by the U.S. How does all of that play into your concerns about Inuit Nunangat?
Mr. Obed: We are all family, from Greenland to Canada to the United States to the Chukotka region of Russia.
Senator Cardozo: Are Indigenous People in Greenland considered Inuit as well?
Mr. Obed: Yes. We are part of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and there are four chapters, or four members, from those four nation-states that I just mentioned. I think Greenlandic politicians have been very clear that they want to be seen as independent or as Greenland. They are from Greenland. They have a democracy and want to be respected for their independence. They have a relationship with Denmark, but one that has served to be productive at times. I know that there have been more political overtures in that.
I would say that it affects our position greatly. Whatever happens in Greenland, for some parts of Canada, it is only 150 or 200 kilometres away. From Iqaluit to Nuuk is about a 90-minute flight. It’s closer than Ottawa is to Iqaluit. They are our relatives as well, as I said.
It was our hope during the last government that we would change our immigration act to create greater mobility for Inuit between countries, especially in Greenland and the United States. I would say that that also serves a very practical purpose around solidarity, diplomacy and strengthening our ties to our adjacent neighbours at a time when we really need them to be our friends.
It is also within the UNDRIP Action Plan, but unfortunately, to our knowledge, it is not being pursued as a priority by this government.
Senator Kutcher: I want to thank you for making two points among the many that you made. I think many Canadians don’t realize how important Arctic sovereignty is for our security and defence, and I thank you for making that point.
I also thank you for making the point, in response to my previous question, that defence capabilities have to start with the infrastructure. I completely agree with you, and I hope our analysts took note of that response.
There are three things I would like your opinion on, starting with research. You mentioned that the Japanese research vessel Mirai II is going to start its Arctic research capabilities in 2026. It has capacity to break 1.2 metres of ice at 3 knots. Canada doesn’t have any vessel that can do Arctic research. I think we’re going to buy some time on that vessel.
The Coast Guard doesn’t have capability in the Arctic. It cannot. Now that it has gone under CAF, it cannot intercept and detain foreign vessels. It doesn’t have the capability to do that. It’s not even armed to do that.
We have a number of brand new ice-capable frigates, which means they can’t break ice, so that will really limit their operations. We just built these brand new ships. I toured one a couple of months ago. They are outstanding ships, but they can’t break ice, and they have no sea-to-air missile defence capability.
So here we have three things, and there may be a fourth that I don’t know about, which is very likely, or a fifth, sixth or tenth. Among all these different things, where should Canada start? You have to start somewhere.
This is if you were sitting at the DIA and saying, “This is in addition to our infrastructure. This is where you need to focus your procurement actions.”
Mr. Obed: From a community perspective, the Coast Guard is an essential service. It often breaks ice in the spring to ensure the first resupply. Usually the diesel that runs our communities — because we have almost solely diesel-powered generators to give electricity to our communities — gets there first, as well as any essential items that are nonperishable that come in through resupply. So investing in more ice-breaking capability is also basically a community service.
Most Canadians wouldn’t know that most of our nonperishable items come out of Montreal. No matter where you are in the Canadian Arctic, the Port of Montreal is the hub for just about all of our 51 communities in our annual resupply for building materials for homes or any vehicles that are either delivering water and taking out sewage or, more generally speaking, Ski-Doos or other things.
I will come back to our communities in response to your question about some of the considerations that are nice to have. We have had ship time on the Amundsen for a long time. I’m also the vice-chair of ArcticNet, which is the body that administered ship time for the Amundsen for over a decade. We have done a lot of really essential research from that platform, but it is always off the side of Canada’s desk really. We don’t have signature research investments in the Arctic other than the CHARS, or Canadian High Arctic Research Station, in Cambridge Bay. That is something that we would be excited to utilize even more.
The Government of Canada has also made huge investments in the Over-the-Horizon Radar technology. I know that the Inuvialuit have a joint venture. They have a $48-million contract to work on that particular project.
I would say we want to be in partnership, but we have not mobilized enough to be able to come here and say, “This is our number one investment.”
The Deputy Chair: I would like to add my personal congratulations to you, Mr. Obed, and my admiration for your demonstrated leadership and achievements.
While you have always been very articulate, can you be more specific with respect to magnitude and projects or initiatives as Canada expands defence spending? For example, what are the most pressing gaps in Arctic surveillance, communications and community infrastructure that must be addressed to strengthen both sovereignty and Inuit community security?
Mr. Obed: Thank you. I’ll start with connectivity. Over the past three years or so, Starlink has replaced just about every other internet provider across our homeland. Even governments are using Starlink. We are at the mercy of a company and an individual who may or may not use that to his advantage or to further his interests. I only say that because in Ukraine, there is a demonstrated history of Elon Musk talking about Starlink and access to Starlink.
We don’t have fibre connectivity in our communities, and we have long advocated and lobbied for connectivity as a great equalizer, something that would create equity, but also, if we’re going to expand our military operations and defence capabilities in the Arctic, having state-of-the-art technology would only aid us in that purpose.
It would also unlock opportunities for education and business development, and would also provide, as I have said, equity for our population.
In juxtaposition, Greenland communities largely have connectivity through fibre, and their fibre line is just off the North Atlantic. It would be wonderful if it were connected or if we had an equivalent here across the Canadian Arctic.
We also have very core, essential needs with respect to infrastructure for aviation. We still have communities that don’t have lights on their runways, such as Nain, Nunatsiavut, where if anything happens after sunset or before dawn, there is no way for any airplane to land or take off in that window. It is the administrative capital of one of our four regions, and it is strategically located along the Labrador coast.
These are unacceptable realities that we have to remedy. We have other communities that have gravel airstrips that are considered to be hubs. We need to ensure that we can extend runways, we can pave them and we can get them ready for any consideration, whether it be military or community.
I would also like to reference Inuvik again, because they have been in partnership with the Government of Canada to extend the runway in consideration of not only the community and the region but also for military interests as well.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. This brings us to the end of our time with President Obed.
Thank you, President Obed, for taking the time to meet with us today. We really appreciate your candid discussion and the time you took to share your thoughts and knowledge with us.
This concludes our agenda for tonight’s meeting. Our next meeting will take place on Monday, November 24, at our usual time of 4 p.m. EST.
(The committee adjourned.)